melita's booklog - mostly

Neal Stephenson has been a buy-on-sight author for me since Cryptonomicon. It was the Cap'n Crunch scene that made me exclaim something like, "This is an author for me!" As I'm sure many people will understand, that doesn't mean that I've read all the books that I've bought. So far I haven't read the "Baroque Cycle" (wanted to reread Cryptonomicon first) or Anathem (because although I usually have no problem with invented languages (guess given context and keep going), it just seemed a bit too complicated given my life at the time). Stephenson's books usually run well over 800 pages, with most over 1k. That means a significant devotion of time and the books aren't something I'm going to drag around while traveling (I have no dedicated ereader and am not buying an e-edition of a book I haven't read yet).

REAMDE, although it's 1056 pages in the American hard cover edition, seemed like it might read quickly. Set in the current day, it's a technological thriller with no fantastical elements. It did read quickly, although part of that was that it just dragged me along. I really wanted to know what happened next and how were multiple characters going to get out their latest predicament. Some insomnia helped as well, and I spend few nights reading in the wee hours until I finally fell asleep with my head on the pages.

After seeing the book show up around the house for several days, C asked about the plot. That led to me excitedly describing the overall plot and characters for about 10-15 minutes. By that point I was around page 800, I believe. So. Richard Forthrast has created a wildly popular MMORPG. Unlike existing games where "gold farming" and selling equipment to other characters is frowned upon, T'Rain was designed to allow that, all based on a geologically correct world. That is, gold and other minerals are found where they should be in quantities that are not huge, and not just in dungeons or castles or randomly in the landscape. That has led young men around the world to focus on farming the gold and selling it, rather than focusing on the gaming/story aspect.

Yes, there could be small spoilers below, but nothing major.



A talented Chinese hacker puts together a team to exploit an Outlook security hole. Outlook is used in the T'Rain game to communicate and schedule team activities. The virus they create, reamde, encrypts data files on the target's computer. To get the key to uncrypt the files, you're told to take a ransom to one of various locations in the game world. Is this the focus of the book? No. As it turns out, the boyfriend of Richard's niece (Zula) decides to score big by selling a set of credit card information to a front man. The front man is actually trying to score big himself as he's embezzled money from the equivalent of a Russian mafia group. Before the credit card information can be transferred, the files get encrypted by the readme virus. Oops. After failing to get the ransom dropped off because thousands of people are trying to drop off ransoms and getting attacked by bandits, the Russian crowd decides to go after the Chinese hackers directly.

We end up with Russian mafia and related security experts and hackers, Chinese hackers, various computer- and gun-savvy Americans, Jihadists, and secret agents from a few different countries. Yeah, it gets crazy.

End possible spoilers



I gave up trying to count viewpoint characters. There are at least 5 main ones, and short sections with other characters. But, I think it works. I never had any problem keeping track of who was viewpoint in the current section.

I really appreciated that the characters are intelligent and competent (often extremely) without being infallible. The technology is also reasonable. At one point, a character is trying to set up a secure system on an internet cafe computer. It's riddled with spyware, viruses, etc. so he creates a partition, loads linux + patches, a bunch of software, and has to reboot multiple times. It takes him hours, just as it would in real life. No sit-down-at-system and immediately be able to do whatever you want without consequences.

If you're squeamish, you probably wouldn't pick up this book anyway, but fair warning, there are torture scenes, multiple deaths and injuries, and an attempted rape. There's also some gun porn, but not as much as, say, early Anita Blake books. It's more matter-of-fact.

Compared to his other books that I've read, I do think it's an easier read, and less complicated.

Highly recommended.

Note: I probably shouldn't use cozy-house-icon but I'm still in a post-happy turkey day mood. Mmm, leftover mashed potatoes and gravy for breakfast.