Book Author :: Neal Stephenson

It’s been a while since I read a Stephenson book, and I was in need of his kind of storytelling. Smart, funny, character-centric, inventive, informative — his books, for me, stand tall and somewhat apart from so much of the other writing out there. This one pushed a lot of my buttons, but strained my patience quite a bit, too. It’s a novel for our times. A story of very-near Science Fiction that is about an apocalypse that we haven’t read before (e.g., planetary self-destruction, religious fruition). This one could happen tomorrow, and I think, for the most part, it could all feasibly happen. Made it personal for me and fun to boot.
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Some reviews are difficult to write. Others fly off of my fingertips near light-speed. Some are simple. Others complex. But every once in a while, I come across one that seems to just be begging for discussion of a larger issue. This book sparked one of those latter types in me. The issue: writing character versus story.
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REAMDE (Amazon) is the second Neal Stephenson novel I have read, the first being the all time geek classic SNOWCRASH (Amazon). Unlike SNOWCRASH and, from what I understand, the majority of Stephenson’s other works, REAMDE is a pretty contemporary affair. Fans of irreverent, pop-culture laden science fiction will be disappointed in no small degree. Those looking for a fast paced thriller, on the other hand, may want to give REAMDE a chance.
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