Look at all the good stuff you’ve queued up onto your Kindle or iPad. But don’t you think we deserve some good escape fiction after all that work stuff? We’re going to end our summer reading series with a novel that has almost nothing to do with knowledge management.
Reamde: A Novel. Neal Stephenson. (@nealstephenson)
A lovable Russian Mafioso working with an insane Russian Mafioso. A plucky heroine and her weaselly boyfriend who gets what he deserves. An international jihadist organization that unwittingly shares a building with an international hacking ring, with poor results for everyone. The hacker with a heart of gold who hooks up with the hawker with a heart of gold. The game entrepreneur with a hidden past, saddled with the world’s most impossible creative team. The buttoned-down Asian-Canadian intelligence agent who is the only one surprised by her own lust.
In other words, Neal Stephenson’s back.
Look, if you loved his recent historical fiction, I admire you. He’s a really smart guy, and I appreciate (in principle) his ability to…do whatever he was doing in Quicksilver and the Baroque Cycle. I tried three or four times, and never got past page 200 of the first volume, and let me tell you, at page 200 you’re just getting started.
No, I prefer the still sprawling but still tightly plotted Stephenson of Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and The Diamond Age, and that’s the Stephenson on display in Reamde. He creates wonderful characters and then designs these wonderful Rube Goldberg plots that you know will inevitably cast them together, but you’re not really sure how or where. Except you know that when they get there, there will be some big explosions, some good hacks, and—most of the time—the good guys will end up doing OK.
OK, that’s enough summer reading for this year. What great books did we miss?
ps – this is a work-free page. No marketing ps this time.
(I said “ps.” Sheesh.)
Let’s see…I recently enjoyed Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro, though that’s a few years old now. Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett, was dreamlike and fabulous (reminded me of The Moon is Down by James Thurber — I don’t know if it was consciously derivative — I think it suffers from some of the same flaws, though). And I’m going to go and start reading the collected Reggie Fortune series. Because I lurve that character.
Ooh, thanks! Bel Canto is on my Kindle; you just moved it up to the front of the list (as soon as I finish the Turnpike Witch, which is…a very long book.) Re: Ishiguro, I haven’t made it past RotD, although I liked that very much. Thank you!
David:
REAMDE was another grand slam from Neal Stephenson, whom I was very fortunate to get to meet in Boston a couple months ago. The notion that there are folks out there who might read Stephenson and then pick up the Turnpike Witch — it just seems surreal.
I hope you’re enjoying the book.
Brad –
Trust me, it’s not as surreal as mentioning your book (in shorthand form) in my comments and seeing you reply!
I really enjoyed New Jersey’s Famous Turnpike Witch. Sorry about the comment about its length; I was in the middle of it and it was taking longer than I expected! I appreciate your going through all the effort to put it out there — I recently read Dave Weinberg’s live blog of your interview, and it was a huge effort. Thank you.
So, my question is, how did you handle the time sequencing? (This isn’t a spoiler, I don’t think, but much of the narrative tension and interest is created by the fact that events are told out of order, leaving the reader to sort out when we are at any given time, and leaving key facts undisclosed until later.) I kept wondering, did you have a master timeline of events, or write it down in order and move it around, or create it as it appears, or…?
The over-the-top wonderful characters were fabulous, along with injuring celebrities. But the time sequencing was what really made the book for me.
Best, dbk – whose wife scored a *signed* copy of REAMDE from NS at Black Hat this year!
Thanks — Google turned you up, and I’m not going to look past an opportunity to engage with someone I don’t know who took a chance on my book.
Hey: it’s long. There’s no getting around that, so no worries. (But you should have seen earlier drafts.)
One thing I thought about doing is leaving the book completely as is, but renumbering the chapters (i.e., without changing their order). That might signal to the reader more quickly that there are two parallel narrative streams here — one in the present tense and one in the past tense — and I’m toggling back and forth between them.
I’m not so methodical as to have had a master plan or timeline. I think this approach came about because I can’t see any other way to tell a story except to start in medias res, but I have a weakness for origin stories, too. So doing it this way allowed me to work both those angles, and to allow interplay across the narrative streams, where you learn something in Chapter 7 that’s helpful in Chapter 8, and so on. I’m a pretty determined editor, so rather than plan anything in advance, I just wrote, followed where the story took me, and then ironed out wrinkles, again and again and again, to ensure consistency and that the time unities were preserved. (I’m still paranoid that there are errors in here, and it won’t surprise me if one crops up/is pointed out to me tomorrow.)
I’m really glad you liked it, and at this point I’m not above begging: PLEASE tout it to anyone you think might like it, too. A kind word or two (or just a star-ranking) on Amazon and/or Goodreads will have me forever in your debt.
Shoot: you read the whole book. I’m already in your debt . . .
Brad –
I have applied my inconsiderable Klout to the cause.
I love the idea about renumbering the chapters — although I don’t know if they’re prominently-enough displayed on the Kindle that I’d notice it. (I love the Kindle, but I find myself not remembering titles or authors because I don’t see them.)