REAMDE vs TINAG
Nov. 19th, 2011 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishNeal Stephenson, Reamde
(Or REAMDE, or possibly reamde. It's unclear.)
First things first, I'm pleased to see that Anathem wasn't an aberration and Stephenson really does know how to write endings now. Abrupt endings, endings that leave you little time to catch your breath and settle back down, but endings nonetheless.
I've read Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon (which put me off Stephenson for about eight years), The Diamond Age, Anathem, and now Reamde. I think I can say with some authority that a Neal Stephenson book consists of some combination of big ideas and plot, delivered through excellent writing (including witty and memorable characterization). Anathem, my favorite, is made almost entirely of big ideas; there's a plot but it's not why you read the book. Reamde goes the other direction. It's got hints of big ideas at the beginning: the MMORPG designed to be gold-farmer-friendly, the concept of the Reamde virus. Then about a third of the way through the characters stumble on a nest of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, and the book gives up on the big ideas to turn into a thriller.
As thrillers go it's competently executed. The pace bogs down in the middle when he spends chapter upon chapter describing the terrorists' escape from China and travel through the interior of British Columbia. Other than that couple of hundred pages it kept me reading and interested all the way through. I blame this on the aforementioned excellent writing.
Ultimately Reamde doesn't do anything new or exciting, or that's worth the price of admission unless you really really like Stephenson's style. I finished it thinking "that was alright, i might read it again if i want a lot of light entertainment, but overall, eh." It's a thousand pages of popcorn.
(Which explains why, despite liking Zula better as a character, I was more interested in Richard the MMORPG-designer's sections: they were a lot more "big idea" and a lot less "generic thriller plot." Hm.)
Walter Jon Williams, This Is Not A Game
This Is Not A Game (henceforth TINAG) is half the length of Reamde, and twice the book.
Reamde takes a meditation on gold-farming in MMORPGs and uses it to launch a generic action-movie thriller, complete with not one but two hundred-page shootouts. TINAG takes a meditation on alternate reality games and weaves it into a thriller plot. There's nothing in the main plot of Reamde that requires the gold-farming bits; they're just there to set all the pieces in motion. Contrariwise, ARGs are fundamental to the whole story of TINAG. It's exactly what I'd hoped Reamde would be.
As TINAG opens, Dagmar, the main character and a writer for an ARG company, is stuck in Jakarta during a governmental collapse. She turns to her ARG players to see if they can come up with any way to get her out, and they come through remarkably despite still thinking it's all just a game ("we probably get 200 points for getting her out of Jakarta, and 500 for getting her out of Indonesia altogether"). The plot then, as they say, thickens.
It's not as entertaining on a prose level as Stephenson, but it's got its moments. During the Jakarta extraction: "Can you set up a fanfic topic?" "...You want to write Dagmar fanfic?" Also, each chapter title is of the format "This Is Not X," and describes something that ought to be X but isn't. "This Is Not A Spy." "This Is Not Dinner." Etc.
It reminds me of Gibson's Pattern Recognition, only faster-paced. Looking forward to Deep State, the sequel.
(Or REAMDE, or possibly reamde. It's unclear.)
First things first, I'm pleased to see that Anathem wasn't an aberration and Stephenson really does know how to write endings now. Abrupt endings, endings that leave you little time to catch your breath and settle back down, but endings nonetheless.
I've read Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon (which put me off Stephenson for about eight years), The Diamond Age, Anathem, and now Reamde. I think I can say with some authority that a Neal Stephenson book consists of some combination of big ideas and plot, delivered through excellent writing (including witty and memorable characterization). Anathem, my favorite, is made almost entirely of big ideas; there's a plot but it's not why you read the book. Reamde goes the other direction. It's got hints of big ideas at the beginning: the MMORPG designed to be gold-farmer-friendly, the concept of the Reamde virus. Then about a third of the way through the characters stumble on a nest of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, and the book gives up on the big ideas to turn into a thriller.
As thrillers go it's competently executed. The pace bogs down in the middle when he spends chapter upon chapter describing the terrorists' escape from China and travel through the interior of British Columbia. Other than that couple of hundred pages it kept me reading and interested all the way through. I blame this on the aforementioned excellent writing.
Ultimately Reamde doesn't do anything new or exciting, or that's worth the price of admission unless you really really like Stephenson's style. I finished it thinking "that was alright, i might read it again if i want a lot of light entertainment, but overall, eh." It's a thousand pages of popcorn.
(Which explains why, despite liking Zula better as a character, I was more interested in Richard the MMORPG-designer's sections: they were a lot more "big idea" and a lot less "generic thriller plot." Hm.)
Walter Jon Williams, This Is Not A Game
This Is Not A Game (henceforth TINAG) is half the length of Reamde, and twice the book.
Reamde takes a meditation on gold-farming in MMORPGs and uses it to launch a generic action-movie thriller, complete with not one but two hundred-page shootouts. TINAG takes a meditation on alternate reality games and weaves it into a thriller plot. There's nothing in the main plot of Reamde that requires the gold-farming bits; they're just there to set all the pieces in motion. Contrariwise, ARGs are fundamental to the whole story of TINAG. It's exactly what I'd hoped Reamde would be.
As TINAG opens, Dagmar, the main character and a writer for an ARG company, is stuck in Jakarta during a governmental collapse. She turns to her ARG players to see if they can come up with any way to get her out, and they come through remarkably despite still thinking it's all just a game ("we probably get 200 points for getting her out of Jakarta, and 500 for getting her out of Indonesia altogether"). The plot then, as they say, thickens.
It's not as entertaining on a prose level as Stephenson, but it's got its moments. During the Jakarta extraction: "Can you set up a fanfic topic?" "...You want to write Dagmar fanfic?" Also, each chapter title is of the format "This Is Not X," and describes something that ought to be X but isn't. "This Is Not A Spy." "This Is Not Dinner." Etc.
It reminds me of Gibson's Pattern Recognition, only faster-paced. Looking forward to Deep State, the sequel.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-24 06:40 pm (UTC)