I just finished reading Neal Stephenson’s new 1042
page tome, Reamde. Can’t say that I enjoyed it. I’ve read a few other
works by him, namely Snow Crash and Diamond Age, and I enjoyed
them both very much, but this one was a slugfest from the word go. This was the single longest book I’ve read
and actually finished. It was more out
of stubbornness than anything else though. I’ll warn you now there may be some
spoilers in this.
There are some good aspects to the book. The writing
is done well, grammatically correct and well punctuated. I didn’t notice any
editorial problems from that standpoint. The plot is fairly intricate, moves at
a moderate pace initially and covers a lot of territory, which Neal obviously
spent a lot of time researching, because he doesn’t hold back any detail. I mean
ANY. He waxes on for paragraphs about stuff that has absolutely nothing to do
with the story and not just a couple of times, but throughout the book. He could have easily cut 500 pages out of
this and it would not have changed the story in any meaningful way. Surely he had an editor, but maybe he refused
to budge on their recommendations. I
have no way of knowing. As I said, there
is plenty of plot here, but no real story in the sense that I understand story.
I’ll get back to that.
I liked a few of the characters, especially the former
Russian military man, Sokolov and the Chinese/British MI6 agent, Olivia. They both had depth and complex personalities
and I would actually love to see more of those two. It was fun to be in their
heads and see what they were thinking about. The other characters were not cardboard
cut-outs, and some were quite interesting, but they didn’t really change
through the book, unless you count dying.
I liked the hacker, Csongor, too, but he didn’t really have a lot of
introspection, unless you count him thinking about Zula a lot. He could have been much more complex, given
his Eastern European background.
I honestly thought the “story” was going to be about
Richard Forthrast and how he would change in some way. But despite everything that happens, he is essentially
the same at the end. He contemplates life
without being connected to social media and enjoys being cut-off. He is not
satisfied with the way he is kind of wandering through life without a cause. But
when it is all over there is no mention if he has decided to change the way he
lives, only that he is spending more time at the farm. I guess that is a very minor change, but almost
noncommittal. Neal spends a lot of time telling us how militia-like the Forthrast
clan is, but in the end we don’t know if Richard leaves his company to live off
the grid or still just plays at it on occasion like he always had. He obviously
loves his family but has no children and no love interest. Don’t get me wrong, he seems like the kind of
guy I would love to have a beer with. But
the down-to-Earth billionaire is basically living a shallow life, fantasizing
about his glory days as a pot smuggler and how alive he felt back then. Doesn’t really tug at the heart strings of
the reader.
Maybe it was supposed to be about Forthrast’s
adopted niece Zula, but despite being held captive for 90% of the book and
mentions of understanding how Helsinki Syndrome might affect people, by the end
she is pretty much back to normal as well, with no appreciable change.
I was sold on two things before I read the
book. Stephenson has a reputation as a
good Science Fiction writer with good ideas and good prose. And the story was based around the next big
thing in Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. At least that was how it was sold to me. On the first count, I have no doubt that Neal
is capable of doing great work, but this wasn’t Science Fiction and it straight
up wasn’t his best work. I am a big
William Gibson fan as well and these two seem to be close to the same mold and
both appear to be moving backwards in time like Merlin. Their work was cutting edge SF and with each
book they seem to get closer and closer to contemporary. I think their next books will be historical
fantasy. To be fair, I think Gibson’s
writing is getting better with each book, despite this trend. Neal, on the other hand…I can’t say
that. It’s like he forgot that once you
do the first draft you can shave off the stuff that isn’t germane to the
story. A lot of us love world building
and love to describe all the cool things we’ve thought of, but from everything
I’ve studied about writing, it’s not the best way to go about it. There is
something to be said for concise, tight writing and Reamde is the exact opposite
of this. I know that some people enjoy a lot of description and for those of
you this book is right up your alley, but for me all it did was slow me down
and make me put the book down, repeatedly.
I’m not a quitter though. I like
finishing what I start and I kept answering the bell to get back in the ring
and take another swing at finishing the book.
Eventually I figured out that if I just skipped two out of everything
three paragraphs it moved a lot better.
A lot of people like to bash Stephanie Meyer but I will say this about
her writing. It’s easy to read. I compare her writing to eating candy. Reamde was like a ten course meal, but
each course was same, meat and potatoes, heavy on the potatoes. I was ready for a bucket only a few hundred
pages in.
On the second point of being about an MMORPG, it does
have a lot to do with the main character Richard Forthrast, but it is really just
a trigger for the plot. Not really a McGuffin,
but not really the central piece of the story either. It is really more about a terrorist and a
kidnapping; at least that is what ties all the extraneous plot pieces together.
I think it is actually two books. One
about a virus named Reamde and one about jihadists and kidnapping. By combining them together all he did was
make it lose focus.
I’ve mentioned the word story a few times already,
but I can’t say that there was any actually story in Reamde. There was a plot, and it was certainly full
of action, but it was mired in paragraphs of meaningless description that
slowed it to a snail’s pace. But the
heart of a story is about how the protagonist changes in some way, an internal story
arc. There is no doubt that everyone in
this book goes through a lot of stuff and a lot of people get killed, some
gruesomely, but none of it seems to have any lasting effects on the main
characters, those that survive. With more
than 1000 pages he certainly gave himself enough room to expand on an actual
theme, but sadly chooses not to.
For me, the story is really about Sokolov. I could buy that, but that was not how Neal
wrote it. Sokolov went through hell,
surviving at every turn despite the odds, realizes he is getting too old to
stay in his line of work, even though at that moment he was at just the right
level of expertise and experience to survive the ordeal. He knew that next time he would be too
old. He also has a romantic entanglement
that works.
It’s very presumptuous for me to offer Mr.
Stephenson writing advice, as I still have a great deal to learn, but it would
have been a much more focused story if he had centered it on Sokolov. It wouldn’t have been that hard to do, just set
the initial scene with Sokolov in his normal day-to-day life and start the ball
rolling toward Seattle. He still could
have brought the other characters in, and trimmed a buttload of descriptions of
cities and ships and forests and introspection that had nothing to do with the story. Introspection in and of itself is fine as
long as it has something to do with moving the story along, but he chose to
ramble on about that things that add no real meaning to the story. I think he honestly fell in love with the idea
of the rogue billionaire and lost focus on where to tell the best story.
I know this is long, and I really don’t like writing
bad reviews, but I really got mad reading this book and seeing how poorly it
was managed. There is nothing wrong with
the writing per se, but the editing was sorely lacking. From the standpoint of someone trying to
break in to the writing industry, it does a lot of things that I have been
warned against. I wish Neal Stephenson
well, and I know he has already sold a lot of books based on his reputation,
but I will be much more reluctant to buy his next book based on this one. Mr. Stephenson you need to fire your editors,
or maybe listen to them. Perhaps it wouldn’t have bothered me nearly as much if
it was only 500 pages long.
I recommend avoiding this one.
Recommendation accepted.
ReplyDeleteI might give one of his others a go though.
mood
Moody Writing
I do recommend Snow Crash. His last 4 books went over a thousand words,seems like he is on a trend.
DeleteThanks for stopping by and commenting, Mood!
I struggled through the audio book eventually giving up. I liked learning about how the gaming world worked and found that fascinating but it wasn't enough to save me from the tedium. The violence that the characters were exposed to would have driven any normal person over the edge yet not these. Didn't ring true I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteI found there was too much telling (endless unecessary detail) and repetition in case the reader had forgotten what happened.
So sadly, I have to agree with you.