Reamde by Neal Stephenson

This book caught my attention from the first review of it I read, likely on some tech blog.  I had read Stephenson's Cryptonomicon last year and while I liked and respected it, I didn't love it.  Too embarrassed to admit I didn't love it, I'll borrow my friend Gregg's critique of Stephenson's writing style: "Isn't it another paid-by-the-word?"  But Stephenson's an icon and I'm a geek and this one sounded awesome so my inlaws got it for me for Christmas.

I loved it but it's not for everyone.

The story starts with a MMORPG (Massive multi-player online role playing game) called T'Rain. T'Rain is wildly popular and ingenious - after a previous foray into money-laundreing, its creator Richard got the idea to leverage Chinese teens who will work for very low wages to create value around the gold pieces in the game.  When Peter, the boyfriend of the Richards's niece Zula gets involved in a bad credit card scam, they are kidnapped.  And then it gets fun. 

What ensues is a 1000+ page ride around the world as the "good guys" and "bad guys" fight it out. Zula and Peter are shortly joined by a few other captives, a couple hackers and a tour guide, and fight to stay alive.  Along the way, they encounter the Russian mob, MI-6 agents, and other members of a crazy cast of characters that is surprising both in their variety and in the depth of their development in the novel. The bad guys are *really* bad and yet it becomes confusing sometimes to determine who the bad guys are.  Meanwhile, Richard is unsure of what's happened to Zula but slowly gets some clues as to her whereabouts.  On his side is a quirky family including some fringe survivalists and the staff for his online game.

And at the center of all of this is technology.  Stephenson is, as usual, right on the cusp of what is possible.  The gold pieces in the game reminded me of Bitcoin...and the computer virus that starts off this chain of events (did I mention there was a computer virus) is ingenious, possible, and freaking scary: it is a virus that exists within T'Rain but has consequences in the real world.  Really this has enough material to be several books - there is meticulous detail applied to the background of all the characters and all the plots.  There are even characters in the book whose job it is to write the cannon of history for T'Rain, which is - thankfully - excerpted and not included in its entirety.

I could not put this book down but you have to like this kind of thing. 

Hello, HBO?  Please option for a mini-series.  Zoe Saldana should play Zula, Lucy Lui can play the MI-6 agent, William H Macy can be the survivalist brother, and if he tries really hard, Seth Rogen can play Richard and finally get the dramatic respect he deserves.  Thanks.