Stephenson hasn’t made it easy on his fans since Cryptonomicon in 1999 with it and every book since being about 27,000 pages long while spanning the late 1600s in Europe to World War II to another world complete with it’s own languages and customs, and each book was also crammed with detailed information about topics like finance and code breaking. of bulk while trying to read that wore me out either.

It wasn’t just having to hold up it’s 127 lbs. In this edgy, 21st century tale, Neal Stephenson, one of the most ambitious and prophetic writers of our time, returns to the terrain of his cyberpunk masterpieces Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, leading readers through the looking glass and into the dark heart of imagination.ĭamn, but this book exhausted me.

But the line between fantasy and reality becomes dangerously blurred when a young gold farmer accidently triggers a virtual war for dominance-and Richard is caught at the center. Like many serious gamers, he began routinely purchasing virtual gold pieces and other desirables from Chinese gold farmers-young professional players in Asia who accumulated virtual weapons and armor to sell to busy American and European buyers.įor Richard, the game was the perfect opportunity to launder his aging hundred dollar bills and begin his own high-tech start up-a venture that has morphed into a Fortune 500 computer gaming group, Corporation 9592, with its own super successful online role-playing game, T’Rain. With plenty of time and money to burn, he became addicted to an online fantasy game in which opposing factions battle for power and treasure in a vast cyber realm. Smuggling backpack loads of high-grade marijuana across the border into Northern Idaho, he quickly amassed an enormous and illegal fortune. Four decades ago, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa family, fled to a wild and lonely mountainous corner of British Columbia to avoid the draft.

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