Zula has taken a job at a company responsible for a globally popular video game, founded by her billionaire uncle. Her boyfriend Peter has entered into an illegal transaction with someone he doesn’t realize is connected to the Russian Mafia. Everything goes south, and Zula and Peter are abducted. What follows is a book with a giant scope. It’s an international suspense thriller that takes a multitude of interesting main characters to the limits of their capabilities. Stephenson manages to linger on lots of small technical details in a way that’s interesting, and while still making a real page-turner with characters we care about for over 1000 pages.
I’ve read Cryptinomicon and remember enjoying it, but it’s been so many years that I’ve lost most of the details. Just read the Wikipedia page and it all seemed familiar, but it didn’t all come back.
I will say that there are some legitimate complaints about Reamde. For one, there’s multiple romantic pairings of characters, and that felt a little too pat to me. For another, it becomes clear that there’s going to be a confluence of story streams that becomes a bit predictable - not necessarily the details or resolution, but the fact of it.
Those complaints didn’t stop my enjoyment of it though.
Thanks! I might look at it next time I have to fill up my reading pile