[menacingly]

I'm a big Stephenson fan, and I thought Reamde was terrible.

His usual quirky pacing just turns into a dragging nightmare that never pays off, it's uncharacteristically full of questionable technical premises, and if it weren't for a few islands of genuinely entertaining scenes I would not have made it through.

I honestly believe it's the result of some suit pressuring him to write about topics people see on Dateline

[pavel_lishin]

It definitely dragged on, but overall I thought it was enjoyable. He definitely kept building up to climaxes throughout the whole book - on an airplane, I kept sadly checking the percentage read because I was sure I was almost done with it, only to discover that I was only 30%, 50%, 70% along...

If you're a Stephenson fan, I would absolutely give this a read.

[cdjk]

Maybe - but he finally figured out how to write an ending.

[tyu100]

Yeah, I would skip this and read Cryptonomicon again.

[samuel]

I wholeheartedly agree. I only finished it because it was his, but I feared he could be «losing it».

Fortunately seveneves was again spectacular.

[ghaff]

The other thing about Reamde is that it's one of those books that depends on case after case of events happening and aligning in a very particular way or there wouldn't be a story.