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Fact From the Vapor of Nuance

Neal Stephenson’s Next Novel is About Gold Farming

by Susana Polo | 2:50 pm, March 21st

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Neal Stephenson sure has a thing for gold, doesn’t he? Cryptonomicon was (partially) about a white guy from the midwest with a tech-startup trying to get gold out of Japan.  The Baroque Cycle was (partially) about a white guy whose family would eventually be from the midwest with a ship named after the godess of technology trying to get gold to England.

It would appear that REAMDE is about a white guy from the midwest with a tech-startup built on money laundered through virtual gold transactions with Chinese gold farmers.

Of course we’re going to read it.

I have to read it. I’m the Neal Stephenson tester in my social group. I’m the one who takes the plunge to see if his latest novel is a The System of the World (moments of sheer Stephensonian badassery that ultimately aren’t worth slogging through the tangents about code) or an Anathem (in my opinion his most mature novel to date). It’ll be my social duty to test the waters of REAMDE and then advise my friends as to whether or not they’ll like it.

Here’s the synopsis, from the HarperCollins announcement:

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. Smuggling backpack loads of high-grade marijuana across the border into Northern Idaho, he quickly amassed an enormous and illegal fortune. 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. Like many serious gamers, he began routinely purchasing viral 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.

For 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. 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.

The book is due out in mid-September, so I have some time to save up a little money, strengthen my reading hands, and see if I have any doors that need stopping.

(via Boing Boing.)

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  • http://twitter.com/WanderinDreamr hbm

    Didn’t Cory Doctrow do a book recently involving gold farmers as well?

  • http://twitter.com/MightySquid Kate Falanga

    I couldn’t get through The Baroque Cycle myself. Let us know how it is.

  • http://twitter.com/kalsangikid Katrina

    Yup. It’s called “For the Win.” Download on his site: http://craphound.com/ftw/download/

  • Rightrhombus

    in the case of cryptonomicon, the gold was in the philippines and not japan. (i just read that book :) )

  • Nicole Hazen

    Snow Crash is one of my favorite books ever. But I couldn’t even get through the first chapter of Cycle. Don’t get me wrong, I think the guy is awesome. But those, just weren’t my thing.

    My husband, on the other hand, devours anything done by NS. He’ll be happy to hear about this.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jack-LesCamela/598814617 Jack LesCamela

    Anything Neal Stephenson writes is an immediate purchase for me. Sometimes I don’t get to it right away, but when I do it’s worth it.

    One of the things I find interesting is the learning curve that seems to come with his novels. They’re always teeming with lots of stuff I know nothing about (codes, invention of the stock market, Sumerian myth, the Royal Society, the Baroque period in general, etc.). It’s to the point where I already know I’ll enjoy them more the second time.

    When I first read CRYPTONOMICON, it was mainly for the WWII scenes with Bobby Shaftoe (mainly) and Lawrence Waterhouse (less so). The modern day plot thread with Randy Waterhouse didn’t thrill me at all.

    The second time through the novel I wasn’t rushing to get to the next WWII part and I enjoyed it more. All of the modern day parts interested me much more. Third time I love the whole book, but this time it was the Goto plot thread that really came alive for me.

    My point is that I don’t Stephenson writes books to be read once and tossed aside. He wants you to spend some time with what he created and re-reading pays big dividends.

  • Laplacedemon

    Did anyone else think of Titan Rain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain) when they saw the name of the RPG?

  • http://twitter.com/FrugalKiwi Melanie McMinn

    I’ve read all of NS to date, so Reamde will certainly find a place on my shelf. Although, given the mass of them, I hope it will be a place on my VIRTUAL shelf. No Kindle version is noted on Amazon as yet, but there are Kindle versions of SOME of his other books including Anathem, so here’s hoping.

  • Anonymous

    Did Ms Polo have to break out the race card here with the”white guy from the midwest” comments? She should note that Stephenson’s first hit, “Snow Crash,” featured a hero who was half Korean, half African American, named Hiro.  Although, after mentioning his racial background in the first chapter, the character isn’t much different from “a white guy from the midwest,” probably because Stephenson is, guess what! a white guy who grew up in the midwest! (originally from Maryland) Characterization is not his strong suit.  I think it is very wise of him to return to main characters of a background that he his most familiar with, especially when writing about the near future and recent past. Maybe Ms. Polo is trying to emphasize that she doesn’t usually like to read about white male main characters and Stephenson is the exception, but then, I think she should specifically state this first.

  • http://twitter.com/malixe malixe

    Love Neal Stephenson, in every incarnation (Stephen Bury, etc.), up to Anathem, one of the most dreadfully tedious books I’ve ever slogged through out of love for an author and the hope that it would somehow get better.  (Paper thin cardboard characters, pages and pages spent on tiresomely explicit detail of the physical environment and surroundings at the sacrifice of any forward movement in plot, and a completely pointless new vocabulary to slow things down even more, just to itemize a few of its sins…) 

    The Baroque Cycle may have taken some time (500 pages or so) to get up to speed, but once Half-Cocked Jack shows up things start getting entertaining, and I have read the entire cycle twice. You couldn’t pay me to pick up Anathem again. (Does ‘most mature’ = ‘most boring’?)

    I am excited to see that Neal Stephenson is returning to more familiar territory. I love Stephenson because he is an author who can throw off ideas in one page that other writers could build entire books around, but I still want to read books where things happen and it doesn’t take 900 pages of build-up and wandering in the endlessly and intimately detailed wilderness to finally get to the meat of the story. 

    Here’s hoping that Reamde is a return to work comparable to Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and others. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/albanbrooke Alban Brooke

    I completely agree.  I love all of his other books but I couldn’t get through the Baroque Cycle.

  • Nick Barnes

    Maryland is not in the midwest.  It’s really not. Look at a map.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OHKTCRDNJFZOLRNZTHOPYLU4AU Michael

    Also, Hiro Protagonist dispatches foes with a sword, something most midwest dudes can’t do.