Reamde+by+Neal+Stephenson

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=Book Summary=

In 1972, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa farming clan, fled to the mountains of British Columbia to avoid the draft. A skilled hunting guide, he eventually amassed a fortune by smuggling marijuana across the border between Canada and Idaho. As the years passed, Richard went straight and returned to the States after the U.S. government granted amnesty to draft dodgers. He parlayed his wealth into an empire and developed a remote resort in which he lives. He also created T’Rain, a multibillion-dollar, massively multiplayer online role-playing game with millions of fans around the world.

But T’Rain’s success has also made it a target. Hackers have struck gold by unleashing //REAMDE//, a virus that encrypts all of a player’s electronic files and holds them for ransom. They have also unwittingly triggered a deadly war beyond the boundaries of the game’s virtual universe—and Richard is at ground zero. Racing around the globe from the Pacific Northwest to China to the wilds of northern Idaho and points in between, //Reamde// is a swift-paced thriller that traverses worlds virtual and real. Filled with unexpected twists and turns in which unforgettable villains and unlikely heroes face off in a battle for survival, it is a brilliant refraction of the twenty-first century, from the global war on terror to social media, computer hackers to mobsters, entrepreneurs to religious fundamentalists. Above all, //Reamde// is an enthralling human story—an entertaining and epic page-turner from the extraordinary -- //Neal Stephenson.//// http://www.amazon.com/Reamde-Novel-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0061977969 //

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=About the Author=

Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer, known for his speculative fiction works, which have been variously categorized science fiction, historical fiction, maximalism, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk. Stephenson explores areas such as mathematics, cryptography, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired Magazine, and has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (funded by Jeff Bezos) developing a manned sub-orbital launch system. Born in Fort Meade, Maryland (home of the NSA and the National Cryptologic Museum) Stephenson came from a family comprising engineers and hard scientists he dubs "propeller heads". His father is a professor of electrical engineering whose father was a physics professor; his mother worked in a biochemistry laboratory, while her father was a biochemistry professor. Stephenson's family moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois in 1960 and then to Ames, Iowa in 1966 where he graduated from Ames High School in 1977. Stephenson furthered his studies at Boston University. He first specialized in physics, then switched to geography after he found that it would allow him to spend more time on the university mainframe. He graduated in 1981 with a B.A. in Geography and a minor in physics. Since 1984, Stephenson has lived mostly in the Pacific Northwest and currently resides in Seattle with his family. Neal Stephenson is the author of the three-volume historical epic "The Baroque Cycle" (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World) and the novels Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Zodiac. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

=Possible Discussion Questions= //NOTE: Careful -- spoiler alert!//
 * 1) How do you think the death of two mothers by the age of eleven affected Zula and made her into the person she is? (p21)
 * 2) Did the characters seem believable to you? Which did you have the easiest time believing? Who was the hardest?
 * 3) Does the reader have any sympathy for the terrorists? Are they too one dimensional? How about Abdallah Jones in particular?
 * 4) What do you think of Richard's "Furious Muses" that seem to speak to him?
 * 5) What do you think of the theory that "As hire As, and Bs hire Cs... the point being that as long as you continued to recruit only the very best people, they would attract others, but as soon as you let your standards slip, the second-raters would begin to seine up third raters to act as their minions and advance their agendas." (p744)?
 * 6) What is your response to Chet's theory about birth and death? ... "The poles of human existence. We're like meridians, all beginning and ending in the same place." (p924)
 * 7) Discuss what Zula's calls "Third World attitude toward risk" that she observes in one of her jihadist stalkers taking risks in his pursuit of her (p. 959).
 * 8) Do you think they killed Uncle John just to provide more 'buy-in' or willing suspension of disbelief by the reader?
 * 9) Sokolov refers to Jake and his family as the "American Taliban" -- is this a fair comparison? (p 985 & 988)
 * 10) What was the purpose of the cougar? Did it add a magical / divine element to the conclusion?
 * 11) How the heck do __//you//__ pronounce the title of the novel?

"The young ones shuffled to a stop as their ironic sensibilities, which served them in lieu of souls, were jammed by a signal of overwhelming power" "Each death meant that a particular set of ideas and perceptions and reactions were gone from the world, apparently forever, and served as a reminder to Richard that one day his ideas and perceptions and reaction would be gone too." //Courtesy of JW and NB... Thanks :)//
 * //More quotes to reflect upon://**

And I do have to take a moment to comment on __Stephenson's vocabulary usage__... //I want to see how many of these I can slip into everyday conversation ...sorry, it's the English teacher in me ;)// //some of my favorites included...// fug (p50), bogosity (p136), portentous(p.136), metaphrasing (P136), transmogrify (p137), quaff (p137), syzygy (p168), bight (p 169), eponymous (p171), statist (190), copses (p190), ontogenical (p209), exegesis (p212), numinous (p212), conurbations (p218), obstreperous (p220), empennage (251), desultory (p.297), wen (p303), velleity, (p344), stentorian (p345), ligature (p538), gallimaufry (p578), bifurcated (p614), fatuous (p655), creosoted (p870), effete (p935),

=Related Links= [|New York Times Book Review]