Back in March, I posted about Neal Stephenson’s new novel:
Not long after the release of Anathem, it was announced that Neal Stephenson’s next novel was due in 2011 and would be titled “Reamde”. The computer geeks among Stephenson’s fans (which is to say, most of Stephenson’s fans) were quick to wonder if the title was really supposed to be “Readme”, a common name for help or pre-installation files on computers, but everyone insisted that it “wasn’t a typo”. Well, a couple of days ago, I see on Tombstone that HarperCollins has now listed the book on their site… as Readme. So was it a typo all along, or are the new listings (also on booksellers like Amazon) the actual typo?
Well, as it turns out, the new listings actually were a typo. I don’t know when it was corrected, but the book is now listed as Reamde everywhere. Also, on another Harper Collins site, there’s a plot synopsis:
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.
Fans of Stephenson will notice tons of overlap with his previous work. Gold, virtual money, virtual worlds, etc… The blurb isn’t exactly a barn burner, but if Stephenson is writing it, I’m reading it. It seems to have also been pushed back to September 20. It can’t come soon enough.