Reamde

Stephenson, Neal. Reamde. New York: William Morrow, 2011. For numerous reprints, translations, and audiobook, and reviews, see Internet Speculative Fiction Database, at note links here.[1]

Thriller with a fairly light tone and touches of comedy, with a hint or two of SF in the deep-story of the world of the game in the novel, where there's a possibility for a possible scientific explanation for the magic in the game.

Synopsis from ISFDb at place linked above and with blockquote below:

Synopsis: 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. [...] He parlayed his wealth into an empire and [...] 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.[2]

Reviewed by Christopher Hellstrom, SFRA Review #299 (Winter 2012): pp. 19-20, who notes, "Though Reamde is a 'thriller,' it contains certain recurring Stephensonian tropes. These include 1) A celebration of geek culture and techno cultural observations 2) The privileging of makers and do’ers over pure abstract thinkers 3) Physical action 4) One or two 'big ideas' that fuel Stephenson’s interests and creative energies." Hellstrom also notes references to "traditional geek totems like the role playing games, Dungeons and Dragons, Tolkien, and hacker culture."[3]

See for MMORPG (those role-playing games) and, more generally, for what Hellstrom calls Stephenson's "unique observations about technology and culture" (p. 19). Established early in the story is the idea of such games as addictive, relating them (tenuously) with the drugs in the plot earlier: ethyl alcohol during Prohibition — with "alcohol" clearly addicting for some people — and marijuana, perhaps physically addicting for a few people, certainly figuratively "addicting" in the sense of pleasurable, positively reinforcing.

The point on values is not directly stressed, but the resolution to the narrative is a thriller variation on the pattern of romantic comedy: with a somewhat cleansed newish world at the end coalescing around heterosexual couples and an extended family: values chosen over those of gaming, even by serious game geeks (and secret agents of the MI6 and Special Forces varieties).

RDE, finishing, 9Jun21, 22Jun21