Reamde

Richard Forthrast was the black sheep of an Iowa family who ran away from the draft forty years ago, taking refuge in a desolate and untamed alpine region of British Columbia. By smuggling copious amounts of premium marijuana into Northern Idaho in backpacks over the border, he soon accumulated an immense and illicit wealth. He had a lot of free time and money, so he spent it all on an online fantasy game where rival groups fight it out for control of a huge virtual world. He started frequently buying virtual gold pieces and other desirables from Chinese gold farmers, young professional gamers in Asia who gathered virtual armor and weaponry to sell to eager American and European purchasers, much like many other serious gamers.

Richard saw the game as the ideal way to cash in on his old $100 notes and launch his own high-tech company. This endeavor eventually became Corporation 9592, a Fortune 500 computer gaming company that has its own immensely popular online role-playing game called T'Rain. However, when a young gold farmer unintentionally starts a virtual struggle for supremacy, the distinction between reality and fiction becomes dangerously hazy, with Richard at its core.

One of the most ambitious and foresighted authors of our day, Neal Stephenson, returns to the world of his cyberpunk classics, Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, in this dark, 21st-century story that transports readers through a looking glass and into the black core of the imagination.