Neal Stephenson’s New Novel ‘Reamde’ Features Gold Farming, Glorious Wit.

Neal Stephenson wrote one of my favorite books ever, Snow Crash. So even while I’ve never been taken with him like I have Ellis, or Gibson, or Vonnegut or the rest of my pantheon, he’s still a hero of mine. I heard about his new book Reamde  and how it has to do with some sort of cyber thriller predicated on gold farming. Yes. Gold farming. I started it tonight and I’m already in love.

For me and many of my friends, the following passage is beyond relatable:

In particular he became seriously addicted to a game called Warcraft…which eventually culminated in the vastly successful massively multiplayer game World of Warcraft. The years 1996 through 2006 were his Lost Decade, or at least that’s what he’d have considered if it hadn’t led to T’Rain. His weight crept up to near-fatal levels until he figured out the trick of playing the game while trudging along – very slowly at first – on a treadmill.

Like many serious players, Richard fell into the habit of purchasing virtual gold pieces… (33)

From what I can tell, Richard (a former drug smuggler-gamer) then leverages gold farming into some global money laundering scheme. Whatever the case, such a thriller wrapped around such a dorky but legitimate billion dollar  enterprise in gold farming has me in total dork estcascy. Definitely recommend it from what I’ve checked out, and consider this a heads-up.