The highly inventive, brilliant author of Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and Anathem returns with his most accessible novel to date, a high-stakes thriller in which a wealthy tech entrepreneur gets caught in the very real crossfire of his own online fantasy
William Morrow
September 2011
On Sale: September 20, 2011
Featuring: Richard Forthrast
1056 pages ISBN: 0061977969 EAN: 9780061977961 Kindle: B004XVN0WW Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
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 farmersβ 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 upβa venture that has morphed into a Fortune 500 computer gaming group, Corporation 9592, with its own super successful online role-playing game, TβRain. But the line between fantasy and reality becomes dangerously blurred when a young gold farmer accidently triggers a virtual war for dominanceβand Richard is caught at the center.
In this edgy, 21st century tale, Neal Stephenson, one of the most ambitious and prophetic writers of our time, returns to the terrain of his cyberpunk masterpieces Snow Crash and Crpytonomicon, leading readers through the looking glass and into the dark heart of imagination.
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