Reamde

The SUV pulled off the road a few yards away, and the driver’s-side window rolled down. “That’s a relief,” Seamus called. “I was afraid my bag had overflowed, until Yuxia pointed out that we were driving past a hog confinement facility.”

Yuxia had jumped out of the passenger side before the SUV even came to a full stop, and now engaged in a full body-slam greeting with Zula and an exchange of squeals so loud that it actually caused the noise-canceling electronics in Richard’s ear protectors to engage. Richard exchanged a look with Seamus and pantomimed reaching up with both hands to turn the knobs on the device all the way down.

“Glad your clan in Boston was willing to lend you to us for the holiday,” Richard remarked, shaking Seamus’s hand. Seamus had climbed out of the vehicle and unlimbered himself to his full height.

“They’re afraid of barnyard humor,” Seamus said, “so they sent me to one. We’re going to see them around Christmas. Yuxia wants to perform serious reconnaissance on my culture before getting in any deeper.”

“Have you kissed her yet?”

“She’s elusive,” Seamus admitted. “If I were to presume anything—to act like I was entitled, you know—she would tear me a new—”

“Don’t say it.”

“To answer your question, Dodge, I think she wants my alimentary tract back in one piece before she comes into contact with any part of it. But there has been a bit of progress on that front. Not what you’d look for in an American girl. But you have to proceed with caution when dealing with a Big-Footed Woman.”

Zula and Yuxia had just discovered that they were wearing the exact same style of winter boots, which made their feet look very big indeed. They were milking that for more hilarity than Richard would have thought possible.

“Ready to go in and give thanks?”

“You know it,” Seamus said.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Several persons deserve thanks and credit for having helped me when my progress was impeded by my ignorance. None of them, however, deserves any blame for cases where I got something wrong. Chief among these is Josh D’Aluisio-Guerrieri (), the consummate modern China hand; his skills at translation and cultural navigation made this book far better than it would have been had I been left to my own devices (I am also indebted to Charles Mann for allowing me to tag along with him and Josh on a trip that was originally intended as a research expedition for Charles’s book 1493 but that I was allowed to, in a small way, hijack). Deric Ruhl saved me from one embarrassing blunder having to do with the workings of the Makarov, then went on to read the entire manuscript and offer extensive and very useful comments about firearms. I daresay he may have invented a new literary niche: ballistics copy editor.

George Dyson helped with fishing boat lore, Keith Rosema with flight plans, and George Jewsbury did a bit of Russian translation. John Eaton and Hugh Matheson helped fill out the picture of British Columbia by cheerfully supplying background information about cat-skiing resorts and mining operations, respectively.

Having put the reputations of the above people in play, I must reiterate that there are places in the book where I may have misinterpreted their advice, or simply chosen to ignore it for storytelling reasons, and so none of them should be blamed for any defects.

Somewhat in the same vein, a word about geography: the advent of Google Earth makes it easy to call up high-resolution maps of any place on the planet and compare them against the descriptions in a work of fiction. Anyone who attempts this with Reamde open on their lap is wasting his or her time. There is an Abandon Mountain in northern Idaho, and something that goes by the local and informal name of American Falls, but I have taken vast liberties with their descriptions here. There is no Prohibition Crick, as far as I know. In short, none of the geographical description in Reamde can be expected to tally with the real world or its high-quality digital representations, and so readers are encouraged to enjoy it as what it is—a work of fiction—and leave it at that.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Neal Stephenson is the author of Anathem; the three-volume historical epic the Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World); Cryptonomicon; The Diamond Age; Snow Crash, which was named one of Time magazine’s top one hundred all-time best English-language novels; and Zodiac. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

www.nealstephenson.com

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PRAISE

“Stephenson has a once-in-a-generation gift: he makes complex ideas clear, and he makes them funny, heartbreaking and thrilling.”—Time

“The rarest of geniuses.”—New York Post

“[The] Homer of geek mythology.”—San Diego Union-Tribune