When gaming multibillionaire Richard "Dodge" Forthrast is pronounced brain dead after a routine medical procedure goes haywire, his brain is scanned and its data structures stored in the cloud. Technological advances allow his brain to be flicked back on, but the Bitworld—a sort of eternal life sustaining humans as digital souls—is not as cool as expected. With a 250,000-copy first printing.

The latest from speculative fiction master Stephenson (Snow Crash, Anathem) is a behemoth that begins in the world of high-tech entrepreneurs in present-day Seattle and ends with characters—including a talking crow, a giant woman, Death in human form, and a troubadour—on a perilous quest in a purely digital world. The latter section evokes Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, T.H. White's The Once and Future King, and Monty Python. The tale defies easy categorization but bears the hallmarks of Stephenson's work: fizzy verbal energy, consistent humor, deep immersion in technology, and frequent action sequences. The central idea is that citizens can sign up to have their brains digitally scanned after death, and that those scans can be turned into computer "processes." When activated, these processes form a conscious being, providing a type of life after death. The plot turns on the conflicts that occur when thousands of these beings meet in virtual reality. VERDICT This sprawling, genre-hopping novel will thrill Stephenson's fans and engross newcomers. Epic is an overused adjective, but it fits here. [See Prepub Alert, 12/3/18.]—Christopher Myers, Lake Oswego P.L., OR

This laboriously detailed follow-up to Reamde explores where human imagination ends and artificial intelligence begins, providing some speculative concepts without any real payoff. Richard "Dodge" Forthrast, founder of the gaming company Corporation 9592, is rendered brain-dead when a routine surgery goes horribly wrong. His will stipulates that his brain be scanned and preserved by a tech company run by elusive Elmo Shepherd, in hopes of future regeneration. Decades later, Dodge's grandniece, Sophia, designs a method for turning on Dodge's brain, making him a lone god of sorts in a new digital world. Her invention allows people to leave Meatspace, or the terrestrial world, which is reinventing itself after the implosion of the internet, and travel to Bitworld, where Dodge and the now-dead Elmo battle for power. Though Bitworld is liberated from physical constraints and Meatspace is exploring a "post-truth" era, both simplistically replicate present-day societal power structures, showing the limits of Stephenson's imagination. Fans of Stephenson's passion for the minutiae of technological innovations will revel in the intricacies of his construction, but unwieldy dialogue, uneven pacing, and a narrow-minded view of the future betray the story's promise. Agent: Liz Darhansoff, Darhansoff & Verrill. (June)