REAMDE - don't take it seriously. The author basically just took a vacation and wrote a mindlessly fun action book. If you read it as such, it's pretty good. It

REAMDE - don't take it seriously. The author basically just took a vacation and wrote a mindlessly fun action book. If you read it as such, it's pretty good. It's definitely written from a Western perspective, but it does have some pretty astute insights about East European mentalities and culture (I say this as someone straddling the fence between West and East culturally). DODO is not pure Stephenson. The personality of the other writer (Nicole Galland) quite clearly changes the atmosphere. It's the first NS book where characters' emotions are actually given some attention, and the first where female characters are described from a first-person perspective (in a way that's convincing).