Snow Crash in Beyond Reality

Apr 17, 2019 seak rated it liked it

Shelves: audio, science-fiction, 2019

I've been dying to read this book for years, but due to my terrible inability to read books not in audio format lately, this one's been on the backlog ... until I recently got Audible and find out Snow Crash is an "only from Audible" exclusive.

This book has so much going for it and that's why it's been something at the top of my list.

Ninja swords, check.
hackers, check.
Future dystopia, check.
pizza delivery, weird, but check.
Virtual reality, check.
Ninja fighting, check.

This also screams 80's, wh ...more

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Aug 05, 2010 Stephen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: award-nominee-british-sf, award-nominee-arthur-c-clarke, signed-first-or-limited-edition, science-fiction, cyber-punk-prep-and-post, multiple-award-nominee

6.0 stars (One of my all time favorite novels). While reading this book, I was constantly thinking to myself "WOW, what a great concept" and "HOW did the author think that up." Without giving away too much in the way of a spoiler, I was amazed at the way the author took the work of computers, vitual reality and the metaverse and tied it into ancient religions and philosophy. The relationshipo conceived by the author on that point alone was mind-boggling. Add to that a great anti-hero, a superb v ...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Banner rated it liked it

Shelves: sci-fi

Snow Crash review

This was not what I expected. What did you expect (you may ask)? Something darker, more convoluted and maybe even a little harder science. These were the preconceived thoughts I had as I enter this messed up future America, home of Hiro Protagonist. Was I disappointed? Not really (maybe a little at the lack of hard science). What I was most pleasantly surprised by was the humor. Not that this was a comedy, but there were a couple laugh out loud moments and several smiles thr ...more

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Aug 07, 2010 Jenny T rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, read-in-2010

In a future America (in which the Mafia runs a deadly efficient pizza-delivery service), freelance hacker Hiro Protagonist must navigate the Street of a global virtual reality as well as a dangerously real virus -- one that affects human beings as well as computers.

As this was written in 1992, the technology is a bit outdated; Virtual Reality has come a *long* way since then. But Neal Stephenson has a wry, quirky sense of humor, and the book's a wonderfully strange blending of ancient Sumerian l ...more

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Sep 06, 2009 Mike rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi, favorites, audio, owned, standalone

When I decided to read Snow Crash, it had been in my "to read" list for probably a couple of years. I had been meaning to read something by Stephenson for awhile, but none of his novels ever made their way to the front of my list. I think Neal Stephenson is just one of those authors that, as a science fiction reader, you have to try out at some point and I'm glad that I finally did. Snow Crash was awesome.

Stephenson never gives a concrete date for when it's set, but hints at the early 21st Centu When I decided to read Snow Crash, it had been in my "to read" list for probably a couple of years. I had been meaning to read something by Stephenson for awhile, but none of his novels ever made their way to the front of my list. I think Neal Stephenson is just one of those authors that, as a science fiction reader, you have to try out at some point and I'm glad that I finally did. Snow Crash was awesome.

Stephenson never gives a concrete date for when it's set, but hints at the early 21st Century. Despite the fact that it's set only 10 or 20 years after the 1992 publish date, Stephenson has created a world that has changed dramatically, seeing a huge push towards capitalism to the point where even the United States has largely been replaced by independently owned countries. Even though it's nothing like what the world is really like today, I found this to be a very interesting, if not realistic, vision of the future. If nothing else, it provided an appropriate setting for the story.

The story follows two great characters, Hero Protagonist, hacker, pizza delivery guy, and the greatest swordsman in the world, and YT, 15 year old skater and messenger. Both characters were independent and unique. Hero was intelligent, quiet, and methodical, whereas YT was also intelligent, but sharp tongued and ironic. I also thought Uncle Enzo was a pretty interesting secondary character.

The plot was also very interesting, mixing politics, history, mythology, and religion. Interestingly enough, I actually felt like I learned a few things reading this novel and it definitely gave me a few things to think about as well. I won't go into further detail, because I don't want to spoil anything.

The last thing that I wanted to mention was the technology. I was really surprised at how accurate some of Stephenson's tech was. Yeah, some of it was pretty far flung, but other things like the metaverse and pretty much in place today.

I've heard some people say that you either love Stephenson or you hate him. I gave this novel 5 stars, but I'm not ready to jump into the "love" category yet. It was really good and I enjoyed it, but there are still other authors that I like better. That said, Snow Crash is a fairly recent cyberpunk classic and a must-read for any science fiction reader so get out there and pick it up if you haven't read it yet. ...more

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Nov 29, 2013 Sandi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, library-express, scifi-fantasy-horror-althistory, read-2013

This science fiction novel had so much going on that, at times, it was hard to know what was happening. It mixed Sumerian language, religion, computers, and a number of other things (some of which I sure I did not catch). The two lead characters though were quite well drawn and the narration of this audio by Jonathan Davis highlighted the humor and kept the plot moving at a brisk pace.

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