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Snow Crash

Neal Stephenson

Why we're reading this: #26 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 poll) http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/1390858...
#18 on L…more
[close] #26 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 poll) http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/1390858...
#18 on Locus Magazines Best SciFi novels of the 20th century http://www.locusmag.com/2012/AllCentu...

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Jan 23, 2012 Lamora rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

Snow Crash is considered one of the greatest cyberpunk books, right along with William Gibson’s Neuromancer.

Neal Stephenson weaves our everyday idiosyncrasies into a futuristic setting with the breathless pace and visual showiness of a graphic novel with definite mixed results. It is worth mentioning that the novel was written after a graphic novel attempt didn’t pan out. Truth be told, the book ultimately reads like a nerd’s wish fulfilment story, listing hackers, sword fighting samurai in virt Snow Crash is considered one of the greatest cyberpunk books, right along with William Gibson’s Neuromancer.

Neal Stephenson weaves our everyday idiosyncrasies into a futuristic setting with the breathless pace and visual showiness of a graphic novel with definite mixed results. It is worth mentioning that the novel was written after a graphic novel attempt didn’t pan out. Truth be told, the book ultimately reads like a nerd’s wish fulfilment story, listing hackers, sword fighting samurai in virtual reality and a badass skater teenager girl among many other tropes. As a result, it might very well be one of those books that can be either detested or loved. Those who care for it do because it’s incredibly entertaining, especially if you manage to overlook the novel's shaky resolution.

The book has a great opening scene: a decisive, galvanizing, intense narrative of The Deliverator. Hiro Protagonist's business card reads “Last of the freelance hackers, greatest sword fighter in the world”. On the other hand, there’s Y.T., a "Kourier", the equivalent to a bike messenger, who skateboards across the highway latching onto cars with a magnetic harpoon. She is a futuristic, 15 year old valley girl and the epitome of radical individualism in the book. Y.T. is placed in stark contrast with L. Bob Rife (the antagonist and a thinly veiled reference to L. Ron Hubbard) and his organization.

One of my main issues with this book is that the characters felt like caricatures of themselves and emotionally disengaged, making their own escapade sound futile, despite being original. This might be because of the use of the present tense (instead of the usual past tense) which is prone to be more action-driven. Thus, the characters’ stories take a back seat and are more akin to a dispassionate conglomerate of awesome activities than to full-fledged narratives.

The book is set in the near future Los Angeles, which in Snow Crash is no longer part of the U.S. Most of the state has been privatized as the federal government ceded power to outside organizations. What remained of the government of the U.S. sits in certain limited areas where they maintain authority; outside those areas they have become irrelevant, ignored by private security companies and mercenary groups.

The landscape is largely dominated by big business franchises and gated communities. Stephenson's Mafia is one of those franchises owing tycoon. The Mafia still inspires fear, makes deliveries and has the expected Sicilian roots. Without the hindrance of federal rule, it has become a player of worldwide influence in business and technological industries. However, it is just another business (although with a first-rate security arm) and they even advertise their services. It has even altered its record of dealing in alcohol, gambling and drugs to add more family oriented activities, such as pizza delivery, to appeal to a larger variety of costumers. "You've got a friend in The Family!" is their new motto.

Portions of Snow Crash take place in a virtual reality realm called Metaverse (not very different from the Matrix) which, in some way, resembles a MMO that is populated with avatars that can take almost any look the user wants. It is easily accessible to anyone with a working computer at home, or through public terminals. Most everyone enters the Metaverse, although the author never really explains what exactly people do there.

It’s the concept of Metaverse that I find most astonishing, in this book which was published in 1992. Stephenson’s almost visionary extrapolation of computer and video game technology gives us 3D customizable avatars at a time when Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario and Street Fighter games franchise dominated the market.

The humour is excessively juvenile, occasionally cynical and absurdly nerdy, so much that throughout the book you might find yourself both laughing out loud and shaking your head in disapproval of its terrible puns. The ending of the book is one such comical moments which can be understood both as an obvious technological deus ex machina which removes some tension, or, conversely, as ridiculously hilarious.

Snow Crash takes a turn for the worse in the 15 pages infodump near the middle of the book. It reads to me like Stephenson couldn’t find a more expert form of exposition than cramming the whole theory in as few words as possible by having someone answer Hiro’s questions almost entirely. That whole section feels badly incorporated in novel form, and not even the attempt to intercalate the Q&A with chapters from Y.T.’s point of view makes it less of a wall of text.

Stephenson’s premise is a far-fetched extension on actual theories regarding language. It is a fairy-tale misapprehension of Neurolinguistics which links postmodern notions of memetics, mythology and programming. However, the curious thing about tall tales is that they are hard to absolutely dislike. In fact, you don’t enjoy a tall tale because it is a reasonable depiction of a real or imaginary world; instead, you expect it to go the other direction, so you can keep on looking, incredulously, at those pages, wondering how authors come up with such crazed ideas. This is exactly what Stephenson offers us in Snow Crash: his imaginative inventiveness, chock-full with extravagantly exaggerated heroes in a futuristic cyberlinked world.

If I was being too harsh, it is completely accidental, as Snow Crash is an immensely fun read. Overall, I believe Snow Crash to be a more enjoyable read today than it was back when it was published, as it has become a seminal book in our modern Internet culture. I’d recommend it to anyone who doesn’t mind being assailed by Stephenson's enthusiastic ideamongering, especially if you’re already someone who enjoys the cyberpunk subgenre. ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Mar 02, 2012 Traci Loudin rated it it was ok

Shelves: borrowed, unfinished, male-author

The ideas in this book were interesting, the setting (both time and "franchise") intriguing, the characters were unique, and the plot was rolling along for the most part. But I didn't finish this book. The second time Hiro starts talking to the Librarian, I got bored. Probably partly because I studied Inanna in college, so the information wasn't new to me, and partly because I already know that most religion (like literature) is recycled from what came before. So it was like reading my notes fro ...more

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Jan 01, 2014 Alicja rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2014-dystopia-challenge, cyberpunk, favorites, dream-library, sff, hfu2014ba, dystopian, science-fiction, male-author, speculative-fiction

rating: 5.5/5

This is an epic tale of Hiro Protagonist, a sword fighting, pizza deliverator for the Mafia, hacker and data collector, and Y.T. (Yours Truly), a 15 year old skating courier who always gets the package delivered regardless of the circumstances and obstacles. They reside in Reality, a world where the mob, gangs, companies, religions, governments, racial groups, etc. are all corporations and franchises. Gang wars, racism, group loyalties, and religious fervor create enemies and allies ...more

1 like · Like · see review