Snow Crash in Classics Without All the Class

Feb 23, 2013 Leo Walsh rated it it was ok

Though marketed as science fiction, I find that Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash , has more in common with post-modern Maximalists like Pynchon and David Foster Wallace than your run of the mill science fiction writer. And, like these writers, he suffers from a sort of "I'm so clever" attitude combined with an over-the-top, comic plot. Think Gravity's Rainbow -- where the detonation points of German V-2 missiles in London turn out to be places where the protagonist happened to have s Though marketed as science fiction, I find that Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash , has more in common with post-modern Maximalists like Pynchon and David Foster Wallace than your run of the mill science fiction writer. And, like these writers, he suffers from a sort of "I'm so clever" attitude combined with an over-the-top, comic plot. Think Gravity's Rainbow -- where the detonation points of German V-2 missiles in London turn out to be places where the protagonist happened to have sex. That gives you a sense.

Sometimes, that attitude brings good cheekiness to the fore. Like Stephenson creating main protagonists names "Hiro Protagonist" and "Y.T." [read as "Whitey"]. And arming the 30-something hacker Hiro with Samurai swords -- both in the "Meta-verse" and "Biomass". And making Y.T. a likable, smarmy fifteen-year-old female skater who works a part-time job as a "kourier," delivering packages on her super-cool skateboard.

And, occasionally, Stephenson exploits that tendency to produce insights of sheer genius. Like having the Mafia run a pizza franchise. And making the Mafia, with their often hands-on dedication to family and fulfilling on handshake agreements, the good guys. Especially when compared to creepy Born Again Christians, who seem to want to fleece their uneducated church members. And wipe out their minds, leaving them compliant and easy to control.

But, as is too often the case in this type of fiction, Stephenson gets carried away by his "cleverness." In Snow , Stephenson beats you over the head with some real wacky linguistic theories that, even with an open mind, strain the credulity of a moderately well-educated person. And when he welds those theories to Sumerian myths and the idea of a Platonic meta-virus that caused humans to loose both their health, and caused the explosion of languages (think of the biblical the Tower of Babel myth). And that Hebrew and the Bible, through its strict adherence to saying the word "only as written" was the first rational attempt by a religion to inoculate a populous against this meta-virus. Which gets related to information theory and computer viruses, which some computer terrorists are looking to unleash on the Meta-Verse (Stephenson's pre-Internet vision of a multi-media Internet)

... Well, I think you get my drift. It's too much. Sort of Dan Brown with a few more IQ points. Worse, Stephenson spends hundreds of pages describing these ideas via a Dues in Machina science fiction device -- a Librarian in the Meta-verse. Page upon page of speculation about Sumer and viruses...

And the action, too, gets to be a bit too much. But it is white-knuckle, and the real reason why I found the novel so engaging. I really wanted to see what happened to Hiro and Y.T. And yet, the action overwhelmed the characters.

Overall, I wanted to rate the book higher than three stars. But, in all honesty, could not. Where it works, it is brilliant. Like the electric opening chapter. Where Hiro is working as a pizza delivery person -- the Deliverator. It was a riot. With hyper-cool post-modernist prose that drew me in. But those pages of exposition explaining a "concept" that does not square with reality -- I mean, words that can re-write the "operating system" stored in your brain stem, presented in a Science Fiction book as plausible? -- detracted from my enjoyment of the book significantly.

Another thing that dragged my overall rating down was that the story lines never fully resolve. Hiro does his task. Y.T. calls her mother. And the Mafia Boss goes to war with the Born-Again Bad-Guy who wants to control humanity.

And that's it. Stephenson begins juggling 50 balls, gets you interested, and then walks away. Too bad, because I had such great hope for this book when I began.

Leo's Blog: leo-walsh.com. ...more

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Aug 15, 2018 Kosh Koshover rated it really liked it · review of another edition

great book, I loved the ambiguity between reality and the metaverse. I loved the vision of "America" as a lawless landmass made up of corporate franchises. Overall, just a great read. ...more

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