April Group Read - Snow Crash

[Jo]

This is to discuss the second of April's Group reads - Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

[Jo]

My copy of this has just arrived but i've started reading the other group read which is quite long. I'm about a quarter way through so I guess I will start this one mid-month.

[Phil]

I'm interested in thoughts on the prose quality. Specifically, I loved the slangy tone of it, but when I shoved this book on my brother, he said it was sloppy and annoying.

If we're here to talk about how Sci Fi evolved, then where does this fit? I noticed recently that Heinlein was a lot looser than his contemporaries, and I think this book is an even bigger step away from the more clinical style that you get from Asimov or Clarke.

[Jo]

I've only read the back cover so far so maybe completely off the mark, but In terms of evolution I was assuming this is a continuation in the branch of sci-fi begun with somebody like William Gibson.

[Buck]

Phil wrote: "I'm interested in thoughts on the prose quality. Specifically, I loved the slangy tone of it, but when I shoved this book on my brother, he said it was sloppy and annoying.


I found it worse than sloppy and annoying, and abandoned it early on. I've been thinking about giving it another try, because it's our group read, if I find the time later this month.

[Phil]

Buck wrote: "I've been thinking about giving it another try,."

Personally, I loved the flippant tone of the writing and the fast-paced action sequences in the first chapter. Stephenson keeps that up the whole way through the book, so if you didn't like the first chapter, you probably won't like the last chapter any better. People tell me that Stephenson played it straight on his other books, so maybe you would be better off with Anathem or Cryptonomicon.

Snow Crash definitely owes a debt to Neuromancer, but it's been so long since I read that one that I can't really compare them. People who split genre hairs claim that Neuromancer is a true cyberpunk book, and Snow Crash is a post-cyberpunk or a deconstructed cyberpunk book. I'm not sure what those labels mean.

[Jo]

I read Cryptonomicon and it took me months to read, not a bad book but just couldn't get into it. This one is definitely more fast-paced, the first chapter was quite fun. I hope it will continue that way.

[Jo]

I'm not getting on to well with this one, I think i've read the first six chapters. It's not necessarily the books fault but I don't have too much interest in the virtual world and books based thereon. I try to read all the group books so i'm giving it a go but I have to be honest it's not drawn me in that much. It skips around a lot so I read a chapter then put it down for a few day. I will persevere as I hate not to finish books but it's highly unlikely I will finish this month.

[Phil]

Jo wrote: "I'm not getting on to well with this one, I think i've read the first six chapters. It's not necessarily the books fault but I don't have too much interest in the virtual world and books based ther..."

Wow, reading is an individual experience. It sounds like a lot of people are having trouble getting through Snow Crash, but for me it was a weekend read. On the other hand, I have tried to read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire three times without making it past the Quidditch section. To me, that book is really hard to get through.

[CS]

Phil wrote: "Wow, reading is an individual experience..."

You bet. I'm about 1/4 of the way thru the book, and I think it's fabulous. For all its cyber pyrotechnics, the book falls into the mainstream of sci fi in many ways. The author is showing us our current world through a funhouse mirror, and his storytelling contains much tongue-in-cheek satire. He's taking capitalism and privatization in our society to its extreme logical conclusion--a frightening prospect--where people's real world dreams are so curtailed they try to live as avatars in virtual reality.

The author replicates a virtual reality environment in print. The language is not really sloppy, IMO. It's calculated to be part of the in-your-head environment of the book, in this case, the mind of a video games player. I totally understand if others don't want to be there, and dislike the cyber-slang. This kind of book is not to everybody's taste.

[Jo]

Coming back to this one, it's growing on me. I was worried at the beginning it was "too virtual reality" for my taste. Now at half-way it seems there's enough story underpinning it to keep me interested. I may well end up really liking this at the end.

[Buck]

Jo wrote: "Coming back to this one, it's growing on me. I was worried at the beginning it was "too virtual reality" for my taste. Now at half-way it seems there's enough story underpinning it to keep me inter..."

Please do report. I abandoned Snow Crash early on. If it gets good, maybe I'll give it another try one of these days.

[Peter]

I read Snow Crash some years ago. I would like to reread it, but that's not in the cards any time soon. It took me a few pages to get into Stephenson's style, but once I caught on, I stayed for the ride. For me, Snow Crash is "the last cyberpunk novel". It serves as the bookend to the raucous genre which first came to people's attention with Neuromancer.

[Jo]

Peter wrote: "For me, Snow Crash is "the last cyberpunk novel". It serves as the bookend to the raucous genre which first came to people's attention with Neuromancer.


This is a genre I would have said I had not read much of as I really hated Neuromancer and didn't bother going much further as this is often highlighted as the best Cyberpunk novel.

Having just looked up a list of what are the best cyberpunk books are http://bestsciencefictionbooks.com/be... I realise i've read more than I thought (9 from the list and 2 on my shelf waiting to be read). In fact there are some books that I would quite like to read here. I think it also shows I have no understanding of sci-fi classification whatsoever!

[CS]

What happened to April? What happened to May? Why do my jotted-down notes make no sense now? But I finished this book and wrote the review anyway. Five stars.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jo]

CS wrote: "What happened to April? What happened to May? Why do my jotted-down notes make no sense now? But I finished this book and wrote the review anyway. Five stars.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/..."

Nice review.

I quite enjoyed it in the end but I did find it quite hard to get into it at the beginning. It's not really my favourite type of sci-fi though. In fact this is the second Neal Stephenson book i've read (Cryptonomicon being the first) and I had the same problem before. I think in both cases it's more due to the subject matter.