Episode 114: Should Michael Read Snow Crash?

[[deleted user]]

It's been eleven years since I read Snow Crash and time hasn't been kind to my memories of it. I loved other novels by Stephenson, but this one fell flat. It was an ordeal to read every page so far as I can remember. The only thing truly interesting about it was the references to The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Now to be fair, I might have hated this book more because I was trapped in an extended Thanksgiving getaway with too many in-laws and that could have had a very negative influence.

On a quick note, I've heard one other reviewer mention that readers who really LOVE Snow Crash more often then not read it when they were young and were easily influenced by the kinds of things young people enjoy -- for which there is a lot in this novel.

My vote is NO, don't read it.

[Sandi]

My vote is YES, Michael should read Snow Crash. I first read it in the mid-90's, shortly after it came out. I was really ambivalent about it, but as years passed, I found I kept flashing back to it as I encountered different things in the real and cyber worlds. Remember, this book came out long before the internet was a huge deal and the world was completely Walmartized. I read it again in 2008 and I thought it had aged extremely well. I think it's actually more relevant today than it was in 1992.

On the other hand, I don't think Neuromancer has aged well at all. I decided to read it around the same time I re-read Snow Crash, and I didn't like it at all. The technology seemed very dated and it seemed to put that technology ahead of story and character.

For the record, I was in my thirties the first time I read it. I'm also not a huge Neal Stephenson fan. This and Zodiac are the only two books of his I've finished. I read huge portions of Quicksilver and Anathem, but just couldn't finish. It wasn't that I didn't like them, it's that they were so long and I just stopped caring.