Status
Available
Call number
Call number
F Ste
Collection
Publication
New York : Bantam Books, 1992.
Description
Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML:The brilliantly realized (The New York Times Book Review) modern classic that coined the term metaverseone of Times 100 best English-language novels and a foundational text of the cyberpunk movement (Wired) In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzos CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse hes a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus thats striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous . . . youll recognize it immediately.
Media reviews
Hiro Protagonist (who has chosen his own name, of course) turns out to be entertaining company, and Mr. Stephenson turns out to be an engaging guide to an onrushing tomorrow that is as farcical as it is horrific.
Los Angeles Reader
Stephenson has not stepped, he has vaulted onto the literary stage with this novel.
San Francisco Bay Guardian
A cross between Neuromancer and Thomas Pynchon's Vineland. This is no mere hyperbole.
Subjects
Original publication date
1992
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User reviews
LibraryThing member lmichet
This book has, officially, the coolest opening chapter of any book ever written in English within the last thirty years.
The screwed-up world Stephenson has created here is so intensely detailed and so outrageous, and presented with such an appealingly enthusiastic attitude, that it's impossible not
Stephenson has a great way of describing his grimly-hilarious imaginings from the viewpoints of characters who accept these wacky ideas as normal. There's the excellent opening chapter about pizza-delivery, a few great segments told from the point of view of a local Mafia lieutenant who runs his territory with the attitude of a dedicated McDonald's manager, and a description of the daily routine at a Federal office where cavity checks are a way to prove loyalty and bring-your-own-toilet-paper-rolls-- or BTDUs (bathroom tissue distribution units)-- are the norm. It's great stuff.
Not so great is Stephenson's charmingly nerdy obsession with Babylonian myth. It forms the core of the novel's mystery-- and, therefore, of the plot-- but because it's so complex, and because the characters are supposed to be constantly discovering more about it, he sometimes spends a hell of a lot of time traipsing back and forth over the same well-worn ground. Then, in order to avoid boring us with even more repetitions of the same obscure material, he has certain characters-- whom we have been following constantly throughout the plot-- suddenly appear to know much more about absolutely everything without having had time to learn about it-- either that, or the characters are much more observant and clever than the reader is. Which is, of course, an irritating thought. The mystery works well, though, and doesn't seem stupid at all, despite the fact that it's based off of a lot of interesting yet profoundly weird history that, under Stephenson's treatment, constantly seems to have just been pulled straight out of his ass.
That's the effect, I suppose, of his attitude throughout the book. Everything is AS EXTREME AS POSSIBLE, from the characters to the environment to the weapons and the explosions. This is a book for people who like things that are exciting and intelligent and weird and MAD COOL. It is a book for people who don't mind reading over 450 pages of crazy improbability wrapped in flashy style. It is not a book for people who like their science fiction hard, or for people who like their speculative fiction to resemble possibility in any way whatsoever. It's like what Steve Jobs might have cooked up during a brainstorming session held in the late 1980s-- had he been on speed, had he been a linguistics major, and had he recently been forced to watch Enter the Dragon about ten million times in a row. It's good stuff, basically. But it's SUPER INTENSE and it's not for lameasses.
The screwed-up world Stephenson has created here is so intensely detailed and so outrageous, and presented with such an appealingly enthusiastic attitude, that it's impossible not
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to have fun reading it. The first chapter throws the reader headlong into a vernacular and an atmosphere that, though basically totally unexplained (like most of his characters, Stephenson is not going to slow down to lead a reader by the hand), is very fresh and engaging-- it's difficult not to have your own hallucinatory flights of imagination about this future-past America where franchised businesses rule on their own laws and the 'Metaverse'-- a kind of 3-d, interactive, Second-Life-meets-Internet-- can substitute entirely for real-world interactions.Stephenson has a great way of describing his grimly-hilarious imaginings from the viewpoints of characters who accept these wacky ideas as normal. There's the excellent opening chapter about pizza-delivery, a few great segments told from the point of view of a local Mafia lieutenant who runs his territory with the attitude of a dedicated McDonald's manager, and a description of the daily routine at a Federal office where cavity checks are a way to prove loyalty and bring-your-own-toilet-paper-rolls-- or BTDUs (bathroom tissue distribution units)-- are the norm. It's great stuff.
Not so great is Stephenson's charmingly nerdy obsession with Babylonian myth. It forms the core of the novel's mystery-- and, therefore, of the plot-- but because it's so complex, and because the characters are supposed to be constantly discovering more about it, he sometimes spends a hell of a lot of time traipsing back and forth over the same well-worn ground. Then, in order to avoid boring us with even more repetitions of the same obscure material, he has certain characters-- whom we have been following constantly throughout the plot-- suddenly appear to know much more about absolutely everything without having had time to learn about it-- either that, or the characters are much more observant and clever than the reader is. Which is, of course, an irritating thought. The mystery works well, though, and doesn't seem stupid at all, despite the fact that it's based off of a lot of interesting yet profoundly weird history that, under Stephenson's treatment, constantly seems to have just been pulled straight out of his ass.
That's the effect, I suppose, of his attitude throughout the book. Everything is AS EXTREME AS POSSIBLE, from the characters to the environment to the weapons and the explosions. This is a book for people who like things that are exciting and intelligent and weird and MAD COOL. It is a book for people who don't mind reading over 450 pages of crazy improbability wrapped in flashy style. It is not a book for people who like their science fiction hard, or for people who like their speculative fiction to resemble possibility in any way whatsoever. It's like what Steve Jobs might have cooked up during a brainstorming session held in the late 1980s-- had he been on speed, had he been a linguistics major, and had he recently been forced to watch Enter the Dragon about ten million times in a row. It's good stuff, basically. But it's SUPER INTENSE and it's not for lameasses.
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LibraryThing member azoni
When I finished this book, my first reaction was "whoa. that was weird. awesome. crazy." I felt like chuckling, and making an awed face and a disbelieving face and a worried face all at once. Then I wanted to read it again, immediately.
Snow Crash is a fast-paced (cyberpunk style) and absolutely
I really enjoyed this book. It's a really fun read. The characters are interesting and often amusing. The author also manages to connect ancient sumerian legends, religion, linguistics, and computer viruses in a way that, bizarrely, makes sense, and gives me a 'wow, that's... cool' kind of feeling. I'm a bit of a nerd, so this (and the Metaverse, and the computer-hacking element) was quite appealing. I was a little bit skeptical about the idea-virus, but it seems plausible, and thus it is creepy. I am also a former fencer and a gymnast so i quite appreciated the action scenes. I was very impressed by the author's imagination, and a little creeped out by his vision of futuristic America because in some places, venues previously state-run are actually being given over to corporations.
The book doesn't have an obvious theme, which normally would bother me more but the other elements of the book reduced this to a mild unanswered-questions nag at the back of my head. What bothered me more, however, was that the plot was not at all straightforward. It seemed very fragmented and i had rather a hard time following it. My sensations when thinking about the plot resemble those that happen when i'm twisting midair. Perhaps it was written that way on purpose, to giver the reader a more accurate sense of the confusion and pace of a society that modern, a society that is on the computer half the time. Even so, it still bothered me a little. My one final issue is that the Metaverse is well thought out except that I don't think that the internet could concievably evolve into one cohesive whole. I suppose it's possible, but the fact of the matter is there are just too many people in the world, even when narrowed to the computer-users.
My overall impression from this book was that it's like a very long, vivid, and enjoyable dream - one of those dreams that keeps coming back to you. It caused me to feel a range of emotions (dominated by amusement) and it was very well-written and engaging despite the fragmented plot! I recommend it highly. Four stars.
Snow Crash is a fast-paced (cyberpunk style) and absolutely
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hilarious novel. It is set far (or perhaps not so far...) into the future, in a somewhat dystopic America in which the government is basically gone and everything the government once did is now run by corporations. But that's just one side of the equation. There is also a computer universe, the Metaverse, which the elite (those who have access to computers) use for business and for fun. The main character is named Hiro Protagonist. He is a master sword fighter (uses a wakizashi and a katana) and an extraordinary hacker - and also virtually unemployed and next to homeless. His ally, Y.T. (Yours Truly), is a 15-year-old girl on a super skateboard. And the villain - who becomes Y.T.'s boyfriend - is a giant Aleutian man who rides a badass motorbike, carries undetectable, molecule-sharp glass knives, can throw spears with deadly accuracy, and has a nuclear bomb wired to his brain so if he dies, it explodes. I really enjoyed this book. It's a really fun read. The characters are interesting and often amusing. The author also manages to connect ancient sumerian legends, religion, linguistics, and computer viruses in a way that, bizarrely, makes sense, and gives me a 'wow, that's... cool' kind of feeling. I'm a bit of a nerd, so this (and the Metaverse, and the computer-hacking element) was quite appealing. I was a little bit skeptical about the idea-virus, but it seems plausible, and thus it is creepy. I am also a former fencer and a gymnast so i quite appreciated the action scenes. I was very impressed by the author's imagination, and a little creeped out by his vision of futuristic America because in some places, venues previously state-run are actually being given over to corporations.
The book doesn't have an obvious theme, which normally would bother me more but the other elements of the book reduced this to a mild unanswered-questions nag at the back of my head. What bothered me more, however, was that the plot was not at all straightforward. It seemed very fragmented and i had rather a hard time following it. My sensations when thinking about the plot resemble those that happen when i'm twisting midair. Perhaps it was written that way on purpose, to giver the reader a more accurate sense of the confusion and pace of a society that modern, a society that is on the computer half the time. Even so, it still bothered me a little. My one final issue is that the Metaverse is well thought out except that I don't think that the internet could concievably evolve into one cohesive whole. I suppose it's possible, but the fact of the matter is there are just too many people in the world, even when narrowed to the computer-users.
My overall impression from this book was that it's like a very long, vivid, and enjoyable dream - one of those dreams that keeps coming back to you. It caused me to feel a range of emotions (dominated by amusement) and it was very well-written and engaging despite the fragmented plot! I recommend it highly. Four stars.
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LibraryThing member AColderWar
Despite many glowing recommendations, I came away from Snow Crash disappointed. Neal Stephenson has a number of intriguing ideas and exciting scenes but the fabric binding them together is weak and largely implausible. The characters seem more motivated by plot advancement than their own
Snow Crash has some interesting concepts (the Raft, the Street, traffic surfing) and a few humorous moments, but the poor pacing, implausible characters/setting, and apparent lack of research on Stephenson's part made these fragmented sections difficult to enjoy. There are several errors in the most important parts of the plot: the bizzare conflation between physical virus and some kind of virus-meme (I think Rorty wrote on this particular point), the political power vacuum which the corporations allegedly but completely fail to fill (Who has the nuclear weapons? If they're in the hands of multiple defense corporations, as he claims, they have a nuclear monopoly on physical violence and the reader might expect them to begin acting accordingly. Where are the courts and what protects property, either intellectual, physical, or financial? Who provides public goods or regulates the money system? Stephenson might be able to create a reasonable series of events leading to the beginning of Snow Crash, but he makes almost no references to them in the novel and they're difficult enough to intuit that it reads more like a fairy tale than a thought experiment or a solid piece of science fiction. Another minor error, but one that removed an important piece of context, is his use of inflated dollars without making a clear conversion in PPP from old to new. This leaves the reader completely in the dark as to what things actually cost and what the standard of living is like in his dystopian future. This is further muddled because he confuses old and new in several places- when Enzo pays Hiro $25 million for his services and he rushes to tell Y.T., that's roughly a bag of chips. Also minor, but when Hiro crafts his Just-So story on the Sumerian metavirus, and he posits that was the source of viruses for humans and there was a real fall from Eden, what? The origin of viruses doesn't need explanation from their linguistic synonym. Isn't there biology in the future?
I like another reviewer's suggestion that Snow Crash was meant as an allegory for the confusion of the Third World in the era of globalization and not a prediction for political/economic life in America. This interpretation keeps the spirit of the scenerio intact without worrying about the contradictions and apparent impossibilities it generates. Nonetheless, Snow Crash reads like the author had a lot of ideas but didn't want to bother correlating and advancing them in a coherent way so he just threw them in the background of some basic characters (Hacker, Spunky Teen, Benevolent Mob Boss, Religious Fanatic, Motorcycle Murderer, Worried Mother, Sultry Girlfriend). There isn't much more to the characters than these labels. Snow Crash wasn't so bad that I wish I could unread it, but I would only recommend it if you're deeply into cyberpunk or you don't mind a book that plays with a lot of ideas but doesn't really go anywhere with them.
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personalities (Rife and Y.T. especially). The factions/corporations are one dimensional and strangely anemic in their role as global superpowers (with the resources of extant governments you'd think they could afford analysts and more than a few helicopters and boats). Raven's interaction with Hiro at the end is a complete mystery to me as far as characterization is concerned.Snow Crash has some interesting concepts (the Raft, the Street, traffic surfing) and a few humorous moments, but the poor pacing, implausible characters/setting, and apparent lack of research on Stephenson's part made these fragmented sections difficult to enjoy. There are several errors in the most important parts of the plot: the bizzare conflation between physical virus and some kind of virus-meme (I think Rorty wrote on this particular point), the political power vacuum which the corporations allegedly but completely fail to fill (Who has the nuclear weapons? If they're in the hands of multiple defense corporations, as he claims, they have a nuclear monopoly on physical violence and the reader might expect them to begin acting accordingly. Where are the courts and what protects property, either intellectual, physical, or financial? Who provides public goods or regulates the money system? Stephenson might be able to create a reasonable series of events leading to the beginning of Snow Crash, but he makes almost no references to them in the novel and they're difficult enough to intuit that it reads more like a fairy tale than a thought experiment or a solid piece of science fiction. Another minor error, but one that removed an important piece of context, is his use of inflated dollars without making a clear conversion in PPP from old to new. This leaves the reader completely in the dark as to what things actually cost and what the standard of living is like in his dystopian future. This is further muddled because he confuses old and new in several places- when Enzo pays Hiro $25 million for his services and he rushes to tell Y.T., that's roughly a bag of chips. Also minor, but when Hiro crafts his Just-So story on the Sumerian metavirus, and he posits that was the source of viruses for humans and there was a real fall from Eden, what? The origin of viruses doesn't need explanation from their linguistic synonym. Isn't there biology in the future?
I like another reviewer's suggestion that Snow Crash was meant as an allegory for the confusion of the Third World in the era of globalization and not a prediction for political/economic life in America. This interpretation keeps the spirit of the scenerio intact without worrying about the contradictions and apparent impossibilities it generates. Nonetheless, Snow Crash reads like the author had a lot of ideas but didn't want to bother correlating and advancing them in a coherent way so he just threw them in the background of some basic characters (Hacker, Spunky Teen, Benevolent Mob Boss, Religious Fanatic, Motorcycle Murderer, Worried Mother, Sultry Girlfriend). There isn't much more to the characters than these labels. Snow Crash wasn't so bad that I wish I could unread it, but I would only recommend it if you're deeply into cyberpunk or you don't mind a book that plays with a lot of ideas but doesn't really go anywhere with them.
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LibraryThing member aplomb1
Not many writers have a style so distinctive a reader could pick it out with a single paragraph, but Stephenson is one, and every page of Snow Crash is packed with his observant wit -- along with seemingly everything else. But he's no David Foster Wallace -- he never crushes the reader with his
If there's any plot that can be called "rollicking," it's Snow Crash's -- the novel plunges hell-bent through a kaleidoscopic future world from page 1 to the hilariously abrupt acknowledgements on page 469, presenting a fascinating new set-piece on seemingly every page. It's the most fun book I've ever read. But more than that, Snow Crash presents a world that's completely absurd and completely believable at the same time, bringing attention to the craziness of our own world by amplifying it and bringing its movements to their logical results. Is it a social criticism? Satire? Genre fiction or literature? It's all of these, but above all, it does what all great books do -- it simply tells a great story that makes us see the world for what it is, not through any grand sweeping theme but through the sharp details that tell us what makes people tick, whether they're alone or in a society. That Stephenson was able to do this while making it almost impossibly fun at the same time is incredible.
Snow Crash isn't perfect (Stephenson was clearly determined to follow Chekhov's gun rule even with the plot turning mazelike near the end, resulting in a few jarring developments), but every flaw is obliterated by the sheer joy of the thing, and are hardly worth mentioning. Fans of books of all kinds are lucky to have him.
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intelligence, no matter how dense the information dumps get, and through some kind of magic I haven't figured out yet, he makes the history as fascinating to us as it clearly is to him, to the point where we almost don't notice that most of it is incidental to the plot. But who ever said a sci-fi novel can't have a huge digression into Sumerian myth?If there's any plot that can be called "rollicking," it's Snow Crash's -- the novel plunges hell-bent through a kaleidoscopic future world from page 1 to the hilariously abrupt acknowledgements on page 469, presenting a fascinating new set-piece on seemingly every page. It's the most fun book I've ever read. But more than that, Snow Crash presents a world that's completely absurd and completely believable at the same time, bringing attention to the craziness of our own world by amplifying it and bringing its movements to their logical results. Is it a social criticism? Satire? Genre fiction or literature? It's all of these, but above all, it does what all great books do -- it simply tells a great story that makes us see the world for what it is, not through any grand sweeping theme but through the sharp details that tell us what makes people tick, whether they're alone or in a society. That Stephenson was able to do this while making it almost impossibly fun at the same time is incredible.
Snow Crash isn't perfect (Stephenson was clearly determined to follow Chekhov's gun rule even with the plot turning mazelike near the end, resulting in a few jarring developments), but every flaw is obliterated by the sheer joy of the thing, and are hardly worth mentioning. Fans of books of all kinds are lucky to have him.
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LibraryThing member name99
A silly book, but very enjoyable.
My take on it is that Stephenson wanted to take the feeling experienced by those in places like Asia and Africa as the modern world washes over and totally disorients them, and translate it to America.
As such the book is not a prediction --- "In fifteen years the
The second half of the book goes off the rails a little as the Sumerian mind-control plot is developed, but again, being kind to Stephenson, I don't think that he, in any sense, buys into this idea, he simply found it interesting.
Ultimately I think the book is less than it could have been because it tries to marry together two very different sub-books, and in doing so demeans both of them. Even so, it was worth the time given that even the more lame ideas in it, like that old cliche of virtual reality, were treated in a way that wasn't completely stupid (which is far far more than I can say for Neuromancer, a complete waste of time if there ever was one).
My take on it is that Stephenson wanted to take the feeling experienced by those in places like Asia and Africa as the modern world washes over and totally disorients them, and translate it to America.
As such the book is not a prediction --- "In fifteen years the
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federal government will be powerless and the mafia will be running pizza franchises" --- it's an attempt to illustrate the chaos and arbitrariness of life in Lagos or Kinshasa in terms that can be appreciated by the western reader; and it does that fairly well. The second half of the book goes off the rails a little as the Sumerian mind-control plot is developed, but again, being kind to Stephenson, I don't think that he, in any sense, buys into this idea, he simply found it interesting.
Ultimately I think the book is less than it could have been because it tries to marry together two very different sub-books, and in doing so demeans both of them. Even so, it was worth the time given that even the more lame ideas in it, like that old cliche of virtual reality, were treated in a way that wasn't completely stupid (which is far far more than I can say for Neuromancer, a complete waste of time if there ever was one).
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LibraryThing member willszal
I generally don’t read much science-fiction (or even just fiction, for that matter). Last year I read “The Cryptonomicon” and loved it. I heard that “Seveneves” covers a long time period, which I don’t like, and thought maybe I’d give “Snow Crash” a try.
Published in 1992, “Snow
My first reception is that the book is a lot of fun. It’s nicely cyber-punk, with virtual worlds, and unbridled capitalism—a blend of dystopian and utopian trends.
My second reception feels a little uneasy with the racism and sexism in the book. One of the “bad guys,” Raven, is indigenous. Why couldn’t he have been some kind of white nationalist? That would be much more realistic, and much less racist. Additionally, the primary female figure in the book is fifteen years old, and is given much sexual attention, including rape. This also feels inappropriate. I have read some Margaret Atwood, where such digressions are clearly dystopian critiques of patriarchy, but it is uncomfortably blurry in this book.
The core premise of the book is built on a machine-conception of the human brain. This analogy has been proven false in many scientific studies, but also has significant staying power. One of the core ideas in the book centers around a virus which can both affect computers and humans. This is a dangerous misunderstanding of humans. We are fundamentally different than machines—and it’s a good thing too (as this plot line points out).
Although this book is entertaining, twenty-six years on, it comes across as objectionable, and espousing unsound philosophy.
Published in 1992, “Snow
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Crash” seems to be set in the early 2000s (although both the technological advances and societal collapse have been severe). There’s a fair amount of talk of WWII and Vietnam, which seems out of place in a book set in the 21st century (yet also seemingly a theme in Stephenson).My first reception is that the book is a lot of fun. It’s nicely cyber-punk, with virtual worlds, and unbridled capitalism—a blend of dystopian and utopian trends.
My second reception feels a little uneasy with the racism and sexism in the book. One of the “bad guys,” Raven, is indigenous. Why couldn’t he have been some kind of white nationalist? That would be much more realistic, and much less racist. Additionally, the primary female figure in the book is fifteen years old, and is given much sexual attention, including rape. This also feels inappropriate. I have read some Margaret Atwood, where such digressions are clearly dystopian critiques of patriarchy, but it is uncomfortably blurry in this book.
The core premise of the book is built on a machine-conception of the human brain. This analogy has been proven false in many scientific studies, but also has significant staying power. One of the core ideas in the book centers around a virus which can both affect computers and humans. This is a dangerous misunderstanding of humans. We are fundamentally different than machines—and it’s a good thing too (as this plot line points out).
Although this book is entertaining, twenty-six years on, it comes across as objectionable, and espousing unsound philosophy.
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LibraryThing member Noisy
Written in 1992? Could have been written yesterday, it's that fresh. Wonderful writing style in the same class as Peter Hamilton and - yes - even Iain M. Banks.
It's a romp through a world where consumerism and the capitalist way have broken the bounds of government, now reduced to a mere cypher,
The cast of characters is interesting, though they are definitely playing second-fiddle to the story. In fact, they are clearly drawn so as to be distinguishable, but seem to be lacking substance in the centre. Doesn't really matter to me, because I was drawn along by the rip-roaring chain of events with plenty of movement and explosions.
There is also a parallel world to explore, with the Metaverse - a virtual reality world - playing a significant part in events. I suppose that some of the elements of the Metaverse (a term that Stephenson invented, apparently) seem a trifle incomplete, but it's still a pretty comprehensive thought experiment, and with Second Life you can see a lot of the ideas directly transposed.
I found the ending a little weak, but my recommendation for this stock is still: Buy! Buy! Buy!
It's a romp through a world where consumerism and the capitalist way have broken the bounds of government, now reduced to a mere cypher,
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and yet anarchy is somehow kept in check. Not quite sure how that works out - the underclass (on land) don't figure too heavily in the story. It would take a re-reading to see how the class power struggle is dealt with, because I really don't see how the separation between industrial/commercial power and political power could come about. The cast of characters is interesting, though they are definitely playing second-fiddle to the story. In fact, they are clearly drawn so as to be distinguishable, but seem to be lacking substance in the centre. Doesn't really matter to me, because I was drawn along by the rip-roaring chain of events with plenty of movement and explosions.
There is also a parallel world to explore, with the Metaverse - a virtual reality world - playing a significant part in events. I suppose that some of the elements of the Metaverse (a term that Stephenson invented, apparently) seem a trifle incomplete, but it's still a pretty comprehensive thought experiment, and with Second Life you can see a lot of the ideas directly transposed.
I found the ending a little weak, but my recommendation for this stock is still: Buy! Buy! Buy!
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LibraryThing member Anome
This is supposed to have been originally planned as a graphic novel. That would help explain some of the shortcomings of the narrative, but it's still not a very satisfactory explanation.
Stephenson revisits some of his favourite themes, particularly the Balkanisation of nations around corporate
Stephenson revisits some of his favourite themes, particularly the Balkanisation of nations around corporate
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entities, and, of course, the computer subculture. At times the plot seems a little too fantastic, and it has the usual train wreck of an ending where everything happens at once, but it also suffers from Stephenson's use of dramatic time. Between scenes sometimes months go by with no indication until some time later. This may be a side effect of the graphic novel origin, but it does turn up in some of his other books as well. Show Less
LibraryThing member antao
Did Charles Dickens predict the welfare state, did Oscar Wilde predict single-sex marriages, did Jane Austen give any inkling that it might one day be possible for women to be enfranchised? I think the predictive power of fiction is extremely low. Futurologists have a punt at it but even they miss
SF is not necessarily positive in its forecasts or messages. Jean Raspail's "The Camp of the Saints" from 1973 with its deplorable plot of France being overrun by illegal immigrants from Asia is seen by many as a source-book for The Great Replacement Theory advanced by white supremacist groups. One of Neal Stephenson's first novels was from 1992, “Snow Crash”, and drew on ideas and trends that were already present. I read it back then and enjoyed it, a fast moving thriller, a broken state, big corps, privatised public goods, mind viruses and the like. Information and matter in rapid motion, smashing representations and reality together like some weird large collider of another kind. William Gibson had written Neuromancer by then, so cyberpunks had a named space, a place to swarm and to grow evermore inter-pelleted and fractally entwined with meatspace, the so-called Real World.
While Gibson is mostly given credit for coining the term and inspiring all sorts of people to make real aspects of his fictions there was an earlier author who kinda got there first. John M Ford's “Web of Angels” was published in 1980 and largely relates to such a linked web of machine devices, computers that afford all sorts of bodies for minds to ride like horses. It's a fun read, very inventive, very imaginative, and includes mentions of an Antikythera device, an anomalous innovation that seems out-of-place.
Science may make the familiar strange, undermine and disturb. Fictions help people re-appraise and reconsolidate some necessary structure in these suddenly new found worlds. Science and fiction are inevitably bound together. It is no great surprise to find that Science Fiction is especially relevant to our modern world of Global Environmental Change.
(my own copy bought in 1996 at Tema bookshop at the Xenon Mall)
Re-reading Stephenson’s novel after so many years the shortcomings appear to be obvious, especially the last 1/3 of it. This last 1/3 seems like old code that just gets neglected because no one can remember what it does or why it does it. And it seems the editor of this novel was afraid of what might go wrong if he touched it. So it seems new bits got bolted on as Stephenson went along, with old “core functions” getting tarted up with new “front ends” and so on. The last part should have been scrapped and the the novel “restarted” from the beginning. Writers like Stephenson may be obsolete nowadays, but wouldn't life in the pub on a Friday night be so different without them doing their stuff? Those SF writers with red rimmed poppy out eyes, telling you about their week in front of a screen, you know what I mean? We'll so miss that red glow in a dark pub when writers like Stephenson are no longer producing top-notch stuff. Instead we’ll have unending CRAPPY YA SF.
Book Review Cyberpunk SF = Speculative Fiction
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the mark in the vast majority of their prognostications. You know, I think the secret to good SF is to make the reader believe what they are reading is real. Like real people and places involved in fantastic situations that are completely believable, even though logic says this can not be so.SF is not necessarily positive in its forecasts or messages. Jean Raspail's "The Camp of the Saints" from 1973 with its deplorable plot of France being overrun by illegal immigrants from Asia is seen by many as a source-book for The Great Replacement Theory advanced by white supremacist groups. One of Neal Stephenson's first novels was from 1992, “Snow Crash”, and drew on ideas and trends that were already present. I read it back then and enjoyed it, a fast moving thriller, a broken state, big corps, privatised public goods, mind viruses and the like. Information and matter in rapid motion, smashing representations and reality together like some weird large collider of another kind. William Gibson had written Neuromancer by then, so cyberpunks had a named space, a place to swarm and to grow evermore inter-pelleted and fractally entwined with meatspace, the so-called Real World.
While Gibson is mostly given credit for coining the term and inspiring all sorts of people to make real aspects of his fictions there was an earlier author who kinda got there first. John M Ford's “Web of Angels” was published in 1980 and largely relates to such a linked web of machine devices, computers that afford all sorts of bodies for minds to ride like horses. It's a fun read, very inventive, very imaginative, and includes mentions of an Antikythera device, an anomalous innovation that seems out-of-place.
Science may make the familiar strange, undermine and disturb. Fictions help people re-appraise and reconsolidate some necessary structure in these suddenly new found worlds. Science and fiction are inevitably bound together. It is no great surprise to find that Science Fiction is especially relevant to our modern world of Global Environmental Change.
(my own copy bought in 1996 at Tema bookshop at the Xenon Mall)
Re-reading Stephenson’s novel after so many years the shortcomings appear to be obvious, especially the last 1/3 of it. This last 1/3 seems like old code that just gets neglected because no one can remember what it does or why it does it. And it seems the editor of this novel was afraid of what might go wrong if he touched it. So it seems new bits got bolted on as Stephenson went along, with old “core functions” getting tarted up with new “front ends” and so on. The last part should have been scrapped and the the novel “restarted” from the beginning. Writers like Stephenson may be obsolete nowadays, but wouldn't life in the pub on a Friday night be so different without them doing their stuff? Those SF writers with red rimmed poppy out eyes, telling you about their week in front of a screen, you know what I mean? We'll so miss that red glow in a dark pub when writers like Stephenson are no longer producing top-notch stuff. Instead we’ll have unending CRAPPY YA SF.
Book Review Cyberpunk SF = Speculative Fiction
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LibraryThing member RobertDay
I've come a little late to the works of Neal Stephenson. This is the third novel of his that I've read; I enjoyed it immensely. We are in high cyberpunk territory; in the near future, the USA is completely privatised - the Army, the navy, the churches, the roads are all franchises of one sort or
Into this story steps Hiro Protagonist. When a pizza delivery goes badly wrong, he is saved from the worst consequences by the intervention of skateboard Kourier YT, who makes the drop for him with seconds to spare, thus coming to the attention of Uncle Enzo, the Don of the Deep Crust. Meanwhile, Protagonist retreats into virtual reality to lick his wounds by hanging out in the virtual bar he helped create; but his friend, business partner and bar owner Da5id (I never worked out how to pronounce that) is rendered comatose by a new drug called Snow Crash, which reduces the human brain to the equivalent of a computer screen full of white noise and that only affects hackers. Protagonist and YT set out to unravel what is going on. On the way they encounter an Aleutian Islander with a mighty spear-throwing arm and his own personal nuclear weapon, a digital Librarian, a televangelist with his own aircraft carrier, and the President of the United States (who no-one recognises). There are high-speed motorcycle chases, samurai sword combat and various types of exotic weaponry.
But it's not without faults. The book dates from 1992, and some of the tech is definitely from that era - not just the computers, but also things like payphones and fax machines. And Hiro Protagonist - as well as some of the other characters - have parents who were involved in World War 2, making him my age or perhaps a bit younger, yet he is depicted as a man in the prime of virile life, which would set the action of the book around the end of the 1990s at the latest. Yet the society depicted is entrenched and the various franchises, the hacker enclaves and the virtual world itself seem to have been in place for very many years. But these issues hardly matter because the pace of the story and the characters carry the reader past these problems.
A bit more problematical are the huge infodumps on the subject of Sumerian language and religion. There is a LOT of this, and it starts around the middle of the book and continues to pop up throughout almost the rest of the story as Hiro figures out that we are looking at a viral meme that has been circulating since the second century BCE. Yet even this hardly slows the story, especially as Hiro often switches between the virtual world (where these infodumps occur)and the real world, where he may well at the same time be involved in serious action.
Many of the characters - Protagonist, YT, and Uncle Enzo in particular - are well drawn and many will find themselves rooting for YT in particular. Even the Aleut baddie, Raven, is sympathetically drawn and isn't a cardboard cut-out villain. And there is a cybernetic guard dog of terrible power who is described in terms that will make any animal lover feel all warm and fuzzy.
There is one other problem. YT is described as being 15 years of age. But she is no child in terms of sexual experience, and there is one sexual episode involving her. This is a society without laws and the only sanctions come from just who you upset. To be fair, there is no way that YT could be described as a child in any sense apart from her age, and Stephenson doesn't show her as such. In such a society, children grow up fast, or run the risk of not growing up at all.
If you can cope with these issues, then this novel will entertain and also give food for thought. Stephenson's interest in Sumerian language and decoding ancient memes foreshadows the in-depth examination of cryptography in his later novel 'Cryptonomicon'. His virtual reality world, the Metaverse, stands up well in its form and its workings. The outdated tech doesn't get in the way of the story; the infodumps could be more of a problem if you are only looking for slap-bang action throughout. But where there is action, there is more than enough to satisfy those who want to see Things Exploding.
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another. The Mafia run a pizza delivery service, and guarantee a 30-minute max delivery time, or heads will roll. That may well not be a metaphor.Into this story steps Hiro Protagonist. When a pizza delivery goes badly wrong, he is saved from the worst consequences by the intervention of skateboard Kourier YT, who makes the drop for him with seconds to spare, thus coming to the attention of Uncle Enzo, the Don of the Deep Crust. Meanwhile, Protagonist retreats into virtual reality to lick his wounds by hanging out in the virtual bar he helped create; but his friend, business partner and bar owner Da5id (I never worked out how to pronounce that) is rendered comatose by a new drug called Snow Crash, which reduces the human brain to the equivalent of a computer screen full of white noise and that only affects hackers. Protagonist and YT set out to unravel what is going on. On the way they encounter an Aleutian Islander with a mighty spear-throwing arm and his own personal nuclear weapon, a digital Librarian, a televangelist with his own aircraft carrier, and the President of the United States (who no-one recognises). There are high-speed motorcycle chases, samurai sword combat and various types of exotic weaponry.
But it's not without faults. The book dates from 1992, and some of the tech is definitely from that era - not just the computers, but also things like payphones and fax machines. And Hiro Protagonist - as well as some of the other characters - have parents who were involved in World War 2, making him my age or perhaps a bit younger, yet he is depicted as a man in the prime of virile life, which would set the action of the book around the end of the 1990s at the latest. Yet the society depicted is entrenched and the various franchises, the hacker enclaves and the virtual world itself seem to have been in place for very many years. But these issues hardly matter because the pace of the story and the characters carry the reader past these problems.
A bit more problematical are the huge infodumps on the subject of Sumerian language and religion. There is a LOT of this, and it starts around the middle of the book and continues to pop up throughout almost the rest of the story as Hiro figures out that we are looking at a viral meme that has been circulating since the second century BCE. Yet even this hardly slows the story, especially as Hiro often switches between the virtual world (where these infodumps occur)and the real world, where he may well at the same time be involved in serious action.
Many of the characters - Protagonist, YT, and Uncle Enzo in particular - are well drawn and many will find themselves rooting for YT in particular. Even the Aleut baddie, Raven, is sympathetically drawn and isn't a cardboard cut-out villain. And there is a cybernetic guard dog of terrible power who is described in terms that will make any animal lover feel all warm and fuzzy.
There is one other problem. YT is described as being 15 years of age. But she is no child in terms of sexual experience, and there is one sexual episode involving her. This is a society without laws and the only sanctions come from just who you upset. To be fair, there is no way that YT could be described as a child in any sense apart from her age, and Stephenson doesn't show her as such. In such a society, children grow up fast, or run the risk of not growing up at all.
If you can cope with these issues, then this novel will entertain and also give food for thought. Stephenson's interest in Sumerian language and decoding ancient memes foreshadows the in-depth examination of cryptography in his later novel 'Cryptonomicon'. His virtual reality world, the Metaverse, stands up well in its form and its workings. The outdated tech doesn't get in the way of the story; the infodumps could be more of a problem if you are only looking for slap-bang action throughout. But where there is action, there is more than enough to satisfy those who want to see Things Exploding.
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LibraryThing member bdgamer
I went into Snow Crash with trepidation. It’s considered one of the greatest cyberpunk novels of all time, and there was so much hype from friends and the Internet that I (almost) believed it wouldn’t live up to expectations.
I was pleasantly and gloriously wrong.
Despite being published in 1992,
Depictions of people in the Metaverse is also spot-on, especially in the ways they interact with each other. Yes, there are some dated bits (most prominently, buying software off the shelves), but for the most part it was on point.
Stephenson does excellent world building, too. I loved the execution of “franchulates,” which are a result of the breakdown of countries as we know it. The idea of electronic visas (as barcodes on people’s bodies) in 1992 may have seemed far-fetched, but now it seems logical and the next step forward. He also captures the utter banality of government bureaucracy in brilliant detail. The idea of cybersecurity, bionic people, and the mashup of organic matter with metal bodies – all these are explored in very interesting ways.
Thankfully, the book does not take itself too seriously. The light-hearted tone helps set up the protagonists Hiro and Y.T., both of whom have enough spunk and heart to stand out in a world that has grown cynically dark and bitter. To be fair though, Y.T. felt more developed than Hiro. She had more genuine moments and character development than others in the story. Having said that, ancillary characters are almost cardboard cutouts, being introduced and disposed of without much fanfare.
While the story is brisk, it gets slightly bogged down in the middle, especially with the very academic discussion of language and its use in programming people. I found the concept of the memetic, neurological virus remarkable, particularly in the way it tied into computer programming.
It may not be deep or thought provoking, but Snow Crash stands out as a work that you will positively remember in the crowded cyberpunk literary landscape. Get yourself a copy of the book and plug into the Metaverse, pronto!
I was pleasantly and gloriously wrong.
Despite being published in 1992,
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Stephenson captures the very essence of 2018 culture and technology. The Metaverse, which is presented in both 2D and 3D as VR, is pretty much a fancier version of the Internet. Hypercards, avatars, “hacking,” and AI that were presented could be replaced with contemporary tools and technologies.Depictions of people in the Metaverse is also spot-on, especially in the ways they interact with each other. Yes, there are some dated bits (most prominently, buying software off the shelves), but for the most part it was on point.
Stephenson does excellent world building, too. I loved the execution of “franchulates,” which are a result of the breakdown of countries as we know it. The idea of electronic visas (as barcodes on people’s bodies) in 1992 may have seemed far-fetched, but now it seems logical and the next step forward. He also captures the utter banality of government bureaucracy in brilliant detail. The idea of cybersecurity, bionic people, and the mashup of organic matter with metal bodies – all these are explored in very interesting ways.
Thankfully, the book does not take itself too seriously. The light-hearted tone helps set up the protagonists Hiro and Y.T., both of whom have enough spunk and heart to stand out in a world that has grown cynically dark and bitter. To be fair though, Y.T. felt more developed than Hiro. She had more genuine moments and character development than others in the story. Having said that, ancillary characters are almost cardboard cutouts, being introduced and disposed of without much fanfare.
While the story is brisk, it gets slightly bogged down in the middle, especially with the very academic discussion of language and its use in programming people. I found the concept of the memetic, neurological virus remarkable, particularly in the way it tied into computer programming.
It may not be deep or thought provoking, but Snow Crash stands out as a work that you will positively remember in the crowded cyberpunk literary landscape. Get yourself a copy of the book and plug into the Metaverse, pronto!
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LibraryThing member Narilka
snow crash
[snoh-krash]
verb
1. when a computer crashes at such a fundamental level that it can no longer control the CRT in the monitor, thus the monitor displays a screen of static.
The United States is a thing of the past. The west coast has been carved up by private organizations and
Hiro Protagonist's business card reads "Last of the freelance hackers" and "Greatest sword fighter in the world." But that's in the Metaverse. In reality he works as a pizza delivery guy. During a botched delivery he meets and befriends Y.T., a streetwise fifteen-year-old girl and skateboard courier. The two become partners in the intelligence business, gathering information to sell. While jacked in to the Metaverse Hiro discovers a virus that is infecting hackers both both their avatars in cyberspace and in the physical world. Soon it becomes a race to stop the spread of the virus before it's too late.
Snow Crash is a futuristic cyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It has a complicated and ambitious plot covering a variety of topics: religion, the nature of language and linguistics, ancient Sumerian civilization, archaeology, computer science, virology, politics, globalization and philosophy. The most fascinating part is how Stephenson used the Sumerian myth and the Tower of Babel to create a nuerolinguistic virus. Some of the technology parts are starting to feel dated, though that's not unexpected for a book written in 1992. That said, it's amazing how culturally relevant the story is. Given the current state of politics, it is easy to imagine our society devolving in such a manner.
The characters take a little time to build. Hiro Protagonist (such a silly name) is an out of work hacker trying to make ends meet as a pizza delivery driver. Y.T., which stands for Yours Truly, is a teen aged skateboard courier. Y.T. reminds Hiro of himself when he was fifteen so he befriends her and they form an unlikely partnership. Gradually their personalities and motivations are filled in. Just as they're starting to feel like fleshed out characters, Stephenson lets it all go and they become more like cardboard cutouts used to prop up the plot by the end of the novel.
I listened to the audiobook over the course of two months during random long commutes made for work. This is definitely NOT the ideal way to get through such a complicated story. A couple times I had to look up the Sumerian myths because I had forgotten what some of the terms meant. This is not necessarily a bad thing as I enjoy mythology and did not know much about the Sumerian's prior to the novel, but it didn't help me keep the continuity of the story. The narrator, Jonathan Davies, does a great job. There were times I forgot only one person was doing the reading!
[snoh-krash]
verb
1. when a computer crashes at such a fundamental level that it can no longer control the CRT in the monitor, thus the monitor displays a screen of static.
The United States is a thing of the past. The west coast has been carved up by private organizations and
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entrepreneurs. Gated, heavily guarded communities have become their own sovereign territories. What little remains of the government is limited to small enclaves. Things are just this side of anarchy. Hyperinflation has devalued the dollar so that people use trillion dollar bills or cyber currency. That hyperinflation as had a negative impact on most of the rest of the world as well causing refugees to flee in the hope that someplace else, any place else, may be better. Only virtual reality offers an escape from reality. That is until the discovery of Snow Crash. Hiro Protagonist's business card reads "Last of the freelance hackers" and "Greatest sword fighter in the world." But that's in the Metaverse. In reality he works as a pizza delivery guy. During a botched delivery he meets and befriends Y.T., a streetwise fifteen-year-old girl and skateboard courier. The two become partners in the intelligence business, gathering information to sell. While jacked in to the Metaverse Hiro discovers a virus that is infecting hackers both both their avatars in cyberspace and in the physical world. Soon it becomes a race to stop the spread of the virus before it's too late.
Snow Crash is a futuristic cyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It has a complicated and ambitious plot covering a variety of topics: religion, the nature of language and linguistics, ancient Sumerian civilization, archaeology, computer science, virology, politics, globalization and philosophy. The most fascinating part is how Stephenson used the Sumerian myth and the Tower of Babel to create a nuerolinguistic virus. Some of the technology parts are starting to feel dated, though that's not unexpected for a book written in 1992. That said, it's amazing how culturally relevant the story is. Given the current state of politics, it is easy to imagine our society devolving in such a manner.
The characters take a little time to build. Hiro Protagonist (such a silly name) is an out of work hacker trying to make ends meet as a pizza delivery driver. Y.T., which stands for Yours Truly, is a teen aged skateboard courier. Y.T. reminds Hiro of himself when he was fifteen so he befriends her and they form an unlikely partnership. Gradually their personalities and motivations are filled in. Just as they're starting to feel like fleshed out characters, Stephenson lets it all go and they become more like cardboard cutouts used to prop up the plot by the end of the novel.
I listened to the audiobook over the course of two months during random long commutes made for work. This is definitely NOT the ideal way to get through such a complicated story. A couple times I had to look up the Sumerian myths because I had forgotten what some of the terms meant. This is not necessarily a bad thing as I enjoy mythology and did not know much about the Sumerian's prior to the novel, but it didn't help me keep the continuity of the story. The narrator, Jonathan Davies, does a great job. There were times I forgot only one person was doing the reading!
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LibraryThing member knownever
Typical cyber punk. If you've read all the heavy-hitters are are desperate for more you could do worse.
There's a computer construct/virtual reality/internet thing and some dystopian refugee camps floating around on rusted boats tied together into some kind of poverty ecosystem (the Scar by China
It does have a good sex scene between our tiny but non-delicate-flower co-protagonist, YT, and a giant meat lump of a villain. It's the only reason I bought this book at 15 so I guess there's that in its favor...
There's a computer construct/virtual reality/internet thing and some dystopian refugee camps floating around on rusted boats tied together into some kind of poverty ecosystem (the Scar by China
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Mieville's city "Armada" is a more imaginative riff on the same concept). Hiro Protaganist (get it?) and a teen girl named YT (Yours Truly: get it?) end up on a mission to stop a half-baked "linguistic virus" from infecting people's brains via the internet or some kind of drug called "Snow Crash" (get it?). There is almost no hard science at all, ancient Sumerian gets tossed around, and the world Stephenson creates is never as interesting or novel as it should be. I mean the Mob owns the pizza delivery business. Access to pizza is restricted?!?!? The perfect 90s dystopian premise!It does have a good sex scene between our tiny but non-delicate-flower co-protagonist, YT, and a giant meat lump of a villain. It's the only reason I bought this book at 15 so I guess there's that in its favor...
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LibraryThing member reading_fox
The main protagonist Hito (pun) ex-pizza delivery guy and samuri sword wielder saves the world from an informational virus.
A great fun read set in a modern america with rampant technology, where the natural progression of global business has franchised out religion, government and knowledge.
The "bad guys" have used their position as franchise leaders to delve into Sumatrian history and re-develop an informational meme into an active biological form and even more imaginatively a digital version that hackers can read directly from the binary.
The book was originally planned a graphic novel and the whole feel of short sequance action scripts does come through. Interestingly in '94 when this book was written the Internet as a Metaverse was only just beginning to catch on. "Memes" were not then recognised as having a biological root, and while the science is still progressing, there IS now so support for this concept.
The plot is complicated but the diversions into the library for fully researched sources happen in short enough chunks that the important information does not slow down the text.
Considering the way the our multi franchised world is heading it is worth considering if the "good" guys did win out in the end?!
A great fun read set in a modern america with rampant technology, where the natural progression of global business has franchised out religion, government and knowledge.
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Populations live is guarded enclaves, and the Internet is almost real. Its a great world to be young and adventurous in, particularly if you are just old enough to have helped develop the early hacks Internet. The "bad guys" have used their position as franchise leaders to delve into Sumatrian history and re-develop an informational meme into an active biological form and even more imaginatively a digital version that hackers can read directly from the binary.
The book was originally planned a graphic novel and the whole feel of short sequance action scripts does come through. Interestingly in '94 when this book was written the Internet as a Metaverse was only just beginning to catch on. "Memes" were not then recognised as having a biological root, and while the science is still progressing, there IS now so support for this concept.
The plot is complicated but the diversions into the library for fully researched sources happen in short enough chunks that the important information does not slow down the text.
Considering the way the our multi franchised world is heading it is worth considering if the "good" guys did win out in the end?!
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LibraryThing member DanielZKlein
By far not as sophisticated or mature as his later work, and yet somehow much more entertaining to me personally than anything up to _Anathem_.
Stephenson has this thing about Cool Ideas. He does them so very very well that you can't help but actually say "wow" as you read them. They are in all his
And that's why I rated _Snow Crash_ so highly: seemingly every page of it has a mind-bendingly cool and unheard-of idea. It seems Stephenson can hardly control himself. Say of the plot what you will here; it is ultimately nothing but a vehicle for very, very cool ideas. And hey, this whole persistent world with avatars and customization idea wasn't half bad, was it?
His later works are quiet symphonies with occasional outbursts of joy. This is a Heavy Metal concert with exploding cars all over the place.
Stephenson has this thing about Cool Ideas. He does them so very very well that you can't help but actually say "wow" as you read them. They are in all his
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books, but in _Cryptonomicon_ and _The Baroque Cycle_ they are much more subdued. Come to think of it, they are in _Anathem_, too, but in _Anathem_ the themes of the rest of the story are so great and well executed that we don't miss the breathless "one awesome idea per page" pace of books like _Snow Crash_.And that's why I rated _Snow Crash_ so highly: seemingly every page of it has a mind-bendingly cool and unheard-of idea. It seems Stephenson can hardly control himself. Say of the plot what you will here; it is ultimately nothing but a vehicle for very, very cool ideas. And hey, this whole persistent world with avatars and customization idea wasn't half bad, was it?
His later works are quiet symphonies with occasional outbursts of joy. This is a Heavy Metal concert with exploding cars all over the place.
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LibraryThing member cannellfan
One of the most influential books in recent science fiction. Stephenson has a brilliant grasp of what sociological/technological changes are only a short distance in our future, and what the impact of those changes is going to be on our world. This book is stylistically all over the place, but if
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you can get past the seeming chaos, you'll see that Stephenson very accurately predicted the worlds of social networking and deep databases on the world wide web, and he's dead on in predicting such increasingly popular virtual environments as Second Life. In addition to being an extremely prescient science fiction novel, it's also a rock 'em sock 'em adventure and high-tech espionage book, with liberal doses of multi-culturalism and religious exploration thrown in for good measure. Don't pick this book up if you're looking for a traditional linear reading experience. But if you want an excellent example of cutting edge, mind-blowing, high-tech scifi, you won't want to miss this one! Show Less
LibraryThing member dczapka
Snow Crash is a novel that feels like it plays right at the intersection of style and substance, and though it depends heavily on both, I'm not convinced it executes both equally as well.
Stylistically, it's a straight-up rollicking postmodern cyberpunk romp through Reality and the virtual reality
Hiro, and just about everyone else over the course of this expansive novel, ends up at the wrong place at the wrong time and suddenly storylines are flying every which way but are not handled with equal aplomb. In fact, it's a credit to Stephenson's writing skill that it all mostly comes together in the end, but the resolution feels somewhat forced and unnatural, and the characters have practically zero denouement once they're dispatched with by the text.
It's hip and clever, perhaps a bit too much, and features amazingly inventive and prescient scenarios, but it comes so close to being a chaotic mess that ultimately it's hard to decide whether or not it actually is.
What's for certain is that this is an unquestionably exciting, adrenaline-pumping ride, and if that's all Stephenson was going for, then he has definitely succeeded.
Stylistically, it's a straight-up rollicking postmodern cyberpunk romp through Reality and the virtual reality
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of the Metaverse, as our hero protagonist, the aptly-named Hiro Protagonist, tries to balance his pizza delivery career with his skills as a hacker and Nipponese swordsman.Hiro, and just about everyone else over the course of this expansive novel, ends up at the wrong place at the wrong time and suddenly storylines are flying every which way but are not handled with equal aplomb. In fact, it's a credit to Stephenson's writing skill that it all mostly comes together in the end, but the resolution feels somewhat forced and unnatural, and the characters have practically zero denouement once they're dispatched with by the text.
It's hip and clever, perhaps a bit too much, and features amazingly inventive and prescient scenarios, but it comes so close to being a chaotic mess that ultimately it's hard to decide whether or not it actually is.
What's for certain is that this is an unquestionably exciting, adrenaline-pumping ride, and if that's all Stephenson was going for, then he has definitely succeeded.
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LibraryThing member wifilibrarian
A classic of science fiction and cyber punk, this is the first Neal Stepenson I've read. It had some impressively prescient ideas for when it was published in the early 90s, but I'm not sure when this book was mean to be set. Someone reading this in 1995 would have found this even more fantastical
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than I did. The most interesting ideas were about virtual reality, the shrinking of the microchip and it's computing power exponentially increasing. I also liked dangerous concept of Library of Congress merging with intelligence arm of the government and turning into a warehouse of digital information. In New Zealand, our national library recently became a subsidiary of the Internal Affairs department, so this could happen to us eventually! The huge social and societal changes were less understandable, but maybe because I'm not an American this was harder to undersand. I didn't really understand any of the characters, and this seemed more like a bunch of cool ideas than one coherent novel. One of the least palatable aspects is the 15 year old character's explicit and detailed sex scene. I may eventually read some other Stephenson but if this was a good place to start I have my doubts. Show Less
LibraryThing member bunwat
This was very certainly a novel of ideas; from a shared virtual reality called the Metaverse where hackers rule to the breakdown of nationalism where governments have been replaced by multi national companies, to the psychology of language accqusition in the ancient world, the origin of religion,
Stephenson is good at economical characterization and is able to sketch someone in with just a few details but sometimes I wished he would just take a deep breath and give his characters some room to interact and his plot some time to move forward instead of just scrambling to keep ahead of the waves as concept after big concept got tossed into the mix. Still despite, or maybe at times because of, the frenetic and profligate ideorama, I quite enjoyed this.
Bit like a mental amusement park ride. Not much time to stop and ponder but lots and lots and lots going on, and all of it noisy and energetic.
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to, well, lots more, it goes on and on. There were so many ideas jostling for room in there that at times it was a little manic. Stephenson is good at economical characterization and is able to sketch someone in with just a few details but sometimes I wished he would just take a deep breath and give his characters some room to interact and his plot some time to move forward instead of just scrambling to keep ahead of the waves as concept after big concept got tossed into the mix. Still despite, or maybe at times because of, the frenetic and profligate ideorama, I quite enjoyed this.
Bit like a mental amusement park ride. Not much time to stop and ponder but lots and lots and lots going on, and all of it noisy and energetic.
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
In the future the only relief from the sea of logos is the computer-generated universe of virtual reality? But now a strange computer virus, called Snow Crash, is striking down hackers, leaving an unlikely young man as humankind's last hope. Like many of Stephenson's other novels it covers history,
Stephenson explained the title of the novel in his 1999 essay In the Beginning... was the Command Line as his term for a particular software failure mode on the early Apple Macintosh computer. Stephenson wrote about the Macintosh that "When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television set — a 'snow crash' ". Snow Crash established Stephenson as a major science fiction writer of the 1990s. The book appeared on Time magazine's list of 100 all-time best English-language novels written since 1923.
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linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics, and philosophy.Stephenson explained the title of the novel in his 1999 essay In the Beginning... was the Command Line as his term for a particular software failure mode on the early Apple Macintosh computer. Stephenson wrote about the Macintosh that "When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television set — a 'snow crash' ". Snow Crash established Stephenson as a major science fiction writer of the 1990s. The book appeared on Time magazine's list of 100 all-time best English-language novels written since 1923.
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LibraryThing member Wanderlust_Lost
I first read this when I was about 15 and at the time I loved it. The Metaverse and the characters, especially YT really intrigued me.
Then I read it aloud to Andy last autumn. I found that the things that I had found funny and cool at 15 were stupid and poorly written at 21. I think the book will
Then I read it aloud to Andy last autumn. I found that the things that I had found funny and cool at 15 were stupid and poorly written at 21. I think the book will
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appeal to young adults or those without a very highly developed aesthetic sense. It's just not well written. The idea is great and the plot is great as well, but the writing is abyssmal. Stephenson was looking for an original, edgy, fast-paced style but it doesn't read well. I was disappointed. And let me just say that SushiK's rap "my fondest ambition is of your pants" is something that I now say for a laugh because it's just so lame. Show Less
LibraryThing member santhony
Neal Stephenson writes science fiction that requires a certain level of attention and concentration to follow and stay on top of. You can’t lay a Stephenson novel down for a few days and hope to come back and take up where you left off. This is not pulp science fiction.
In this audacious novel,
Some may find elements of Stephenson’s world silly, and some of it is pretty far out there, but much of it comes across as biting satire and I found it enormously entertaining. The “heroes” of the story are Hiro Protagonist, a freelance stringer for Central Intelligence Corporation (a privatized successor to the Library of Congress), a computer software designer and the greatest sword fighter in the world (in the Metaverse) and Y.T., a souped up skateboard riding 15 year old courier.
With the help of the Mafia (Cosa Nostra, Inc.) and assorted other supremely interesting characters, Hiro and Y.T. discover a new designer drug, Snow Crash, whose purpose is to inject a virus into the deepest level of the brain, acting much the same as a computer virus. Seeking to prevent spread of the virus, Hiro and Y.T. cross swords with Bob Rife, the richest man on the planet, who seeks to use Snow Crash to exert total control over the world's population. Elements of economic theory, religion, virtual reality, Sumerian mythology and linguistics take this story out of the realm of anything you’ve ever experienced. Four and a half stars, rounded up to five simply on the basis of its originality, scope and audacity.
In this audacious novel,
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Stephenson crafts a dystopian Earth near the end of the 20th century. Most civilization has broken down and even in the United States, society has devolved into semi-sovereign “franchulates” (franchise consulates) and “burbclaves” (suburban enclaves). A rampant form of pure capitalism reigns, with private ownership of roads and police protection. Existing alongside this “free for all” is a Metaverse, an on-line world governed largely by hackers. Now, dystopia coupled with virtual reality is nothing new, however Stephenson takes it up a notch, weaving Sumerian and Old Testament mythology throughout the story.Some may find elements of Stephenson’s world silly, and some of it is pretty far out there, but much of it comes across as biting satire and I found it enormously entertaining. The “heroes” of the story are Hiro Protagonist, a freelance stringer for Central Intelligence Corporation (a privatized successor to the Library of Congress), a computer software designer and the greatest sword fighter in the world (in the Metaverse) and Y.T., a souped up skateboard riding 15 year old courier.
With the help of the Mafia (Cosa Nostra, Inc.) and assorted other supremely interesting characters, Hiro and Y.T. discover a new designer drug, Snow Crash, whose purpose is to inject a virus into the deepest level of the brain, acting much the same as a computer virus. Seeking to prevent spread of the virus, Hiro and Y.T. cross swords with Bob Rife, the richest man on the planet, who seeks to use Snow Crash to exert total control over the world's population. Elements of economic theory, religion, virtual reality, Sumerian mythology and linguistics take this story out of the realm of anything you’ve ever experienced. Four and a half stars, rounded up to five simply on the basis of its originality, scope and audacity.
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LibraryThing member KevinJoseph
It's hard to believe that "Snow Crash," one of the flagship works in the cyberpunk genre, was published fifteen years ago. The wildly-creative vision of a near-future society in which many of the traditional powers and functions of government are displaced by massive corporate franchises, the
The plot, which has a farcical and haphazard feel, serves mainly as a platform to bring together the author's diverse interests in technology, Sumerian mythology, and social satire. This may be off-putting to those who expect a tight, coherent story line. Yet for those who are willing to plough through some dense passages chronicling an alternate history of language and religion and overlook a number of dead-ending plot threads, this book is likely to be a rewarding read.
And who knows, reading it could turn out to be good preparation for the day when America can do only four things better than anyone else: music, movies, microcode (software) and high-speed pizza delivery. Heck, we're almost there now.
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intellectual elite spend much of their time wired into a Metaverse with an unmistakable resemblance to today's Internet, and racial, cultural and national boundaries have become increasingly irrelevant, still comes across as a convincing extrapolation of current trends. Neal Stephenson brings this world to life through the eyes of computer programmer/sword fighter Hiro Protagonist, a brash, fifteen-year-old, female skateboard courier named Y.T., and a number of other colorful denizens of this mad computer-centric society. The plot, which has a farcical and haphazard feel, serves mainly as a platform to bring together the author's diverse interests in technology, Sumerian mythology, and social satire. This may be off-putting to those who expect a tight, coherent story line. Yet for those who are willing to plough through some dense passages chronicling an alternate history of language and religion and overlook a number of dead-ending plot threads, this book is likely to be a rewarding read.
And who knows, reading it could turn out to be good preparation for the day when America can do only four things better than anyone else: music, movies, microcode (software) and high-speed pizza delivery. Heck, we're almost there now.
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LibraryThing member KatyBee
Great book, great writer. If you love sci-fi at all and just haven't gotten around to reading this for some unknown reason, get on it immediately. It is a fascinating, seminal classic and it has my vote for the best-named main character ever.
LibraryThing member scott.bradley
So this is cyberpunk. Huh. Guess I'm just not as geeky as I thought I was. Maybe this was good in its time, I don't know, but I'm not quite 2/3 through this and I am giving up. I am astounded by how bad this book is, given the recommendations I received from fellow geeks. I mean, not just not good,
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but really really bad. To the extent that I think maybe it is *supposed* to be bad and I just don't get it. Not sure. I Might be willing to give Stephenson another chance -- but I will definitely be fast-forwarding to his post-cyberpunk phase. Show Less
Pages
440