Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

[Kanazaka]

Well, if Hiro Protagonist is a bit heavy-handed, then Hiro Nakamura (from "Heroes) is only slightly less so . On-topic, I feel that this is "one of the best movies I've ever read", since the action seems so cinematic. I'm not surprised that this was also almost a graphic novel, since it's a very visual book.

[Connavar]

What kind of story is it? Is it cyberpunk?

Many people have recommend this to me and i have decided to try it.

Anyone can give a short summary of the story?


I usually check wiki for that but sometimes i read too far and see spoilers...

[JonCG]

Originally Posted by geoff_360

A great book - for its time really far sighted, lots of emergent cyberpunk themes - and it doesn't really date that much now. Some of it a bit heavy - all the Sumerian mythology and stuff, but some of the concepts it handles are really intriguing - the franchising, the burbclaves, the Metaverse.

If I remember Snow Crash was going to be a game but coding/tek wasn't advanced enough to do what NS wanted so it ended up as a book instead. That might explain some of the heavier info dumps. Brilliant book though. So's Cryptonomicon but in a much less cyberpunky way.

[Allegra]

Originally Posted by Connavar of Rigante

What kind of story is it? Is it cyberpunk?

Many people have recommend this to me and i have decided to try it.

Anyone can give a short summary of the story?


I usually check wiki for that but sometimes i read too far and see spoilers...

Yes it is cyberpunk, quite punky. Worth reading if you like this sort. I liked the first half better. Summary without spoilers:

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. This book is shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. (Play.com)

[Connavar]

Thanks Allegra.

It sounds interesting. I have been interested in trying cyberpunk.

[GOLLUM]

I've recently bought that book along with his wonderful Baroque cycle. Stephenson is nothing short of awesome, take it from me...

[kythe]

"Snow Crash" was the first cyberpunk novel I ever read, and remains my favorite. I think it is easier to follow than William Gibson's "Neuromancer" (technically the book that started the cyberpunk movement).
It is also a bit more lighthearted than other cyberpunk works, while still telling a meaningful story.

I'm reading "Diamond Age" now, also by Neal Stephensen. I found it a bit difficult to get into at first, but its also quite good.

[lin robinson]

THe virtual world "Second Life" seems very highly based on the concepts in "Snow Crash"... I think that calling forum icons "avatars" might have originated from it as well.

The companion book to this, I would say, is "Neuromancer"... two different takes on cyberspace.

[Allegra]

Originally Posted by lin robinson

THe virtual world "Second Life" seems very highly based on the concepts in "Snow Crash"... I think that calling forum icons "avatars" might have originated from it as well.

...at least it got popular because of the book. The virtual-reality term Metaverse comes from Snow Crash.

[Connavar]

Im reading Snow Crash and its very interesting. It was hard was getting into at the start since there were so many new things to get use to.

But after you get to know alittle about Hiro it starts getting better and better.

Not a bad choice for my first Cyberpunk.

Hiro is almost impossible to dislike.

[lin robinson]

Reading it after Gibson, and being given as "the same sort of thing", set up a resistance in me from the first page. I thought it was a joke they'd told me this writing and characterization was in the league with Gibson.

But I warmed up to it pretty quick. One thing it definitely has over Gibson is FUN!!! The little skater and the kayak baddie are tremendous characters. Some of his inventions like the raft are as good as anything around. And his "matrix" is turning out to be closer to reality than Gibson's has, no?

A great scifi read, and a barrel of monkeys all the way.

[Lith]

I just finished this book. It was AWESOME. I loved all the vivid detail, the zaniness, the sharp sense of irony in the narrative. It dipped a bit in the middle with the solid dump of Sumerian mythology, (and I have some quibbles with his interpretation of religion, but it's nice to see religion handled seriously) and the ending was rather abrupt, but it's definitely exciting right up to the end.

It was about halfway through the book that I realized Hiro's name wasn't "high-ro" but "Hee-ro", making the pun all the better. The Deliverator- LOL (I love that he kept his samurai swords in his delivery car). It's surprising how little has changed in fifteen years, or else how accurate a projection of the future it is- I can totally see a hacker/delivery man living with a Russian thrash-metal rocker that throws concerts under the freeways attended by Japanese rappers.

It's a breath of fresh air, so modern, light-hearted yet serious- I'm actually glad I didn't read it years ago, so my vision of his vision is modern. Neuromancer is on my to-read list, but I wonder if I'll enjoy it much, now. In my experience not many authors can mix seriousness and comedy well.

[Connavar]

The dip in the middle made me not finish it. Not that it was bad, but it was slow in the middle and i returned the book with others cause i forgot to finish it :P

[Hiro Protagonist]

I absolutely love this book, although I dig all cyberpunk themed books. Refer to my name.

[Anthony G Williams]

I have to say I was less impressed. My views (from my SFF blog):

I tried reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson over the past week or two. This was first published in 1992 and was well regarded, being nominated for two British SF awards, but I hadn't come across it before. It was very cutting edge in its subject matter, featuring a dystopian future in which democratic control in the USA has mainly been replaced by a patchwork of territories controlled by organised gangs linked to big business franchises. People spend a lot of time in the Metaverse, a virtual world in which interaction is by user-chosen avatars, and the two settings run in parallel in the novel. The title comes from a new computer virus which is causing havoc in the Metaverse.

The story is very clever and packed with good ideas, but I found it heavy going and each time I picked up the book found I had to flip back some pages to refresh my memory as to what had happened or who characters were - always a bad sign. I eventually made it past halfway, but then asked myself the three crucial questions: Am I really keen to find out what happens next? Do I really care what happens to the characters? Do I want to spend another week or so on this book? The answer to all three was "No", so I stopped reading. What put me off the book? I think it was the lack of both a coherent, gripping story and sympathetic characters. The author seems to have been so busy developing his ideas of life in his future world that he forgot the essential point of a novel in any genre: it should tell a story, one which seizes the imagination of readers and keeps them turning the pages to discover what happens next, while really caring about what happens to the characters.