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Summary: Snow Crash--Simply a Must-Read
Review: If you're a computer geek, computer geek-wannabe, or in any way interested in the 'cyber-culture' which has grown up around the Internet, this book is a must read. It takes a good idea (Gibson's _Neuromancer_ novels) and improves on it by spending as much time investigating the society in meatspace as it does cyberspace. The result is an entertaining novel which shows how both worlds interact with and change each other. The plot revolves around a drug called Snow Crash which is available both in Virtual and Real reality. After one of his friends becomes infected by this 'drug', Hero Protagonist and his skate-boarding female sidekick (if only I could find a girl like this...) must investigate who is behind this whole scheme and stop the onrushing Infopocalypse. Along the way they meet an assortment of memorable characters: a psychotic Aleut who uses razor-sharp glass knives to gut his opponents and carries a live nuclear weapon in the sidecar of his motorcycle, a cybernetic dog that can run at Mach2, a Mafia Godfather/Pizza Mogul with a penchant for straight razors, and a quadraplegic war vet who's wheelchair doubles as a tank. The settings range from the city-states of ancient Sumer to Virtual Reality libraries to a huge surplus aircraft carrier/refugee ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I swear I'm not making this up! Simply put, this is the most entertaining and thought provoking book I've read in years. If you liked Gibson's books, you'll love this one.
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Summary: Period 7 Book Review
Review: Snow Crash is an exceptional modern science fiction novel. In this book, the main character, Hiro, faces a corrupt world of cyber-punks. As a reader you will become quickly engrossed in the futuristic stream-lined world of the Metaverse, a virtual computer-generated world. This book is recomended to any science fiction lover. From Neal Stepehenson's use of hip attitude and profanity, this work is very realistic as well as realistic. The only drawback of the book is that is is long, but, it is still good.
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Summary: Good, yet deeply erred.
Review: Snow Crash starts out very gripping and slowly loses its grasp as the book progresses. Stephenson, who always seems in dire need of an editor, has this tendency to over-explain everything. What could be summarised in a paragraph is often drawn out into an entire chapter.Still, the characters are engaging and even when the writing drags a bit, the plotline is entertaining. One of these days, someone will sit down with Stephenson and say "Trim," and a phenomenal book will result. Until then, merely good books like this will result.
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Summary: Snow Crash : Virus or Myth?
Review: I have read Snow Crash twice. It is an amazing book. Neal Stephenson did an amazing job presenting the facts dealing with 'me', 'nam-shub', and 'en'. Outside of reading Snow Crash, I have done extensive research concerning Sumerian Mythology and theology and have found these facts to be more than true. Snow Crash is an excellent book, and I highly suggest that any cyber-hippie read it.
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Summary: Hate to get to the end of a good book?
Review: I had a hard time pulling away from this one! Y.T. and Hiro make a great team! It would be great to see a continuation of it...
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Summary: The greatest book ever written?
Review: Snow crash is a book. And like other books you read it. but seriously snow crash is an awsome book the story is incredible its fast pased and wont bore the heck out of you like some other books. I would suggest this book to anyone anywhere. If you are into hacking or any other computer stuff check this book out hey its just a book, a book never did anyone any harm. Nueromancer also rulz!
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Summary: Wild jaunt
Review: I love this book, but it could have used a more hard-nosed editor to cut out some of the vast reams of exposition in the latter 2/3 of the book. Otherwise, this is a highly-charged jaunt through all sorts of locales, virtual and otherwise. The first few chapters alone are worth the price of admission. This is a great book to give to someone who says "I don't like to read science fiction" (and yet that person will watch science fiction blockbusters all summer at the movies, hmmm, never did figure that one out). What will draw these new readers in is Stephenson's wild ideas of the future--it doesn't matter whether the futuristic ideas presented (like burbclaves) will come true or not (although many think we already live in a Snow Crash-esque world already). The point is that they're FUN, and not dumbed down--Stephenson provides a feast of visual sensations that are enthralling, and not just for techies or Trekkies.
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Summary: I loved it ........AT FIRST
Review: The author of this book owes me a day of my life back. This book initialy captivated me more than any other sci-fi novel I've read in recent years. I was hooked. The problem is the end of the book. Its so LAME and the climax is a BIG DUD. I'll never read another book by this author again!
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Summary: Characters are great, sumerian story is okay...
Review: I really enjoyed the characters, but I was bored with the explanations and there wasn't a very climactic ending. The descriptions lost me after awhile because they were boring and not descriptive. I should have read this book before I read Neuromancer--which was much better. Still a good quick read.
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Summary: Pitt Bradford review
Review: I really did not like this book very mcuh, but I can see why it would be popular and why some readers love it (most of them that probably read it) and others hate it. Basicaly the book is very futuristic or at least a vision of the future. The main character of the story is Hiro Protagonist, who delivers pizzas for Uncle Enzo's Cosa Nostra and is a computer hacker in his spare time. He's basically your looser pizza boy who spends time hacking and skateboarding. The story is set in LA and the Unisted States is run by the mafia and pwople are being affected by some new drug called snow crash, where the story gets it's name. Basically snow drug is a computer virus, but not only does it wreck hackers' minds, but they basically can't do hacking because they don't think straight and they talk in gibberish. Anyway Hiro's best friend and mentor comes down with the virus and Hiro's off to save and protect the world from the mafia. I simply don't like this kind of writing and story. The writing to me seems to be very unfocused and therefore isn't very good. Stephenson does write some incredible stuff in this book, but it's not consistent. It's almost like he put a lot of time and effort into writing certain aspects of the story, but not everything. The beginning I thought was strong and I enjoyed it, but after a 100 pages I was gone and I really didn't enjoy very much after that point. The story may have been fresh in '92, but I've seen too many things that are similar for my taste. It really reminded me of japanamation. Usually when I read a book I have an image of the characters, bt the characters weren't real to me. I sat there reading the book and I saw a bunch of cartoons running around. It was just annoying because I knew the characters weren't real. I basically thought the story was a long script for a japanamation movie. On the positive side, there are a lot of people out there that like this kind of stuff, and although I don't and don't know about it I think people that are into science fiction and japanimation would really enjoy this story. I haven't seen a whole, but have seen enough to know what it's about and I think this has the same kind of jist. In closing I'm sure most people that have read this book enjoyed it because fans of this genre of books like stuff like this, it seems to have a lot of common elements of stories that are similar, if fact the date of the book indicates to me that it may have somewhat have been innovative. Someone like me who just doesn't enjoy works like this and it doesn't do anything for us should stay away. I would suggest the story to someone into science fiction, but not someone like me.
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