Rating:  Summary: No heart, all whiz bang techiness Review: Interesting idea... but.. and this is a huge but... there is very, very little character development... no matter what the genre... if an author doesn't give a character a personality that I can delve into and go with I am bored, bored, bored with pages of technostuff no matter how brilliant. I like a lot of genre's, a good book is a good book. Snow Crash lacks characters that are anything more than a cookie cutter stamped out image.. this is the bad guy, this is the good guy, this is the chick.... not enough for me... sorry.
Rating:  Summary: Only the terminally 'tough-to-please' would find fault... Review: First, let my qualify by saying that I'd already read "The Diamond Age" when I tried "Snow Crash." I found the earlier book to be much less pretentious, and almost dated/charming with it's 1992-ish anachronistic view of the internet. Even so, "Snow Crash" was an enjoyable read with few flaws to distract the reader. Also, as a general question, has "Kirkus Reviews" ever had anything nice to say about a book?
Rating:  Summary: Why isnt this the Cyberpunk Bible instead of Neuromancer? Review: This book was just a rush, a joy to read. Every bit as hard-core, savvy, and cool as Gibson, but with much more humor and satire. I preferred this book to Neuromancer. Put me in a heady techno-ecstacy: who _couln't_ love a book where the Protagonist is a Mafia pizza deliverator who carries a gun and drives over little old ladies to deliver your pizza in 30 minutes OR ELSE? Admittedly a little long, and the subplot about Mesopotamia and human mind evolution was dizzyingly difficult to follow. However, this novel captures the essence of the modern American attitude better than just about anything I've read.
Rating:  Summary: Drek Review: A book I had to struggle to finish. I gave it a 3 because parts of it were funny, but the book, as a whole, is overrated. Cyberpunk is getting really boring -- it seems like a bunch of people who use the net got together to churn out a bunch of books with the same scenario.
Rating:  Summary: A tad overrated. Review: I've heard very little other than high praise for this book, but it didn't work completely for me. The book is filled with interesting characters who will have you cheering, biting your nails and /or hissing in hatred, and they reside in the most completely developed cyberpunk world since Gibson's Neuromancer.
But the impetus behind the plot, and the author's polemical explanation of the theory that is the germ of the plot were flat and unbelievable to me.
SPOILER ALERT:
This book also ends at a climactic point and has no real denoument, as far as I'm concerned. The final "crash" of _Snow Crash_ echoed hollowly in my head as I hoped for a little more resolution.
Rating:  Summary: a disappointment Review: Snow Crash. Well, crash is the right word. I had heard a LOT of great things about this novel, and Stephenson is certainly creative, but we never get inside the minds and feelings of these characters. The technological aspects of the novel (and the neat twist on the computer virus idea) are superb, and there is some excellent descriptive work. But it just doesnt have the strength of characters who really move the story, and involve you in it. A MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT FOR ME.
Rating:  Summary: A hilariously funny and highly entertaining book! Review: This is a very funny book, written in a non-scientific style. You won't find yourself going back to the sentence or paragraph before to reread it. This is an excellent book. It's highly entertaining and won't be able to stop reading it for longer than 15 minutes.
Rating:  Summary: Read it On the Way to Tahiti Listening to Third Eye Blind Review: This book stimulated ideas and creativity on my part. While taking a break from designing a company intranet I read this book. I started reading it on the way to Tahiti and was quite confused by the begining. After 10 days in Moorea and Bora Bora I picked it up again on the flight home. After that I could not put it down. Yes some parts did not fit into the scheme of things but over-all Snow Crash was a stimulating concept.
Rating:  Summary: Great Book You Wont Be Sorry Review: plenty of people have told you the sorry so ill just say this this book is science FICTION it is not real it is for fun not all the facts have to be real sometimes for a good story everything cant be real dont be a nitpicker enjoy the book as a fine work of FICTION not science fac
Rating:  Summary: The most realistic and believable SciFi book yet written! Review: I began reading this book having no idea what it was about. A few long nights, pints of coffee, and a few hundred pages later, I returned to reality from the most exhilerating reading experience I have ever endured. Stephenson's best book by far paints a world fragmented and commercialised, which at first seems impossible, but as you dig deeper into the story and into the culture of Stephenson's world, it suddenly becomes very plausible. His description of the Metaverse, a 3d version of the internet is extraordinarily imaginative because he wrote this book many years before today's internet was even available to the majority of the population.
To me, the best part of the book wasn't the story, or the characters (even though they WERE well written), but the atmosphere the book conveys. Anyone who has seen Bladerunner or played Shadowrun, will almost fit right in this world.
Anyone out there who loves Science Fiction and HASN'T read this book yet, order it right now. You won't be disappointed. I garuantee it.
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