Snow Crash / Unabridged

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Summary: All around nice novel
Review: I read it cover to cover today and all I have to say is
COOL!

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Summary: An amazing Glimpse at the present future
Review: I found this book earthshattering. Not that I like what's called "Cyberpunk," because I feel it's somewhat superficial. But this book took us to where I believe we will be in the future....to a degree. I think we will be a "Net" based society, and I think it will happen faster than most think. If you cut out the "far out" stuff, I think you can get to the core of where society is going. And remember, this was written BEFORE the "internet of today" was conceived.....but I do think a large part of our internet formed because of the influence of this book. I would really like to talk to the author some day.....and shake his hand

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Summary: the software engineers of the future are reading this book
Review: Java/Network programmers are already building prototypes of the Street. Where do they get their ideas? Snow Crash, Neuromancer, True Names. Read 'em all to see the future.

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Summary: This book will take you into a technological fantasy land.
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. While Neal takes you off into biblical history around the middle of the book, it's not so much as to turn off the atheist. The depth of technological advancement he takes us into, while never specifying an actual time frame, is so real that you can imagine it happening in the near future. He ties historical legend into the present /near-future with a very unusual twist. I couldn't put it down

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Summary: Pizza Pizza
Review: Would consider it NOT BAD cyberpunk. Goes down a few roads traveled 2 often in the genre. Just like in the real world. Interfaces change, applications grow, but its still just the internet gone hyper-global. However, the first chapter describing the pizza delivery is by far one of the best openers in a novel I have ever read. If you like the genre check it out. His other book "Diamond Age" is better!

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Summary: Stephenson's Magnificent Train-wreck of a Book...
Review: Many critics have waxed rhapsodic about this cybergrunge-as-metaphysics slice of future-shock. Visionary, they've said; and they've made comparisons to the works of Thomas Pynchon and other giants of the written word... I don't see it. It's pastiche; though not unclever or poorly written pastiche. Throw in some fairly obtuse Sumerian mythology and references to contemporary linguistics philosophy (the aspects of the novel I suspect so impressed many critics) and you've got yet another in a long line of recent spectacular SF literary failures. And by calling this novel a spectacular failure, I don't mean to imply that it fails spectacularly. Rather, I mean that while it is spectacular in many ways (Stephenson certainly comes up with some memorable stream-of-consciousness babble), it still manages to fail as a whole. This novel has suspiciously much in common, by the way, with William Gibson's Virtual Light, another spectacular failure. The suspicious coincidences include various characters, the most blatant of which is the super-sassy 'Tank Girl' courier character (the only difference being that in Gibson's she uses a bike while in Stephenson's she uses an improbable skateboard and car-poon to hitch rides on the freeway). But, seeing as these novels were released within eight months of each other, the coincidences are perhaps not so much examples of plagiarism as they are examples of the built-in limitations of the cyberpunk-sub-genre... You know them: too-cool hacker characters who eat binary code for breakfast, VR goggles capable of generating an electronic environment so real and interactive it's confusing (I'm not saying VR is impossible, I'm just saying that for quality interactive VR, you're gonna need a bit more equipment than a pair of goggles), villains so improbably evil they'd give Satan an inferiority complex, and, perhaps most annoyingly, weapons that manage to be 'one molecule wide' and yet still maintain cohesion. It was cool in Johny Mnemonic, but it gets old fast when every story and novel you read has such a weapon in it. So, you ask, other than the aforementioned, are there any other problems with the novel? Oh yes. For one thing, Stephenson is a total techno-fetishist. He revels in describing 'cool stuff'. This novel is chock-full of 'cool stuff'. One of the villains in the book, Raven, has had his brain hard-wired to a nuclear device that he stole off a Russian sub. If he dies, it goes off. Then there are the Rat Things, which are Terminator-pit bulls that provide security to some of the mini-city-states that make up the political landscape of North America in the near future. There are also quite a few COOL vehicles that figure prominently in the plot. In fact, there are enough nuclear-powered rail guns and Super-Vehicles and Meta-Programs here to choke a gaggle of Trekkies. Also, our main protagonist (whose name is Hiro Protaganist, har har) is an underachieving Black-Asian concert promoter/ swordsman/Uberhacker who lives in a U-Stor-It facility in the real world, but inhabits a beautiful, spacious home with all the amenities and has the highest social standing in the Metaverse (a shared VR environment somewhat like the Internet but with 3-D physical interactivity). He also happens to be the world's greatest swordsman. Why are all hackers in Cyberpunk novels such suave operators? When did they find time to learn all that complicated code while B.A.S.E. jumping, scuba diving, kung-fu fighting, race-car driving and having lots of sex with horny young punk girls who find hackers to be infinitely romantic? Sorry to propagate a stereotype, but aren't most hackers nocturnal agoraphobes? It seems to me that having your hacker character be an ex-Navy SEAL who is also an accomplished Voodoo priest smacks of the worst kind of adolescent wish-fulfillment. Another problem with Snowcrash is that it loses its substantial momentum at the halfway point. It goes from comet to commuter train in a flash, and you can sense Stephenson's loss of enthusiasm with both the characters and the plot-line. By the end, Stephenson's dragging out fight scenes, making lazy and improbable connections between characters, and ignoring interesting subplots and characters in favor of hyperbolous action-adventure scenes of an almost Heinleinian aesthetic. By the time you reach it, the highly disappointing climax is expected. Despite the above criticisms, there is much to admire in this novel and its author. Stephenson is a damn good writer. When this novel works, it works on the level of a really good episode of a favorite television show: you feel yourself becoming almost physically involved - you move around in your seat. And the humour (in the first half) is cuttingly original. I am optimistic about Stephenson's future and I'm looking forward to reading "The Diamond Age."

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Summary: Best SF to hit the streets this decade.
Review: Is that a katana in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? A must read for generation wired & pizza delivery specialists. NG Security Industries Semi-Autonomous Guard Unit #A-367 should make George Clinton very proud

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Summary: Tired of Gibson (not Debbie) Clones? Check out Snow Crash!
Review: I thought that I'd used up the cyberpunk genre. Every bookI've picked up in the past year is about a strung out so-and-solooking for one last fix, or one last cybernetic implant, or looking to pull off that one great cyber-heist. I thought that we'd become a mass of Gibson clones. Then I read Snow Crash. From Cosa Nostra Pizza to personal nuclear devices to *ahem* "butt pirates," Stephenson creates his world out of the throw-away jokes and put-downs of our own. The result is that Stephenson's isn't a far-flung future...it's what's right around the corner, it's what we're going to be calling home. Snow Crash is a brilliant blend of tounge-in-cheek humor, authorial self-awareness (never mind that the main character is called Hiro Protagonist!), and hard edge science fiction. Stephenson's characters, while starting out as cultural cliche's--the skate punk, the godfather--turn out to be people that you care about and, in some way, can identify with. Granted, for Stephenson fans (or those of you that have read at least one other of his novels), the plot and shape of Snow Crash will be quite predictable, the names have only been changed to protect the innocent. But, that can't change the fact that Stephenson delivers a top notch performance with more car chases, online intriuge, random violence, freaky antagonists, Sumerian myth, "nice doggies," and punk humor than you can shake a katana at. For those of you looking for the next leve of cyberpunk, put down that applesauce...you've got it right here.

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Summary: William Gibson w/ an attitude and ninety-one caffeine hypos.
Review: Definitely one of the best books I ever read. While William Gibson bores you to death in his lengthy descriptions of characters and scenery, Stephenson shoves the characters' attitude right into your face. The characters end being everything you want them to be without adding any idiotic stereotypes of the mob, or today's brainwashed christians. Hiro Protagonist, the quiet hacker/sword fighter you don't want to mess with. Y.T., the only 14-year old skater who doesn't back down from anyone, even the United States of America. Great insight into where our future is goin

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Summary: The best new S-F author of the 90's?
Review: This book was a surprise. While at first I found it slow going and difficult to follow, this book soon grabbed me and didnt let go. With his purposeful portrayal of his characters as cliches (Hiro Protagonist), Mr. Stephenson has managed to produce a book that is at once a wonderful "Cyberpunk" tale, as well as a clever satire. I feel that ANY fan of S-F should read this book. Period