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Summary: Snow Crash is my favorite book ever, period.
Review: Not much more to add. Other novelists my be more visionary, artistic, etc, but Stephenson is eminently readable and enjoyable. Haven't met anyone yet who dislikes this book.
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Summary: Accurate rendition of the World to come...
Review: Snow Crash is one of the most accurate futuristic novels written! It is a fast-paced enthralling story, which interweaves the magic of language, pizza delivery, neighborhood cities, and internet cities: where the programmers custom build their own cyber-houses... and sword fighting is a cyber-art of 1's and 0's, and toggle back to the real world, where the music scene and politics intermesh in a whirlwind plot. Delve into a interesting and enticing story of the future of media! A must read for anyone who: watches tv. reads anything. uses any computer, anytime. speaks, at all. Learn the history of our language and the future of mass media in this great story! Allison Tripp-Russo
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Summary: PEOPLE WHO CAN PUT THIS BOOK DOWN ARE CRAZY!
Review: Snow Crash was first recomended to me by a friend. After the first few pages I was hooked. This book is so original, interesting. thought provoking and fun to read that if you have not read it you are deprived. The characters are individual. The plot is engaging. The gadgets are cool. Cyber Punk is taken to a new level and you will want to read it again and again.
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Summary: A great read, but it's not exactly LITERATURE
Review: Reading the reviews below, it appears that there are two reactions to SNOW CRASH: you love it, or you hate it. From an design standpoint, this is excellent. The book motivates people to react, and it's not mired in mediocrity. Notably, if you like NEUROMANCER and other William Gibson/Bruce Stirling novels, you apparently hate SNOW CRASH. Fortunately, I have never liked Gibson or Stirling, and I loved this book. This book is NOT an attempt to examine society; it is NOT philosophy, nor does it pretend to be (unlike *ahem* other authors). It's a rollicking good read, with lots of action, some good virtual-reality imagery, and a tongue-in-cheek manner that whips the reader through a fun, interesting plotline. It's supposed to be funny; it IS funny. It's not a textbook for the future, it's a science fiction novel with few pretensions save an enjoyable story. Want an escape, with interesting characters and a moving plot, read SNOW CRASH. It's fun.
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Summary: Suffers for being over-rated
Review: All Stephenson's books seem to break down in the details. He excels at rapid-fire exposition, colorful scenery, and an cultivating a pornographically rich compost of ideas. Of course, if you dig too deep or look to close in compost, guess what you find. As a science fiction writer, Stephenson is laughably bad at the extrapolation of both technological and social realities. And while he excels at the art of creating colorful characters in a few quick strokes of characterization, much like characters modern comics, they don't bear close examination. Nevertheless, this is a hell of a fun read -- a bona-fide rollercoaster ride through a strange world that's just enough like our own to really freak you out. Taken at that level, it's hard to go wrong.
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Summary: Don't bother
Review: What's going on here? I've read three reviews that seem to think this book is some sort of classic. In my opinion Stephenson tries to do way to much with this book, grossly overcompensating for being a not very good writer. It reads like he's got several concepts and settings that he wants to write about to show how clever / sophisticated he is, but the plot? What's up with that? His characters are about as deep as the hiro (snigger) in a marvel comic. He writes clearly but with no passion and manages to evoke exactly zero empathy with any of the characters who seem just to be wandering around delivering what Stephenson obviously thinks (completely misguidedly) is 'cool' slang dialogue in what frankly is a woeful, haphazard and disconnected series of settings. Stpehenson thinks he is clever, well maybe he is. He also apparently thinks he is a writer. No maybe's there - he's not. Unimaginative computer programmers looking for a non-challenging comic book will lap this up. I was bored out of my skull and had to force myself to complete this torrid piece of writing. An insult to its genre.
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Summary: Utterly Ridiculous
Review: I was required to read Snow Crash as a school assignment. I figured that since I am a computer nerd I might get a few kicks out of this "cyberpunk" novel. I was sadly mistaken. Honestly, I think this book is terrible. I was immediately turned off when I first read that the main character's name is "Hiro Protagonist". I mean come on, can it get any cheesier? He is a sword carrying samurai who makes a living delivering pizzas for the mafia. He and his teenage Kourier sidekick Y.T. get involved with a new drug in the Metaverse (a virtual world that is beginning to take the place of reality) called Snow Crash. The entire novel is so far fetched from reality that I often had to reread pages, and sometimes chapters, to make sure that I understood what was going on. The level and style of writing is quite easy to understand, but one would get lost in the content if one wasn't familiar with the subject. There are pages full of information about the origins of ancient civilizations and their languages and endless allusions to computer programming. I would only recommend this novel as a cure for insomnia, because I found myself nodding off more than a few times trying to get through it.
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Summary: Different is good
Review: This one's a re-read for me, but its one of the best books I've ever read. The two main characters are Hiro and Y.T. Hiro is a sword-fighter, hacker, concert promoter, and all around amazing guy. Y.T. is a skate board delivery girl. The two of them stumble on to a vast plot to, you guessed it, take over the world. While the basic plot structure here is an old one, Stephenson brings fresh style to it and an interesting historical twist. The characters in this novel are fun and smart. In a writing style that I haven't seen before, Stephenson keeps the action fast paced, while still putting out a lot of substance. Its a fast read with some great content, and I can't say enough about the style. I highly recommend it as a change of pace from more traditional science fiction.
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Summary: Doesn't live up to the hype...
Review: I really wanted to like this book but I think I went into it expecting to much. Although the story is really good (I read the whole book in one sitting)it comes across as being kind of juvenille. I don't mean that in a bad way it just seems like this book is aimed at a certain target market: teenage hacker wanna-be's into the Matrix and Nine Inch Nails. Snow Crash is a fun book but unless you fall into the target audience you probably will be a little let down, like I was. If it matters I am a Network Technician with experience in Unix and Linux, I have been devouring Bill Gibsons masterful works since I was a teenager. I love "cyber-" stuff; but Snow Crash just seems to target the high-school crowd.
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Summary: A step outside cyberpunk
Review: I won't repeat the glowing descriptions of other reviewers. I do think this is an amazing book, and it has worked its way onto my personal classics shelf alongside Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff, and Good Omens by Neil Gaimon and Terry Pratchett, to name only two. The one thing I would like to say is that Snow Crash has reached outside the cyberpunk circle to include a much larger group of readers. I am a student of mythology, and I have reccomended this book to a number of fellow students and even a professor as an excellent discussion of the modern meanings of myth and language theory. It's a mind-bender, and I think everyone should give it a try!
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