Rating: 
Summary: one of the best
Review: I stumbled across this book a few years ago, and since then I have read it over and over again. It's quirky, funny, and completely engaging; I just wish it was longer. I read a lot, but this book is--and will stay!--one of my all-time favorites.
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Summary: The CyberPunk has landed!
Review: This was the greatest! Thrilling, action-packed, and at times pyschotic. That's cool though, I am not saying anything bad. I really liked his use of the skateboarder (I know, Kourier..) Y.T. She was so rock-on! I'm not the skater myself, but I am totally CyberPunk. It's cool for the nontechno peeps, and it is currently my most recomended book to my friends. Thanks dude! (I am not liable for any weirdness I may have expressed. I am a teenager. I do weird stuff.)
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: The time it took and the research involved, along with his expertise in the computer/Internet technology. His ability to design a story around such extremes and characters, with the option of the future use of these technologies, has confounded me. I was so involved with the story, I felt as if I were a protagonist/character. Unexcelled prose, in my estimation.
Rating:
Summary: A cyberpunk roller-coaster.
Review: I guess Gibson is the towering measuring stick to which all cyberpunk is compared. As opposed to Gibson's dour and gloomy version of the future, Stephenson's "Snow Crash" is more upbeat, satirizing modern society and taking it to its humorous but still somewhat logical extreme. The use of Sumerian mythology (or IS it?) was just awesome. With such a great foundation, Stephenson could have written a very focused and intellectual "concept" novel -- but instead he treats us to a romp that explores a well-realized near-future world and doesn't take itself too seriously My only complaint is that there should have been MORE of it! After I was done I caught myself thinking in every free moment, "Hey, I can read some more of Snow Crash!" I very nearly started right over again from the beginning!
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Summary: Not just for hackers
Review: Very Intense. Well worth the mind scramble. You'll never look at your computer, or religion, or disease, quite the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Good cyberpunk flavor, little focus
Review: In Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson attempts to create a new cyberpunk vision, and comes up with mixed results. His Metaverse provides an excellent parallel to William Gibson's 'cyberspace', described in stunning but slightly pedantic detail (most readers will probably already know that powers of two like 256 and 512 are important in computers). His vision of a world ruled by commercial franchises, where the President of the United States is less well known than a Mafia godfather, is a startling notion, and uncomfortably believeable. However, once you get past the appealing scenery, there is little substance left. Stephenson seems content to interweave a mediocre and confusing plot with long, arcane references to Sumerian mythology that don't keep the reader interested for long. His characters are weak and hollow, with no real opportunity to develop personality traits that make the reader feel any attachment to them (not to mention the extraordinarily odd step of naming the main character Hiro Protagonist). The climax of the story, taking place in the Metaverse, appears to bring the plot together, but leaves the reader with an empty, "What just happened?" feeling. All in all, Stephenson's effort has a definite cyberpunk look and feel, but leaves much to be desired once you're inside.
Rating:
Summary: An SF "New School" of the Aldiss and Clarke "Old School"
Review: The old school SF writers were put through the grill of writing for SF pulp magazines. To get their story bought byu an editor they had to write "Hooks". First lines that would convinve the editor, reading hundreds of trash stories a week, to choose their missive. The best survived and became the shapers of all we know of SF. Snow Crash has a hook of a first line. The whole first sequence is a hook. Not just a hook for the book, or a hook for a lifetime of reading Stephenson's work, but a hook on SF as something that will survive to the future without just Gibson (wonderful though he is) holding it up. Snow Crash - rip roaring adventuure, self aware, a hero, a heroine, gangsters and a sympathetic villain with a nuclear bomb, and an attitude.
Rating:
Summary: Hooked from the first page...
Review: Anyone willing to name the main character of his novel Hiro Protagonist [Hiro is not a misspelling as was suggested below] certainly catches my attention. In Snow Crash, Stephenson manages to mix action with rather dry discussions of the bible and Sumerian history with relative ease--no mean feat, I would contend. The characters could have been developed in more detail, though they reveal themselves through their actions rather completely. In this way, it's somewhat reminiscient of The Three Muskateers--the natures of Athos, Porthos and Aramis aren't discussed in very much detail at all, yet through the narrative Dumas *shows* us what kind of people they are. The story here is fairly complex, but the author keeps the action interesting and the characters engaging. The balance between the technological and what I can only describe as the spiritual is very reminiscient of Gibson's Neuromancer. If I could give half stars, this one would be a 4.5--not the best book I've ever read, but absolutely one of the best in its genre. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: The Mafia and Fast Pizza Delivery
Review: This book, which one has to keep in mind was written circa 1988 -- long before the Internet craze, and as such I feel it was in many ways much ahead of its time. Stephenson's writing style I found to be very tongue-in-cheek from page 1 to page 480. I also found the manner in which he took (accepted as) factual ancient Sumerian legends and re-"engineered" them into a credible basis for the story line fairly ingenious. I don't recall hearing of anyone else making the same connection between the human brain and computers before, I mean other than the obvious, that they both are capable of making calculations and decisions, but to tie in the fact that they can both have communicable viruses, was an interesting thread. His social commentary on America only producing four decent items anymore: "Music, Movies, Microcode, and Fast Pizza Delivery", I found priceless, let alone the suggestion that the Mafia is more trustworthy and honorable than the Federal Government (Hmmmmmmm, there may be something there). Anyway, this book has it all and then some as long as you don't take it, or yourself, too seriously.
Rating: 
Summary: Like trying to get nutrition from chewed up bubble gum
Review: This book is a complete waste of time. It is the worst book I have EVER read. I just kept reading it because someone recommended it to me and I was desperately hoping something interesting would happen, giving my friend the benefit of the doubt. In the end, nothing did happen. So the Raven guy tries to nuke America in cyberspace. So he fails. 500 pages of irrelevant mini tangents preceding the obvious denouement. The Sumerian legend junk and Hiro's paralleling of it to a computer/brain virus is completely far-fetched and boring (I had to skip entire paragraphs about the Ashkeran junk, it was so stupid). Then the book is peppered with spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, poor choice of words, and obvious mathematical fallacies (2^2 = 8? ). Trying to get something out of this book is like trying to get nutrients from a chewed up piece of bubble gum.
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