Snow Crash

Rating:
Summary: Strong start, short half-life.
Review: Snow Crash is 'classic' Stephenson, with all the warts and dimples that implies. The 'dimples' are the excellent sense of language-play, the shish-boom-bah opening sequence, and the truly intriguing alternate society.

Heading up the 'warts' column is Stephenson's apparently congenital inability to write an actual *ending* to any of his books (see _The Big U_, _The Diamond Age_, and, while I'm only on page 637, doubtless _Cryptonomicon_ as well). The integration of high-tech and deep-past could have been done better (and has been done better, by other writers), but it's adequate.

It's an interesting novel-of-ideas, and the much-maligned YT is actually one of the few teenaged characters that actually acts like a teenager -- spookily mature judgement paired with spontaneous lapses of horrible judgement, all slaved to a hormonal throttle -- very much like what I recall from my own adolescence. Hiro is a garbage character, sure, like someone's RPG character thrown into a novel, but he's a fine Beatrice to lead us through Stephenson's wittily described Infernal circles.

If only he'd get out of the habit of writing himself into corners...

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, But Skip the Sumerian
Review: Nowhere near as significant as a groundbreaking book like Neuromancer, this book is a light and enjoyable read. That is, if you can overlook the gaping plot holes, overly smug tone, and (worst of all) about 50 pages of garbled ancient Sumerian crap, which was about 49 pages too many.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant writing Great concept An exciting ride to the end
Review: After reading this book I just have to write a review about it.This is one of the best books I have ever read.There are no boring moments and the shift between the characters of YT and Hiro are excellent.If you want a book that you will read more than once or even if you are lookin for a great book to read look no further than Snow Crash

Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: This book just plain rocks. The characters are not only Awesome- with a capital A- but believable. The plot is fantastic. The world is intense and practically real. This is one of the best books I've ever read.

Rating:
Summary: One good concept makes one good book
Review: Snow Crash is a good bit of brain candy, that had potential to be excellent if Stephenson could only have decided who he really wanted to please. The future world he set up melds some really fun projections from modern social trends with a plot device that brings an ancient and alien social control mindset into conflict with virtual realities. Yeah, Gibson did voodoo gods in the Net, but this is a conspiracy to use a whole worldview, aimed through the net, to sabotage a whole society of computer users. It's a good plot and a classic cyperpunk set, with a hacker hero and assorted sidekicks. And its very well done. Pity so much time is wasted on working the movie angle; what with stuffing a lot of gratuitous blood and sex into his complex and elegant plot, Stephenson doesn't have time to set up much in the way of motive or clarification. We end up waiting for him to tell us what's happening, instead of following right along with him. Unfortunately, this means the plot ends up looking like something he stuck on at the last minute to give the book a little pseudo-intellectual appeal. Next time? I hope he can decide whether he wants to go for the science fiction market or the movie deal, before the final edit.

Rating:
Summary: Good beginning, weak middle, okay ending
Review: This is a good summer time read. The lead characters are interesting, although the sinister "Raven" is not well defined. The middle of the book expands ad nauseum on an idea that should have taken far fewer pages. The ending of the book looks like it is begging for a sequel. All in all, this is an interesting book, and would be a very interesting book if 100 pages were trimmed out of it.

Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing piece of cyber-pulp
Review: After having friends reccomend this book/author to me I went out and bought it. I wish I hadn't. This book is nothing more than a holywoodized piece of cyber trash. It could easily make it to the silver screen as the violent content is extreme and unecessary and the plot is pseudo-intellectual.

It is well written and hard to put down, I'll give it that, but it feels upon reflection as though the author had re-written an archeology paper from university adding extreme violence and technology to sell it to the mindless consumer drones of generation X America. Of all the 'cyber-punk' novels I have read this has the most graphic depecition of violence and also has the highest 'body-count'.

[The archeological sub-text is far more interesting to me and I wish he had spent a little more time on the explanation of the use of 'me' and it's relevance in mesopotanian society.]

Books I recommend, far superior in concepts and content, are;

"Neuromancer" by William Gibson,[most cool book of the 80's].

"A scanner darkly" by Philip K. Dick [know Blade runner?], and

"Vurt" by Jeff Noon[the 90's best new cyber-punk author. READ IT. It is inspirational.]

Rating:
Summary: Snow crash is a computer-geek's wet dream
Review: The first time I picked up Snow Crash I read it through within a week, and then again the next week etc etc, and started praising it as my most favorite book ever, and havn't stopped since. I have, however, given the book to others and get mixed reviews. If you're a nut about Computers, Programming, Gaming etc, you'll love it to bits and read it at least 3 times. If not, you'll understand why our bunch like it so much, but will consider it a second-rate piece of literature. Neal is easily my favorite author, and his other books are great too.

Rating:
Summary: Loud!
Review: Though technicaly interesting, I thought the book followed the old rock and roll motto: if you can't play it good, play it loud. It was loud. I thoroughly enjoyed parts of the book. I found it too raunchy for my taste. I also find that authors who re-define facts, and draw their historical/technical advice seemingly from the detractors and critics more than a bit ANOYING. I would best sum it up by saying I forced my way through parts of the book to experience "the definitive cyper-punk novel", and in the end threw the book away rather than pass it on.

Rating:
Summary: mindless entertainment
Review: This book was goofy and dated the minute it hit the presses, but as long as you turn off your brain, it's pleasant enough.