Snow Crash

Rating:
Summary: a cyberpunk fan's work - not a cyberpunk writer's work ...
Review: When 'Snow Crash' was published in 1993, Gibson's 'Neuromancer' had already been on the market for almost 10 years. In view of this fact it seems to me that a large majority of the SC readers and lovers

a) probably never read the books of Gibson, Sterling etc. at all or b) merely read them quite superficially, just focusing on 'speed & action' and cool technical gadgets without any further insight into characterization and atmospheric aspects.

When I was reading SC I constantly had the impression, that Stephenson looked at 'Neuromancer' etc. like some guy who is standing in a museum in front of a masterpiece painting, saying to himself 'I can do that !'.

But of course he can't, and so couldn't Stephenson since fortunately there is more behind art than simply putting cliches together.

So what came out as 'Snow Crash' is merely a cyberpunk fan's work - not a cyberpunk writer's work - and it tell's you a lot about what has become of the original cyberpunk ideas, concepts and intentions that only quite few readers seem to notice this.

Rating:
Summary: WITHOUT QUESTION THE BEST CYBERPUNK NOVEL EVER WRITTEN
Review: just a few words... heroic, air cooled, radioactive isotope powered, supersonic doggy... all that power attached to a lonesome, protective puppy dog brain... the nice girl needs help... I am not supposed to leave my yard but for her I can do anything. and the best quote "they'll listen to reason."

Rating:
Summary: Shoulda been a graphic novel.
Review: The whole religious/scientific tie-in was very interesting, but really didn't need as much exposition as it received. It's as if he put it in there in order to say, "look at how much I know and you don't. Nyah, nyah." This is typical geek maneuver that reminds me of the fat comic store guy on The Simpsons.

As for it's technological stuff, it was pretty mediocre. Lots of very obvious extrapolations of the technology present, or just around the corner, in the early 90s. His understanding of what the Wired magazine audience grasps is quite good, but there's nothing really original here.

What bothers me most is how he figured North American culture would be, in the near future. The whole gamut of franchised city states and jails with everything owned by private interests is just ridiculous and cartoonish. This is the whole reason I'm not sure whether or not this book is a cyberculture lampoon or if he was serious when writing it. Hopefully this book was intended to be a satire, otherwise this boy needs some tender lovin' Betty Ford.

The thing about it that's great: it reads like the hardest of hardcore action movies. This thing just screams for a hollywood movie to be made from it. You've got your cardboard cut-out bad guy, your spunky kid (who just happens to be a strong willed female, OH MY!), and your ultra/anti-cool hero all wrapped up in a world of corruption and violent actions. It's as predictable as finding a bug in a Microsoft product, but a hell of a lot more fun.

Buy it, read it, enjoy it. Then when you run out of trillion dollar bills for toilet paper, use this instead. Pure brain candy, but I liked the flavour.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST BOOK IVE EVER READ
Review: You must go buy this book NOW if you are at all thrilled by technology or want a hip vision of the future

Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT book!
Review: I've been reading science fiction for over forty years now, and I have to rate 'Stephenson''s SNOW CRASH as one of the best. There are over 175 reviews above here, and they'll give you details. I'll just say that it's a great read, and it will bear re-reading as well.

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: It portrays a unique look at the future with an all powerful internet. It also analyzes the use of religion.

Rating:
Summary: This review is great!
Review: If you haven't read "Snow Crash" and you're trying to guess whether to plunk down $$ based on the reviews, just remember this. Some reviews give this book 2 or 3 stars (usually quite acceptable), but then the reviews list as faults: "bad science/technology", "bad writing."

Since this book was released, several companies were created based on the concepts in this book. Black Sun Interactive, which takes its name from a bar in the book, is one big publicly traded company that springs to mind (it was recently bought). After the book was published, online avatar universes like "Worlds" immediately became vogue. Companies started seeing big money in the micropayment concept. Data warehousing for trivia (described as the CIC in the book) suddenly seemed possible.

Though Stephenson didn't "create" some of the concepts in the book, he popularized them all. If "avatars" don't thrill you, it's because he opened, completed, and closed that whole concept in "Snow Crash."

As to the writing -- it is consciously modeled after comic books, framed in present tense, and told in the diction of the future 'era'. People giving this book a low rating (and still saying, "I loved it anyways"), merely need to get their expectations in line.

Rating:
Summary: flawed genius
Review: After a fantastic start, this book just fizzled. At the risk of oversimplification, it went like this; First 1/3- Brilliant, inventive, insightful, satiric look at the near future, chock full of fascinating characters. Second 1/3- Impossible to follow, excrutiatingly long descriptions of ancient gods, customs, etc. The author spent a lot of time researching this, no reason to waste a single fact. Fascinating characters either not developed, or simply dropped. Last 1/3- Hollywood style climax, lots of shooting and chasing. (Plus a two paragragh summary of the 2nd part). The many flashes of brilliance just make the poor sections that much worse. It's as if the had so many great ideas that he was overwhelmed trying to cram them all in a book.

Rating:
Summary: A fun read
Review: I enjoyed Snow Crash immensely. The main character, Hiro Protagonist, has a wonderfully wry outlook. The characters and situations are just off enough to be funny, but not so much so that this doesn't work as a science fiction novel. However, be aware that the first chapter is much more humourous than the rest of the book. My only real quibble with this book is that the primary female character, Y.T., who is allegedly a 15-year old, acts *nothing* like any real girl of that age would. I don't have a problem with her athleticism as a skateboard courier, after all, most Olympic gymnasts are teenagers. But, her sexual self-possession cannot be explained away by the ownership of a device that makes rape impossible. There is something about the way she acts generally that interfered with my ability to suspend my disbelief when reading the book. And I'm not the kind of person to complain about characterization.

My guess is that Stephenson was trying to write the female equivalent of the typical resourceful teenage male character that you find in these types of books, but just plain didn't know enough teenage girls to know what they are like. (Note, his later book, "Diamond Age" does a much better job with the female characters, while in his earlier book, "Zodiac" his female characters might just as well be cardboard cutouts.)

Anyway, read the book!

Rating:
Summary: James Bond in Cyber Space???
Review: Snow Crash is a fast action, James Bond type, thriller. However, one needs to be familar with computer jagin/ terminology, seeing how the story deels directly with a computer virus. This is not your every day computer virus, this one actually kills the computer operator. In some parts, I received a headache trying to bring a sense of realism to this futuristic nightmare. Hell, it was something different and I had fun with it.