Rating:  Summary: A fabulously entertaining read. Highly recommended. Review: After reading the earler reviews, I must say I agree with most: Snow Crash is a fantastically fun ride through cyberpunk, satire, computer technology, obscure brainwashing techniques and anything else Stephenson got his hands on. Yes, the ending is weak. I am confident that a sequel will be forthcoming. What disturbs me are the numerous reviews which cited the resemblance between Snow Crash and Gibson's Virtual Light. Let's get one thing straight. Snow Crash came out at least a year (I think it may have been longer) before Virtual Light. As hard as it may be to conceive perhaps the father of cyberpunk is not above common plagiarism. If you want Stephenson with more grounding in the real world check out the two books he wrote with his cousin (?) under the pen name Stephen Bury. Interface and The Cobweb. Both very fun reads.
Rating:  Summary: An engaging comic book; gets most of the technology wrong Review: Inspired at best by a DC Comics view of an alternate universe... Funny only by virtue of the audaciousness of the caricatures. Not in the same league (or genre) as "Neuromancer," and not even in the same universe as "A Canticle for Leibowitz" as suggested by an earlier reviewer. Purely for light diversion, at which it succeeds marginally.
Rating:  Summary: Best book I've ever read. Cyberpunk rules Review: Snow Crash is definetly the best book I've ever read. Science fiction is my favorite subject and I never knew that Snow Crash exsisted this year. My favorite sci-fi book before Snow Crash was Ender's Game. Orson Scott Card was my favorite author. Now Neal Stephenson is my favorite. I'm sure I can find other books like this. The main character in the book is Hiro Protoganist. Another main character is Y.T.. The book explains industry in the future, technology, crime, government, and secret agents. Raven is one of the bad guys. He carries around glass knives which can't be seen and he carries around nuclear bombs. He rides a motercycle and hacks computers with a virus called Snow Crash which distributes a pschological sickness to people called Glossolalia. The main bad guy is L. Bob Rife. He created Snow Crash. It's kind of ironic that the good guys in the book are the mafia. The president is even with L. Bob Rife. Hiro Protoganist is the greatest swordsman in the world, a freelance hacker, secret agent for the CIC corporation, a fighter in the metaverse (a computer generized world), a pizza deliverer for the mafia, and becomes a security council owner. Anybody who likes sci-fi has to read this book. There are so many things that happen in the book I can't explain. So many bussiness, people, murders, and relations to technology
Rating:  Summary: No heart, all whiz bang techiness Review: Interesting idea... but.. and this is a huge but... there is very, very little character development... no matter what the genre... if an author doesn't give a character a personality that I can delve into and go with I am bored, bored, bored with pages of technostuff no matter how brilliant. I like a lot of genre's, a good book is a good book. Snow Crash lacks characters that are anything more than a cookie cutter stamped out image.. this is the bad guy, this is the good guy, this is the chick.... not enough for me... sorry.
Rating:  Summary: Only the terminally 'tough-to-please' would find fault... Review: First, let my qualify by saying that I'd already read "The Diamond Age" when I tried "Snow Crash." I found the earlier book to be much less pretentious, and almost dated/charming with it's 1992-ish anachronistic view of the internet. Even so, "Snow Crash" was an enjoyable read with few flaws to distract the reader. Also, as a general question, has "Kirkus Reviews" ever had anything nice to say about a book?
Rating:  Summary: Why isnt this the Cyberpunk Bible instead of Neuromancer? Review: This book was just a rush, a joy to read. Every bit as hard-core, savvy, and cool as Gibson, but with much more humor and satire. I preferred this book to Neuromancer. Put me in a heady techno-ecstacy: who _couln't_ love a book where the Protagonist is a Mafia pizza deliverator who carries a gun and drives over little old ladies to deliver your pizza in 30 minutes OR ELSE? Admittedly a little long, and the subplot about Mesopotamia and human mind evolution was dizzyingly difficult to follow. However, this novel captures the essence of the modern American attitude better than just about anything I've read.
Rating:  Summary: Drek Review: A book I had to struggle to finish. I gave it a 3 because parts of it were funny, but the book, as a whole, is overrated. Cyberpunk is getting really boring -- it seems like a bunch of people who use the net got together to churn out a bunch of books with the same scenario.
Rating:  Summary: A tad overrated. Review: I've heard very little other than high praise for this book, but it didn't work completely for me. The book is filled with interesting characters who will have you cheering, biting your nails and /or hissing in hatred, and they reside in the most completely developed cyberpunk world since Gibson's Neuromancer.
But the impetus behind the plot, and the author's polemical explanation of the theory that is the germ of the plot were flat and unbelievable to me.
SPOILER ALERT:
This book also ends at a climactic point and has no real denoument, as far as I'm concerned. The final "crash" of _Snow Crash_ echoed hollowly in my head as I hoped for a little more resolution.
Rating:  Summary: a disappointment Review: Snow Crash. Well, crash is the right word. I had heard a LOT of great things about this novel, and Stephenson is certainly creative, but we never get inside the minds and feelings of these characters. The technological aspects of the novel (and the neat twist on the computer virus idea) are superb, and there is some excellent descriptive work. But it just doesnt have the strength of characters who really move the story, and involve you in it. A MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT FOR ME.
Rating:  Summary: A hilariously funny and highly entertaining book! Review: This is a very funny book, written in a non-scientific style. You won't find yourself going back to the sentence or paragraph before to reread it. This is an excellent book. It's highly entertaining and won't be able to stop reading it for longer than 15 minutes.
|