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Summary: Tired of Gibson (not Debbie) Clones? Check out Snow Crash!
Review: I thought that I'd used up the cyberpunk genre. Every bookI've picked up in the past year is about a strung out so-and-solooking for one last fix, or one last cybernetic implant, or looking to pull off that one great cyber-heist. I thought that we'd become a mass of Gibson clones.
Then I read Snow Crash.
From Cosa Nostra Pizza to personal nuclear devices to *ahem* "butt pirates," Stephenson creates his world out of the throw-away jokes and put-downs of our own. The result is that Stephenson's isn't a far-flung future...it's what's right around the corner, it's what we're going to be calling home.
Snow Crash is a brilliant blend of tounge-in-cheek humor, authorial self-awareness (never mind that the main character is called Hiro Protagonist!), and hard edge science fiction. Stephenson's characters, while starting out as cultural cliche's--the skate punk, the godfather--turn out to be people that you care about and, in some way, can identify with. Granted, for Stephenson fans (or those of you that have read at least one other of his novels), the plot and shape of Snow Crash will be quite predictable, the names have only been changed to protect the innocent. But, that can't change the fact that Stephenson delivers a top notch performance with more car chases, online intriuge, random violence, freaky antagonists, Sumerian myth, "nice doggies," and punk humor than you can shake a katana at.
For those of you looking for the next leve of cyberpunk, put down that applesauce...you've got it right here.
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Summary: William Gibson w/ an attitude and ninety-one caffeine hypos.
Review: Definitely one of the best books I ever read. While William Gibson bores you to death in his lengthy descriptions of characters and scenery, Stephenson shoves the characters' attitude right into your face. The characters end being everything you want them to be without adding any idiotic stereotypes of the mob, or today's brainwashed christians. Hiro Protagonist, the quiet hacker/sword fighter you don't want to mess with. Y.T., the only 14-year old skater who doesn't back down from anyone, even the United States of America. Great insight into where our future is goin
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Summary: The best new S-F author of the 90's?
Review: This book was a surprise. While at first I found it slow going and difficult to follow, this book soon grabbed me and didnt let go. With his purposeful portrayal of his characters as cliches (Hiro Protagonist), Mr. Stephenson has managed to produce a book that is at once a wonderful "Cyberpunk" tale, as well as a clever satire. I feel that ANY fan of S-F should read this book. Period
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Summary: Fastest, funnest, thought-provoking ride of your life!
Review: OK, people! This book is still out there! Why hasn't every copy been bought and read?! This is about the
most realistic, hilarious interpretation of our times. Stephenson draws on some very pertinent facets of
human development to bring us- today! While the memes ideas is certainly not new, the book itself is a
meme bringing some very intelligent ideas with it! Stephenson's vision of human/computer interaction is
very much on target. But most importantly this books is incredibly entertaining and a fixture in anyone's
library interested in gaining an understanding of technology and human development!
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Summary: A must-read
Review: If you haven't read Snow Crash, go and read it. It has the most credible and vivid representation of a 3D virtual world system seen in fiction (much more so than William Gibson's works, either the far-out surrealism of his early cyberpunk books or the more down-to-Earth style of Virtual Light and Idoru, which seems to attempt to follow the lead of Snow Crash in more ways than one. The difference is that the hacker Stephenson has more first-hand knowledge of the technology and its surrounding culture than the almost ludditic Gibson). Stephenson presents us with a panoramic view of a very-near-future world and its bizarre cults and cultures, presented with Pynchonesque piquancy, and some interesting twists, building on Jaynes' "bicameral mind" theory of the origin of consciousness but going some way beyond it; as Burroughs said, the word is a virus.
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Summary: Absolutely amazing!
Review: Stephenson is a force to be reckoned with in the sci-fi genre. The book is hard hitting and cutting edge. I recommend it to everyone who likes sci-fi, and even a few that don't. SC tells us the future that is here and still coming. Much better written than anything by William Gibson. Snow Crash may well be the best novel of the 20th century
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Summary: The Best SF Book of the Past 10 years
Review: This book is beloved of Internet programmers, VRML visionaries, and just about everyone who is wired. The first chapter is simply the most exciting chapter of fiction I have ever read. After each chapter I had to jump on my computer and crank code for hours at a time before I calmed down enough for another dose.
This book is everything you hope happens tomorrow. This book is the girl you wanted to date in high school, the hacker in your brain, and the samuraii in your soul
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Summary: If you like blood and guts, you'll love this!
Review: Quite a pastiche of ideas which ultimately become aligned with some semblance of coherence - a coherence which simply occurs rather than having been preconceived, perhaps a commentary on life itself. The cyberspace events entwine with Sumerian archeology (this latter in a manner reminscent of Julian Jaynes "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicamerial Minds" [1976]) and are enacted by comic book characterizations which I found difficult to relate to. However the ideas have a creative bent, which, inspite of their violence, could be entertaining to some
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Summary: Excellent book, a must read for computer-literate types.
Review: A great story and dark vision of cyberspace, and virtual reality, set in a chaotic future society
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Summary:
One of the freshest, most witty SF novels around.
Review: "Snow Crash" is one of the coolest books to come out in the SF scene in the 90's, and I'm not using "cool" as as simple
synonym to "good" here.
"Snow Crash" has style. It has ironic humor and a taken-for-granted look at technology that's a very realistic portrait of what is to come.
For die-hard Fantasy fans (like me :) it has mythology and the occasional swordfight. Add that to heavy artillery, global virtual-reality networks and one of the freshest views of turn-of-the-21st-century America, and you have a book that's simply an instant classic.
Heartily recommended.
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