Snow Crash

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Summary: BEWARE!! This book will make a sci-fi lover out of you...
Review: Prepare yourself for a future of computer geek pizza delivey martial arts swords masters, jet powered skateboards, monstrous men, robot dogs and TV drones! And watch out for staggering examples of modern cultural criticism!
In Snow Crash, Neil Stephenson proves his inexplicable ability to tell great stories. Not only will you want to keep reading rather than eat, sleep or go to work, but I'm guessing you will find yourself surprised by the quality of this book's writing. Its not a masterpiece, but for sci-fi it is very well composed. And you thought you were too intellectual for sci-fi!

Rating:
Summary: Good Stephenson novel
Review: My first book by Neal Stephenson was Cryptonomicron (outstanding) so I had high expecatations for this, even though it was written earlier. I have to say I was about 90% satisfied. It is a great techno type novel and I really enjoyed it. Once I got about 1/2 into it, I really didn't want to put it down. My reasoning for 4 stars instead of 5 was that I don't think it was as good overall as Cryto, just didn't seem as refined and tight as that novel was. However, again if you liked Crypto you won't be disappointed, but if you thought that novel was only so-so, you might have a hard time with this one.

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Summary: Grand and Wonderful
Review: I first heard about this through an article in Entertainment Weekly that featured the 10th anniversary that celebrated Snow Crash's release. It intriged me, so I picked up a copy and read it. I was glad I did.
Being brought up in such a tech-savy world that we live in, I could easily understand most of the story, though some of the cut scenes where rather confusing at some points. I also got confused about how the Sumerian myth played into the story, but the ending chapters explained the connection clearly.
The characters where all colorful and different. This is also one of the few books (not counting comics, manga, ect.) that features a non-white person as the main character (Hiro Protagonist), which should be done more often.
As many reviewers have pointed out (and I can agree with them on this), it is a though you where reading the script for a Japanese Anime movie or series, if you like that sort of media (and I do with glee!). I would love to see this as either a live-action or an animated movie, since it desperatly cries out to be one.

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Summary: Story would be better as a cartoon than a novel
Review: The beginning seemed interesting - an alternate American reality where roads have become towns, people live in storage lockers, toxic wastes sitting around with no one to care anymore and violence gone out of control it's everyone for themselves in this society. Also the concept of the Mega-verse was fascinating. However...

The characters were cardboard and seemed to me unbelievable as real human beings, I could only imagine them as animation figures. In a world where the most advanced weapon technology can been had by anyone that can afford to pay for them, Hiro Protagonist, our main man, is able to fight all his battles with swords. He is the best sword fighter in the world, apparently descended from samurai, as well as a computer genius. Then there's the main villain, Raven, he has a nuclear bomb inside his body who fights with glass swords able to cut through armor. And YT, 15 years old, young, blond and attractive with the strength & fighting skill of several grown men put together, and the wisdom & vision of a seer. The plot too was weak, almost non-existent, the same old simple good versus evil battle, the Sumerian legend theory seemed far-fetched and ridiculous, even embarrassing.

Maybe just not my kind of book?

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Summary: A Novelized Anime!
Review: Really, what is there to say? This is one of the single coolest books I have ever read. It's also the only book that reads like something that was once a japanimation movie! Anyone who reads it and does not agree after getting through the Deliverator sequence at the beginning should check your pulse, as you're probably not amongst the living any more.

The characters are fresh. Each is a very distinct person. The sense of humour exhibited by the writer throughout the book, and especially in the creation of the world, is outstanding! This is best realized in the character of the skateboarding courier Y.T. who often acts as narrator for most of the physical layout. The other main character, Hiro Protagonist, serves as the social balance, giving the reader a window into the Matrix, this world's version of Gibson's cyberspace. The villain Raven is also nicely drawn, given an interesting past and a kind heart for young girls; it goes great with his killer instinct and mercenary nature.

Where this books shines is that almost none of the technology featured in it is really outlandish. From the full suit, portable computers, to Y.T.'s skateboard with the self adjusting wheels, nothing seems extraordinary. The terminology used when describing the functions of The Matrix are consistent with real computer terms in regards to what they do and how they're used. This is one of the few books to use hacker in its original, correct form!

Literally the only complaint that I have with it is that Stephenson's ending neglects to tie up completely a lot of loose ends. The good part with that is that there just may be a sequel at some point in the future! Now that I look greatly forward to! :)

Rating:
Summary: I loved this
Review: I've never read a cyber punk novel in my life. If they are all like this one though, I should pick up some more.

This was entertaining, well thought out, funny and had a lesson for our life in it.

I loved it.

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Summary: Pizza Mafia Only the Tip of the Iceberg
Review: Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash may be known in many cirlces as "that pizza mafia book," but for those who have actually taken the time to read more than the first few pages featured as excerpts at the ends of other books, it is an extraordinary ride into the near future that blends cyberpunk and linguistics and archaeology all into an amazing, fast-paced tale.

There is indeed the pizza mafia; the appropriately named main character Hiro Protagonist begins the book as a driver for THE pizza delivery chain, whose owner/don personally guarantees on-time delivery (and woe be the deliveryman who fails to make good and make the godfather look bad). This near-future world features a religion spawned upon Elvis, a destabalized government where the military has sold off aircraft carriers to stay solvent, and inflation that results in people carrying around "megabucks" ($1,000,000 bills!!) as small change.

The story focuses on the attempted world domination of a media mogul and founder of Elvis worship whose virus passed from computer screen to hackers' brains is an attempt both to recreate the pre-Babel days and also to control the minds of his employees and the people of the world as a whole. Aspects of Sumerian and Babylonian mythology intertwine with gritty cyberpunk to make the novel a real page-turner filled with characters like an Aleutian whose motorcycle contains a Soviet nuclear torpedo wired to explode upon his death, a punk young skateboard-bound delivery girl, and the aforementioned Hiro Protagonist and pizza mafiaoso.

This book is a definite read for fans of cyberpunk of any sort. Though less intellectual than his following "Diamond Age," Stephenson's Snow Crash is still an excellent read that threatens to overwhelm the senses.

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Summary: Not to be missed! Sci-fi on speed!
Review: One of my favorite books of the last five years. Fun cyber-punk. Welcome to the urban dystopia that is Los Angeles of the near-future, where the divisions of today have resulted in a mad patchwork society. Appealing characters, a good sense of humor and satire, and fast-paced non-stop action. You'll never feel the same way about pizza delivery again after reading "Snow Crash"

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Summary: Cyberthrashers Get Theological
Review: Here is a very fun and creative, though sometimes tedious, novel from the early crazy days of cyberpunk. More fun to read and easier to identify with than the more eggheaded William Gibson, though at this point Stephenson needed some practice keeping his wild ideas from collapsing under their own weight. In this bizarre near-future (or alternate present) computer viruses are traded like drugs and hackers create real physical havoc online. This is an occasionally wild and fastpaced romp through the crazier realms of the cyberbunk genre, though things get bogged down badly in Stephenson's quite bizarre philosophical theories. He attempts a connection between binary programming code and the genetic human understanding of language, by way of ancient Sumerian mythology (yes you read that correctly). There are clear signs that Stephenson was wrapped up in the rickety new-age craze about "mind viruses" that was popular around the time this book was written.

Characters who are usually swashbuckling cyberpunks or gun-toting mafia goons drop what they're doing in reality and sit forever in what are basically chat rooms, spending dozens of pages discussing deep theology and ancient philosophy while their real life selves are engaged in wild action scenes at the same time. This really drags down large chunks of the book into a longwinded mess, with theories that aren't wrapped up by the end. However, one very cool aspect of this book is Stephenson's vision of a dysfunctional future in which corporations run all aspects of society for profit, with no social safety net from the government. It seems kind of farfetched in the book but may be a very chilling vision of the future. This is an engaging book but is two or three steps away from greatness.

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Summary: A diversion, nothing more
Review: I read Snow Crash because someone recommended it as an alternative to Neuromancer, one of my favourite books. Snow Crash doesn't come close to Neuromancer, it's not complex enough, it doesn't have the same feel of seamlessnes.

Snow Crash depicts a future of city-states spread across the former USA, where you join a country like you join a club. The technology is far advanced, but it seems to be for the benefit of the reader instead of using it as a tool to make the setting believable(imagined author quote: Hmm, people think railguns are cool, i'd better throw in one, an i'll make it fission powered and automatic- that'll make people like my book!).

The same thing goes for most of everyhing when I come to think of it. It's a bit like eating large amounts of snacks; it's not that good, you won't feel good afterwards, but you don't stop eating anyway.

Nonetheless, I did finish it, so if you like SF, and you have to much time on your hands, i recommend it.