Rating: 
Summary: Great ideas and a breathless style
Review: "Snow Crash" is the sort of book that lingers in one's memory. It creates a world that is believable not because of plausible physics, but because of its candor and nonchalance. Although many of the ideas are firmly rooted in a 1980's mentality, the seemingly effortless descriptions of RadiKS, Uncle Enzo and L. Bob Rife's Sumerian obsessions captivate attention in a way few older sci-fi books have. Unfortuantely, these wonderful realities seem to overwhelm the need for character development or a really convincing plot at times. However, this does not significantly alter the pleasure of reading the book. "Snow Crash" is definitely a book for the typical Generation X male. Its various relationships to modern icons such as fast food franchises, kung-fu movies, video games, the mafia, and conspiracy theories all play to the contemporary schizophrenic 30-something white guy. Overall, it's like a roller coaster: it's really exciting at first, a little disappointing in the end, but you can't wait to get back in line for another go.
Rating: 
Summary: do not waste your time with this book
Review: This book is full of fancy terminology and imaginary description, but that simply hides the fact that this book has no good plot behind it. The book wastes time with long passages that don't contribute to the reader's experience. The ending made me wish that I hadn't wasted my time reading some 400 pages of useless blab that neither inspires nor captivates.
Rating: 
Summary: a jaunt into cyberpunk
Review: i first picked up this book when i found it in a package with a game i bought called Spectre VR. i couldn't figure out why my Mac video game came with a book...until i read it.
i couldn't put this book down. very cool. great characters with a nice twisty plot that slowly unravels itself. weaving cyberpunk tech knowledge in with philisophical theories and tie them together in an awesome climax...true genius.
since i read this book (and re-read about half a dozen times at least) i've read many more stephenson books and i still come back to this one. a great way to pique your interest in stephenson's writing.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Work
Review: I don't even know how to begin this review. This was the first work of Neil Stephenson I read and it absolutely compelled me to buy his entire collection of works - Even those labelled 'sociology and business' on the back cover ;). This is an absolute must read for anyone with a computer background or a lust for speculative fiction. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Not the same as Cryptonomicon
Review: I was introduced to Neal Stephenson's writing with Cryptonomicon as the first book I read. I figured his other books would be worth taking a look at as well. This book wasn't the same style as I liked in the other book, and was too much of a fantasy style for me. At some points the computer gadgetry was interesting, but too unrealistic for me.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully wacky
Review: The last great hope of cyberpunk to visit us, and one of the best and funniest, Snow Crash walks on the wild side of fiction, and struts while doing so. From page one you know this isn't a "normal" book: the first description is a pizza delivery man for the mob. If you don't get your pizza in time, the godfather feels that he has lost face, and you are personally visited by the Dom, while the "Deliverator" gets a pair of cement shoes. And that's just the beginning. The hero's name is Hiro Protagonist. It's obvious, it's absurd, but because the author knows not to snicker at his broad pun himself, it works. For this isn't just cyberpunk, although it has all the trappings; this is post-modern satire. And yet, even carrying all that dangerous literary baggage, it's also a roller-coaster ride of an adventure novel. True believers, this one's got everything. I'm actually a late-comer on touting the pleasures of this novel, and usually I find myself not enjoying things when I'm slow to become culturally on-line with, for the sad fact that I like to be a leader, rather than a follower. But Snow Crash overcomes all that. I wanted to be skeptical, but found it impossible to be skeptical and to be enjoying myself so much at the same time. There's a macguffin here that the hard SF freaks balk at: the new-age, Babel and Joseph Campbell influenced plot thread. To hell with them. This ain't serio-SF. This is a cross between the most biting Douglas Adams and the most pyrotechnic William Gibson, and if Stephenson feels like he wants to be Robert Anton Wilson as well, I'm willing to follow him.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, unique, creative, and hilarious
Review: This book is amazing. You want cool? How about super-fast motorcycles, skateboarding messengers who launch harpoons into motor vehicles, faster-than-vision attack "rats", lethal sword- and gunplay and an internet you walk through? You want thought-provoking? Think about an ancient curse turned into a computer virus that affects the computer USER (hey, Stephenson honestly makes this plausible!); think about a guy who lived through two nuclear blasts and wants revenge; think about a world controlled by businesses and a slightly-more-friendly version of organized crime. You want interesting perspectives? Stephenson gives you, among others, a half-black, half-asian wannabe-ninja hacker, a teenage girl with a double-life, a megalomaniacal evangelist with a real chance at running the world, and an Aleut who throws sharpened glass harpoons and kayaks across oceans to kill people. Extremely entertaining; honestly well-written and well rounded; one of a handful I have read twice. Stephenson did his homework (as usual) in putting this book together.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favourites
Review: Stephenson is a masterly writer, and here he combines this talent with a wonderfully imagined view of the near future. The characters are fun, the gadgets are cool and theme is thought provoking.
Rating:
Summary: Cyberpunk goes pulp
Review: How should I say this? I'm a big fan of cyberpunk...a BIG fan. I love Gibson's work. I find Sterling a bit preachy, yet a very thought-provoking read. I like Cadigan, Shirley, Rucker, Maddox... But I'm not a big fan of Stephenson. Now, on the surface, Snow Crash has all the glossy coolness of cyberpunk, but that's just not what cyberpunk is about. Cyberpunk is beyond the glossy coolness...that's just a method to get people to read it. Cyberpunk is about the role of the individual in a world where not only is the individual being replaced by corporations (which have taken a life of their own) but the individual is also plastic...a world where one can change themselves both phyically and mentally (think the cybernetics of characters such as Molly or the cut-out chips in the puppet whorehouses of Gibson's Sprawl). Snow Crash is none of that. Only two aspects of this novel ar "cyberpunk." One is the Balkanizaton and franchisation of nations, and the second is Raven. The end of the world plot is trite and derived. The exposition of the plot almost entirely through the Librarian daemon is, well, lame, and Hiro's ability to do anything and everything in the Metaverse is an insult to the minds of both the reader and the author. Now, Snow Crash is funy...I was laughing straight through it. It's entertaining; I read it within 24 hours of picking it up. The writing style (third person present tense) is a little hard to follow, but it grows on you. In other words, this is quite an entertaining book. It's hip, it's stylish, it's fast-paced. Snow Crash is to true cyberpunk like modern "punk" bands are to the Clash, Ramones, Sex Pistols, and Dead Kennedys. It's glitzed over attitude made for mass consumption but it just doesn't have the same depth.
Rating:
Summary: Literary perfection
Review: I am reminded of a line from "The Matrix" which has spiraled and ricocheted through our culture for quite some time now, but it seems to be the quintessential description of "Snow Crash" You cannot be told how good Snow Crash is. You have to see it for yourself :-P
| 
