Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Snow Crash

I wanted to like this book much more but there were simply too many things that didn't do it for me.

The first couple of chapters I really enjoyed. As Stephenson described this futuristic world where corporations are the leaders of the world and where it is better to work for the Mafia than to get an education and try to have a traditional job, I could see how our world could end up like this in a couple of decades. The idea of the Metaverse was also very promising and interesting but unfortunately that never really took off.

Once Stephenson started to try to add too much logic to this futuristic, sci-fi world, it started to fall apart for me. There were chapters where one of the protagonists (called Hiro Protagonist ha) is basically getting a lecture from an AI about religious history, linguistics, and anthropology. Which are very interesting on their own but basically took me way out of the story and made my logic mind show up and be like "this makes zero sense." Then, in the next chapter we are back into exploring more of the ways that this corporation-led world is messed up and following (or trying to follow) the ways that our main characters are trying to solve the mystery of a virus that is affecting hackers but is also a drug in the real world... There's definitely mystery and intrigue but I ended up just wanting to know what was going to happen in order to be done with the book once and for all without really caring much about the main characters.

I am mostly frustrated because Stephenson has some great ideas, some really promising characters, and it all just ended up going nowhere for me. Like Y.T. was a super interesting character, a 15 year old girl who is super independent and wants to live her own life and not follow in her mother's footsteps as a government worker. Meanwhile she's just a means to an end and like that's it? Zero character development for anyone here. Oh and another super interesting character was Ng, a man who is paralyzed and heads one of the best security systems and rides around in a car that's been adapted so he can use it as a wheelchair/transportation/apartment/storage of very cool weapon system. His character was probably the best one who had clear intentions and purpose and I wish we'd had more of him throughout the book (he would have been a great main character!)

So disappointing... I'm not sure I'd want to try another of Stephenson's works, but who knows, maybe if he's done something a bit more cohesive and less all over the place I'll give it a shot.

Content Warnings

booksthatburn's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

SNOW CRASH is a cyberpunk fantasy starts with a high-stakes pizza delivery and ends with some cool explosives, taking a path that leads through many burbclaves, at least one cult, and a lot of exposition that relies on fascinations explanations of ancient Sumer to discuss a computer virus that's messing up brains.

It's using and remixing available stereotypes to their limit to create cartoonishly distilled essences that allow for quick action in the partitioned but not wholly divided setting. There are stark boundary lines all over the place, governing laws, behavior, and life-or-death stakes for everyone within these borders, lit by each Franchise's signage and governed by their franchisee manuals. Where the grooves of life are so well worn around most denizens that they barely notice a disturbance to their routines, unless they’re the protagonist, Hiro Protagonist or perhaps the Kourier Y.T. There's a franchise for most things, and some of those things are racism. There's some fatphobia and scattered ableist language which seem to be regular levels of bigotry instead of forming the kind of pointed social commentary which underpins and incorporates the other -isms.

Hiro’s biracial identity (Black/Japanese) matters to the story and exists for more than the surface-level excuse to name the main character “hero protagonist” with alternate spelling. There are several moments where he figures out things based on how someone reacts (or doesn’t) to his appearance and background.

Y.T. isn't as introspective as Hiro, but she gets a decent amount of focus and her perspective is integral to the story, both as an active agent and as an observer with a very different point of view from Hiro, a non-hacker one.

As a cultural artifact, this feels more prescient than it perhaps has a right to be because a lot of people have tried to make things more like the world imagined here, and that's not always a good thing. Reading it now is strange because even something like the word "avatar" as a representation of one's physical self in a digital context was popularized by this book and so it doesn't feel new, though it was at the time.

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selfsoulfriend's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Several of my friends have recommended this book to me, describing it as a better Ready Player One, so I decided to take them up on it because I trust their opinions. What they (and the reviews I read) failed to mention was the casual racism and cultural insensitivity that turns up every other page. It honestly ruined the book for me. It's not overtly hateful, mostly just offensive comments/ stereotypes. If it was only once or twice I'd be willing to look past it since the book is 30+ years old, but there's way too much of it for comfort. There's also an uncomfortably explicit sex scene between a 15 year old character and a much older man. I finally let myself put the book down about 80 pages from the end when a character named Tr*nny was introduced. This book just kept getting worse and the plot wasn't good enough to redeem it. The story felt very disorganized, was badly paced, and there were a bunch of huge infodumps where maybe a quarter of the information was actually relevant. Several chapters are literally the main character getting a history lecture from an AI and he just gets fed the information on a silver platter when it's convenient to the plot. I wish I was exaggerating. If you're trying to decide whether or not to read it, I'd say it's not worth it. I honestly don't know why it's so highly regarded as a cyberpunk must read.
(Side note. Even considering all its flaws it's still better than Ready Player One)

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lucieslibrary's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.25

absolutely hated it, no one should read this book ever

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rubybastille's review against another edition

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adventurous funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This was GREAT and INSANE. Sometimes too insane, and with too many infodumps, but I loved the characters and the shameless Rule-of-Cool stuff that goes on.

2024 reread: actually I still mostly agree with my original review. It’s nice to read cyberpunk that has a sense of humor and that makes an attempt (in a now-dated-feeling-but-at-least-it-tried 90s way) to include and even center characters from marginalized groups. The infodumps get old, though, especially Hiro’s lecture near the end.

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