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saintlazarus's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Sexual harassment and Sexual assault
venti's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
tense
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? No
2.75
disappointed… in many aspects…. but also intrigued. as someone who was once a 15 year old girl i also reclaim Y.T. as a character because she was very cool aside from the male author constantly fucking talking about her ass.
as one user on goodreads so aptly put it — “juvenile nerd power fantasy in a nutshell”
also on a note unrelated to my personal feelings about this book i think sci-fi written pre 2000 is just too outdated to be good anymore… like sure in the 90s the terms “avatar” and “metaverse” were novel but now if you hear those words irl it’s just an average tuesday
as one user on goodreads so aptly put it — “juvenile nerd power fantasy in a nutshell”
also on a note unrelated to my personal feelings about this book i think sci-fi written pre 2000 is just too outdated to be good anymore… like sure in the 90s the terms “avatar” and “metaverse” were novel but now if you hear those words irl it’s just an average tuesday
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Racial slurs, and Racism
Moderate: Sexism, Sexual harassment, and Sexual content
em_p2's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
medium-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
3.0
If this book was just YT and Fido, it would have been a lot better. The philsophizing and religion just got repetitive by the end, especially when it all felt like Hiro was just saying the same things over and over. By the end section, I skipped most of it and still understood what was happening. The chase scenes and all of the Kourier and skate scenes are really well paced and fun. There is a gratuitous sex scene with a minor and an adult that was off putting, because it doesn’t seem to be addressed in a significant way from YT’s point of view. It made uncomfortable and was another section that I skipped. overall, it was a fairly fast and enjoyable read.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Sexual content, and Xenophobia
maidinnah's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
medium-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
3.0
Couldn't look past some pretty problematic passages, and wished some parts could have been written more leanly. Moreover, ending was too abrupt and ambiguous, but otherwise a fun romp with some really interesting story ideas
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Sexual harassment and Racial slurs
erikwmj's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Sexual harassment, Adult/minor relationship, and Violence
Moderate: Xenophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Homophobia, Addiction, and Racism
Minor: War, Gun violence, and Gore
strawberrypinch's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
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
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Gore, Blood, Body horror, Gun violence, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Colonisation, Xenophobia, War, Death, Police brutality, Classism, Drug use, Cursing, and Drug abuse
Minor: Sexism, Genocide, Homophobia, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual harassment, Car accident, Kidnapping, Medical content, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, and Rape
nikogatts's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I'm confident in saying that every major element in this book had something about it that I really liked and something that I really disliked.
Worldbuilding
Liked: The vision. Snow Crash's near-future United States has many of the usual dystopian hallmarks: pollution, a powerless government, religious zealots, hyperinflation, a refugee crisis. One of this world's defining features is that nearly everything in it, from suburban neighborhoods to highways to public restrooms, is privately owned and part of a corporate chain. Many of these chains are owned by criminal organizations (the most prominent in the book being the Sicilian Mafia), religious groups, or the remnants of nation states. The employees of rival organizations openly engage in armed combat with one another. Access to certain locations is impossible unless you're able to pay for entry, qualify for membership, or, in the case of the suburbs, become a full citizen of an exclusive neighborhood. These divisions are enforced by a variety of (also privately owned) security and police forces, as well as a plethora of sci-fi weapons. Is it an America that I would like to live in? Absolutely not. But it is a fascinating read, and it's grounded enough in the realities of modern capitalism to hit a bit close to home.
This segmentation of a formerly open world ties into the book's central theming around the Biblical tale of the Tower of Babel. Instead of separating humans into various languages, as God did by destroying the Biblical Tower, Snow Crash's humanity has segmented itself into enclaves of corporate loyalty. In this torn and shredded world, two potential Towers of Babel rise.
One Tower is the Raft, a massive floating community of refugee boats and pirate ships tethered to an aircraft carrier owned by the Jim Bakker-esque billionaire L. Bob Rife. From here, Rife distributes the drug known as Snow Crash, which hacks into people's brains and forces them to act as loyal drones that speak in tongues.
The other Tower is the Metaverse, an online virtual reality open to anyone who can find a point of access. The quality of one's avatar and the ownership of virtual property is dependent on the user's hacking ability or wealth, but the world is generally open to, and able to be explored by, anyone tech-savvy enough to log on. The problem here is that the Metaverse is only used by a fraction of the population, and the more knowledgeable users are uniquely susceptible to Snow Crash's effects.
These settings are populated by more speculative concepts and fantastic technologies than I could possibly list here, and the imaginative near-future that Neal Stephenson creates is by far the most interesting part of this book.
Disliked: The execution. I went into this book knowing that it would be info-heavy. I'm not opposed to infodumps (I actually often enjoy them), but they have to be done in a way that doesn't halt or impede the rest of the story. This book can be very difficult to read for the first ten-or-so chapters, because a character will take a single action and then there will be pages and pages (sometimes the rest of the chapter) explaining the technologies being used or the origin and structure of the organizations involved. Many of these infodumps include information that isn't relevant at the time or that never becomes relevant, and some of it is downright insulting (I know that all of these numbers are 2 to the power of something; you don't have to tell me every time).
As the main characters gather more information about Snow Crash, the infodumps expand into entire chapters where a character word-vomits about a concept for five to ten pages. Even to me, a person who enjoys learning new but useless things, these chapters are tedious, especially when they occur in the last 75 pages of the book.
Characters
Liked: Y.T. She's a smart-talking teenage courier trying to make her own way in a harsh world. She's no-nonsense without being try-hard and she doesn't hesitate to smack a creep (until the last third of the book, when the author insists on having her sleep with a middle-aged man, <i>ugh</i>). Under her tough exterior, she has affection for the few close people in her life, especially her overworked mother. And for all of her street smarts, Y.T. is still a teenager in a world run by adults and she has to figure out how to survive when the people in power point their crosshairs in her direction.
Disliked: Pretty much everyone else. The main character is called Hiro Protagonist, and his name is the most interesting thing about him. His personality can be summed up as "cool geek guy." That is to say, he doesn't have a personality at all, but he has several cool skills, like computer programming and katana-wielding, that are supposed to fill the void. He largely exists as the reader's access point to the bulk of the information relevant to the plot, since he's both the Designated Guy Who Explains Things and the Designated Guy People Explain Things To.
Uncle Enzo would be interesting if the book had leaned into the evil underneath the mobster cliche. The Mafia isn't a noble or honorable criminal group and Stephenson missed an opportunity to use a corporatized Mafia as a way to satirize the mainstream Hollywood portrayal. Instead, the book pushes Enzo into a kindly father-figure role for a teenage girl he barely knows and the Mafia organization gets a stereotypical but sanitized portrayal.
There is an attempt to give Raven a tragic backstory to justify him wanting to nuke America, but it just falls flat because...is there even an America anymore? (Maybe that was the point, but it's a poorly made point.) This character is a blunt instrument and it's slimy as hell that the author makes him attracted to (and then "in love" with) a 15-year-old.
The remaining characters -- Juanita, Da5id, various allied goons, various opposing goons -- either existed as tools to move the plot along or weren't around long enough to make an impression.
Story
Liked: The content and themes. With all of the sci-fi speculation and satire stripped away, Snow Crash is a thriller about a dangerous new drug and the unlikely duo investigating its spread. Instead of a good cop and a bad cop, or an FBI agent and a captured serial killer, the two protagonists are a freelance hacker and a teenage courier. Their equipment is futuristically enhanced, but their goals and actions mirror those of any detective duo: collect intel, interview a handful of involved parties, follow the trail, find the source of the drug, and get into a few gun/sword fights in the process.
This type of premise could normally go either way in terms of quality, and Neal Stephenson elevates it beyond a standard guns-and-drugs story by tying in themes of language (from ancient Sumerian to modern programming), ancient historical and religious theory, and the psychological concept of viral knowledge. Combined with the above-mentioned worldbuilding and this story, for all of its issues in execution, was an amazing read.
Disliked: The writing and pacing. It takes more than two dozen chapters for Hiro Protagonist to start actively investigating Snow Crash and the breadcrumb trail left behind by a murdered man. Some of this is because of the density of the aforementioned infodumps, but some of it is because it takes more than 200 pages for someone to tell Hiro to do something.
It also can't be overstated how the glut of background information pushes relevant story details, both major and minor, off the page. I don't remember reading how Y.T. makes it to The Raft in the latter half of the book. I don't remember what Y.T.'s mom was being questioned for or what bearing that had on the plot. I don't remember how Hiro went from not knowing who Vitaly Chernobyl was to being his roommate and concert promoter. I don't remember why Hiro and Y.T. call each other "pod." Maybe these things are never explained; maybe the explanations got lost in some lengthy description. Either way, the writing emphasizes background information over storytelling, and the story suffers for it.
The Ending
Liked: Y.T.'s helicopter escape. Cinematic and kickass. An overconfident cult leader brought down (literally and figuratively) by a bunch of teens answering the call of one of their own.
Disliked: Oh god he's still explaining things. The last fifteen to twenty chapters are rough because it feels like the book should be rapidly building toward a climax. But instead of accelerating, the action keeps stopping for more explanations, including explanations of things that were already explained earlier in the book. The worst part is when Hiro and Raven are reciting their fathers' tragic backstories to each other over voice link while they're also doing a high-speed motorcycle chase through the Metaverse.
Bonus
Liked: Fido, the robot dog who defied his programming to save the nice girl who took care of him. Also, the accompanying philosophical question of whether Fido's virtual fate, along with the largely virtual existence of another character, is truly satisfying.
Disliked: The '90s-era racism and sexism, particularly the sexualization of 15-year-old Y.T., the double standard of how Colombian narcos are portrayed compared to the Mafia, and the bizarre, nerd-culture-specific way that Japanese people are portrayed.
Liked: The vision. Snow Crash's near-future United States has many of the usual dystopian hallmarks: pollution, a powerless government, religious zealots, hyperinflation, a refugee crisis. One of this world's defining features is that nearly everything in it, from suburban neighborhoods to highways to public restrooms, is privately owned and part of a corporate chain. Many of these chains are owned by criminal organizations (the most prominent in the book being the Sicilian Mafia), religious groups, or the remnants of nation states. The employees of rival organizations openly engage in armed combat with one another. Access to certain locations is impossible unless you're able to pay for entry, qualify for membership, or, in the case of the suburbs, become a full citizen of an exclusive neighborhood. These divisions are enforced by a variety of (also privately owned) security and police forces, as well as a plethora of sci-fi weapons. Is it an America that I would like to live in? Absolutely not. But it is a fascinating read, and it's grounded enough in the realities of modern capitalism to hit a bit close to home.
This segmentation of a formerly open world ties into the book's central theming around the Biblical tale of the Tower of Babel. Instead of separating humans into various languages, as God did by destroying the Biblical Tower, Snow Crash's humanity has segmented itself into enclaves of corporate loyalty. In this torn and shredded world, two potential Towers of Babel rise.
One Tower is the Raft, a massive floating community of refugee boats and pirate ships tethered to an aircraft carrier owned by the Jim Bakker-esque billionaire L. Bob Rife. From here, Rife distributes the drug known as Snow Crash, which hacks into people's brains and forces them to act as loyal drones that speak in tongues.
The other Tower is the Metaverse, an online virtual reality open to anyone who can find a point of access. The quality of one's avatar and the ownership of virtual property is dependent on the user's hacking ability or wealth, but the world is generally open to, and able to be explored by, anyone tech-savvy enough to log on. The problem here is that the Metaverse is only used by a fraction of the population, and the more knowledgeable users are uniquely susceptible to Snow Crash's effects.
These settings are populated by more speculative concepts and fantastic technologies than I could possibly list here, and the imaginative near-future that Neal Stephenson creates is by far the most interesting part of this book.
Disliked: The execution. I went into this book knowing that it would be info-heavy. I'm not opposed to infodumps (I actually often enjoy them), but they have to be done in a way that doesn't halt or impede the rest of the story. This book can be very difficult to read for the first ten-or-so chapters, because a character will take a single action and then there will be pages and pages (sometimes the rest of the chapter) explaining the technologies being used or the origin and structure of the organizations involved. Many of these infodumps include information that isn't relevant at the time or that never becomes relevant, and some of it is downright insulting (I know that all of these numbers are 2 to the power of something; you don't have to tell me every time).
As the main characters gather more information about Snow Crash, the infodumps expand into entire chapters where a character word-vomits about a concept for five to ten pages. Even to me, a person who enjoys learning new but useless things, these chapters are tedious, especially when they occur in the last 75 pages of the book.
Characters
Liked: Y.T. She's a smart-talking teenage courier trying to make her own way in a harsh world. She's no-nonsense without being try-hard and she doesn't hesitate to smack a creep (until the last third of the book, when the author insists on having her sleep with a middle-aged man, <i>ugh</i>). Under her tough exterior, she has affection for the few close people in her life, especially her overworked mother. And for all of her street smarts, Y.T. is still a teenager in a world run by adults and she has to figure out how to survive when the people in power point their crosshairs in her direction.
Disliked: Pretty much everyone else. The main character is called Hiro Protagonist, and his name is the most interesting thing about him. His personality can be summed up as "cool geek guy." That is to say, he doesn't have a personality at all, but he has several cool skills, like computer programming and katana-wielding, that are supposed to fill the void. He largely exists as the reader's access point to the bulk of the information relevant to the plot, since he's both the Designated Guy Who Explains Things and the Designated Guy People Explain Things To.
Uncle Enzo would be interesting if the book had leaned into the evil underneath the mobster cliche. The Mafia isn't a noble or honorable criminal group and Stephenson missed an opportunity to use a corporatized Mafia as a way to satirize the mainstream Hollywood portrayal. Instead, the book pushes Enzo into a kindly father-figure role for a teenage girl he barely knows and the Mafia organization gets a stereotypical but sanitized portrayal.
There is an attempt to give Raven a tragic backstory to justify him wanting to nuke America, but it just falls flat because...is there even an America anymore? (Maybe that was the point, but it's a poorly made point.) This character is a blunt instrument and it's slimy as hell that the author makes him attracted to (and then "in love" with) a 15-year-old.
The remaining characters -- Juanita, Da5id, various allied goons, various opposing goons -- either existed as tools to move the plot along or weren't around long enough to make an impression.
Story
Liked: The content and themes. With all of the sci-fi speculation and satire stripped away, Snow Crash is a thriller about a dangerous new drug and the unlikely duo investigating its spread. Instead of a good cop and a bad cop, or an FBI agent and a captured serial killer, the two protagonists are a freelance hacker and a teenage courier. Their equipment is futuristically enhanced, but their goals and actions mirror those of any detective duo: collect intel, interview a handful of involved parties, follow the trail, find the source of the drug, and get into a few gun/sword fights in the process.
This type of premise could normally go either way in terms of quality, and Neal Stephenson elevates it beyond a standard guns-and-drugs story by tying in themes of language (from ancient Sumerian to modern programming), ancient historical and religious theory, and the psychological concept of viral knowledge. Combined with the above-mentioned worldbuilding and this story, for all of its issues in execution, was an amazing read.
Disliked: The writing and pacing. It takes more than two dozen chapters for Hiro Protagonist to start actively investigating Snow Crash and the breadcrumb trail left behind by a murdered man. Some of this is because of the density of the aforementioned infodumps, but some of it is because it takes more than 200 pages for someone to tell Hiro to do something.
It also can't be overstated how the glut of background information pushes relevant story details, both major and minor, off the page. I don't remember reading how Y.T. makes it to The Raft in the latter half of the book. I don't remember what Y.T.'s mom was being questioned for or what bearing that had on the plot. I don't remember how Hiro went from not knowing who Vitaly Chernobyl was to being his roommate and concert promoter. I don't remember why Hiro and Y.T. call each other "pod." Maybe these things are never explained; maybe the explanations got lost in some lengthy description. Either way, the writing emphasizes background information over storytelling, and the story suffers for it.
The Ending
Liked: Y.T.'s helicopter escape. Cinematic and kickass. An overconfident cult leader brought down (literally and figuratively) by a bunch of teens answering the call of one of their own.
Disliked: Oh god he's still explaining things. The last fifteen to twenty chapters are rough because it feels like the book should be rapidly building toward a climax. But instead of accelerating, the action keeps stopping for more explanations, including explanations of things that were already explained earlier in the book. The worst part is when Hiro and Raven are reciting their fathers' tragic backstories to each other over voice link while they're also doing a high-speed motorcycle chase through the Metaverse.
Bonus
Liked: Fido, the robot dog who defied his programming to save the nice girl who took care of him. Also, the accompanying philosophical question of whether Fido's virtual fate, along with the largely virtual existence of another character, is truly satisfying.
Disliked: The '90s-era racism and sexism, particularly the sexualization of 15-year-old Y.T., the double standard of how Colombian narcos are portrayed compared to the Mafia, and the bizarre, nerd-culture-specific way that Japanese people are portrayed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Murder, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, and Death
Moderate: Racism, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Drug use, Gun violence, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, and Racial slurs
Minor: Kidnapping
rubybastille's review against another edition
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual harassment, Blood, War, and Sexual content
Moderate: Racial slurs and Homophobia
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