Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
It seems to me that Mr. Stephenson had a historical idea/topic that he found interesting. He wrote about 10-15 pages of his theory about it, then wrote a modern story around that theory. Many have said, and I agree, that the ending is sudden and not comprehensive. Knowing this going in seemed to help me realize that this book is less about writing a completely vetted and resolved story about its characters but more about delivering through modern means an origin story of sorts about viruses, communication, and religion. I have been critical in the past of Mr. Stephenson's overindulgence in detail with out advancing a story (see Quicksilver,) but reading this book makes me want to dive into his longer works to try to pull out the wonderful theories he has about these types of topics.
I was fascinated by and loved the way in which he delivers the background about all of the world's religions and ancient cultures back to Sumer and their use of religion as a delivery method of data. It's always been an interesting concept that speech and communication develop in humans from birth. Language and speaking is so natural and inherent that we often forget that it is a method of data delivery and that computers and binary code have become the modern language of the world. This leads to the postulation that language is a form of virus. Also, the fact that this book was written in 1992 is shocking as the author seems to effortlessly predict the way that our society has evolved technologically to present day. I won't reveal too many details about the theory so you can explore and experience it for yourself, but the sections of the book during which Hiro is researching with the Librarian daemon all of Lagos' compiled research are worth the read alone.
The characters and story that run alongside the delivery of the theory are interesting, and one does develop the will to know how they are impacted. This is where the ending falls short. YT seems to have her story resolved (with a little effort on the reader's part,) but Hiro's, Raven's, Uncle Enzo's, D5vid's, and Juanita's fates are all left unresolved. It's a bit difficult to completely discount this annoyance even though I really liked the theoretical portion. It seems like the point was to deliver a theory, watch the characters struggle to stop catastrophe, and once the catastrophe was averted, the curtain draws without much left for you to draw your own conclusions even if you do like for an author to not close all the ends off.
I was fascinated by and loved the way in which he delivers the background about all of the world's religions and ancient cultures back to Sumer and their use of religion as a delivery method of data. It's always been an interesting concept that speech and communication develop in humans from birth. Language and speaking is so natural and inherent that we often forget that it is a method of data delivery and that computers and binary code have become the modern language of the world. This leads to the postulation that language is a form of virus. Also, the fact that this book was written in 1992 is shocking as the author seems to effortlessly predict the way that our society has evolved technologically to present day. I won't reveal too many details about the theory so you can explore and experience it for yourself, but the sections of the book during which Hiro is researching with the Librarian daemon all of Lagos' compiled research are worth the read alone.
The characters and story that run alongside the delivery of the theory are interesting, and one does develop the will to know how they are impacted. This is where the ending falls short. YT seems to have her story resolved (with a little effort on the reader's part,) but Hiro's, Raven's, Uncle Enzo's, D5vid's, and Juanita's fates are all left unresolved. It's a bit difficult to completely discount this annoyance even though I really liked the theoretical portion. It seems like the point was to deliver a theory, watch the characters struggle to stop catastrophe, and once the catastrophe was averted, the curtain draws without much left for you to draw your own conclusions even if you do like for an author to not close all the ends off.
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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
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
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Straight up, I did not like this book.
It’s not quite worthy of the one star treatment, though, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because the actual construction of his sentences, the literal writing, is not bad. Second, because the underlying story remains one I think interesting to explore in book form. And third, because I truly believe that one star ratings should be reserved for books that really go beyond the pale in their awfulness, not just slapping that on there because I didn’t happen to like them.
I know Snow Crash belongs in this category, even though I do believe my criticisms of it are legitimate, because many, many of my friends (who are intelligent people with good taste) love this book. Sometimes books and readers just do not go together, for no explainable reason. The chemistry isn’t there*, and you can’t force it.
*What’s interesting about this is that sometimes you go back to a book you either loved or hated at one time, and the chemistry has changed, and so does your reaction to the book. Pride and Prejudice remains the single best example of this phenomenon for me. I hated that book the first three times I tried to read it. Found it utterly incomprehensible. Then I picked it back up years later for a class and fell instantly in love.
It also may be helpful to note that I read this book in audio form, and rather quickly came to the conclusion that the problems I had with it were aggravated by the process of listening. The story, which was coming across as disjointed and confusing, and which featured characters I did not connect with at all, felt even more distant and hard to connect to because I was listening to it rather than digesting the words with my eyeballs. (The narrator isn’t great, either, and the direction/sound production is super weird, with all these chimes and random vocalizations separating chapters and sections. The quality of the audio is pretty poor; it’s muddy and full of white noise. But the recording was made rather a long time ago, so I suppose that’s not really its fault.)
For me, though, this book lost me entirely in its execution. After the first three chapters, Stephenson had me hooked with interesting concepts and a world I felt he never fleshed out enough. I never cared about any of the characters or what was going on. Most of the book was dense in a not fun way, and confusing in a way that made me not care very much at all to try to unravel the webs it was spinning. Character relationships are weak and built on the thinnest of threads. Scenes end abruptly and there are almost no transitions. A large portion of the book relies on some super weird connections that Stephenson makes between ancient Sumerian languages, mythology, religion, computers, and viruses, and he doesn’t do a good enough job explaining it so that it becomes something plausible that might happen in the world he created. Believing the explanation of the main plot in this book as a reader felt to me like being asked to jump from street level to the top of a thirty story building. No fire escapes, no cars to jump from, no ladders or levers or those weird platforms painters and window cleaners use in the movies. And it was too much for me.
About twenty percent in to the book, I realized I wasn’t going to connect with it and just wanted it to be over already, but I pushed through, hoping things would change. And even if they didn’t, I don’t like not finishing books. So I sped up the speed of the audio to 1.5x, then 2x, then 2.5x, until the narrator was speaking chipmunk gibberish. Even doing this*, it still took me almost two months to finish.
*The human brain is amazing. I can’t believe I could listen to that book at 2.5x speed and still understand every word.
I have been told that other Neal Stephenson books are much better and more accessible than this one. I do eventually plan on picking up more of his stuff, and I hope it’s just a case of wrong book, wrong reader and not wrong author, wrong reader. That would be sad. I hate missing out on a party, especially if it's one full of nerds.
It’s not quite worthy of the one star treatment, though, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because the actual construction of his sentences, the literal writing, is not bad. Second, because the underlying story remains one I think interesting to explore in book form. And third, because I truly believe that one star ratings should be reserved for books that really go beyond the pale in their awfulness, not just slapping that on there because I didn’t happen to like them.
I know Snow Crash belongs in this category, even though I do believe my criticisms of it are legitimate, because many, many of my friends (who are intelligent people with good taste) love this book. Sometimes books and readers just do not go together, for no explainable reason. The chemistry isn’t there*, and you can’t force it.
*What’s interesting about this is that sometimes you go back to a book you either loved or hated at one time, and the chemistry has changed, and so does your reaction to the book. Pride and Prejudice remains the single best example of this phenomenon for me. I hated that book the first three times I tried to read it. Found it utterly incomprehensible. Then I picked it back up years later for a class and fell instantly in love.
It also may be helpful to note that I read this book in audio form, and rather quickly came to the conclusion that the problems I had with it were aggravated by the process of listening. The story, which was coming across as disjointed and confusing, and which featured characters I did not connect with at all, felt even more distant and hard to connect to because I was listening to it rather than digesting the words with my eyeballs. (The narrator isn’t great, either, and the direction/sound production is super weird, with all these chimes and random vocalizations separating chapters and sections. The quality of the audio is pretty poor; it’s muddy and full of white noise. But the recording was made rather a long time ago, so I suppose that’s not really its fault.)
For me, though, this book lost me entirely in its execution. After the first three chapters, Stephenson had me hooked with interesting concepts and a world I felt he never fleshed out enough. I never cared about any of the characters or what was going on. Most of the book was dense in a not fun way, and confusing in a way that made me not care very much at all to try to unravel the webs it was spinning. Character relationships are weak and built on the thinnest of threads. Scenes end abruptly and there are almost no transitions. A large portion of the book relies on some super weird connections that Stephenson makes between ancient Sumerian languages, mythology, religion, computers, and viruses, and he doesn’t do a good enough job explaining it so that it becomes something plausible that might happen in the world he created. Believing the explanation of the main plot in this book as a reader felt to me like being asked to jump from street level to the top of a thirty story building. No fire escapes, no cars to jump from, no ladders or levers or those weird platforms painters and window cleaners use in the movies. And it was too much for me.
About twenty percent in to the book, I realized I wasn’t going to connect with it and just wanted it to be over already, but I pushed through, hoping things would change. And even if they didn’t, I don’t like not finishing books. So I sped up the speed of the audio to 1.5x, then 2x, then 2.5x, until the narrator was speaking chipmunk gibberish. Even doing this*, it still took me almost two months to finish.
*The human brain is amazing. I can’t believe I could listen to that book at 2.5x speed and still understand every word.
I have been told that other Neal Stephenson books are much better and more accessible than this one. I do eventually plan on picking up more of his stuff, and I hope it’s just a case of wrong book, wrong reader and not wrong author, wrong reader. That would be sad. I hate missing out on a party, especially if it's one full of nerds.
adventurous
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Finished it in a little over a week, it's quite a ride.
Being already familiar with Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age", it was not too surprising to be bombarded with vast new concepts in this setting of his. The first chapters brutally introduce you to a wide array of corporations, states, technologies, slang and so on, that you quickly have to absorb in order to follow the fast pace of the story.
The characters are fairly interesting, but it is really the interaction with the world that makes you want to keep reading.
By the end of the book, it felt like Neal just had to tie things up under pressure and made use of a couple of "cheats" or convenient coincidences, mainly related to Y.T., the girl that suddenly was special for everyone.
Being already familiar with Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age", it was not too surprising to be bombarded with vast new concepts in this setting of his. The first chapters brutally introduce you to a wide array of corporations, states, technologies, slang and so on, that you quickly have to absorb in order to follow the fast pace of the story.
The characters are fairly interesting, but it is really the interaction with the world that makes you want to keep reading.
By the end of the book, it felt like Neal just had to tie things up under pressure and made use of a couple of "cheats" or convenient coincidences, mainly related to Y.T., the girl that suddenly was special for everyone.
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I really, really avoided reading this book and i wanted to hate it because its so trope-y and gratuitous but its actually really really fucking good. Neal stephenson predicted the future in a lot of ways. It also taught me a lot of pre-Christian canaanite religion which was actually really interesting and insightful (did you know yahweh was a canaanite storm god? Which explains alot of the old testament)
I enjoy science fiction, and I appreciate all the research Neal did, which helped me understand the concepts underlying the world we live in today. The beginning of the book is interesting and engaging, with a unique mix of technology, history, and cultural dynamics. However, towards the end, the narrative becomes more confusing, and while I hesitate to call it ridiculous, it ultimately lacked emotional resonance for me.
Stephenson's depiction of the Metaverse feels like an early blueprint of today's digital reality, which is compelling. The fast-paced narrative led by Hiro Protagonist, alongside Y.T.'s rebellious energy, adds entertainment value. The sections diving into Sumerian culture were particularly fascinating, though they could be dense at times and might slow the momentum for some readers.
Overall, Snow Crash is an ambitious book that blends sci-fi, historical theory, and action in an often overwhelming way. While it questions how stories shape the systems we live under, its execution falters towards the end, which left me less satisfied than I had hoped.
Stephenson's depiction of the Metaverse feels like an early blueprint of today's digital reality, which is compelling. The fast-paced narrative led by Hiro Protagonist, alongside Y.T.'s rebellious energy, adds entertainment value. The sections diving into Sumerian culture were particularly fascinating, though they could be dense at times and might slow the momentum for some readers.
Overall, Snow Crash is an ambitious book that blends sci-fi, historical theory, and action in an often overwhelming way. While it questions how stories shape the systems we live under, its execution falters towards the end, which left me less satisfied than I had hoped.