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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
I initially discovered Snow Crash through TIME's "All-TIME 100 Novels". I normally like these lists as it's a great resource for discovering new books. Here is what they had to say about Snow Crash:
This hooked me immediately. And within a few days, I had a copy of the book. The book starts very strong. I have not read much science fiction, but the cyberpunk world was one of the highlights for sure. The story is set in the very far future. The land is filled with everything, from lawless areas run by savages to gated communities set up by business franchises. There is also a lot of cool technology. My favorite part of the world-building was the metaverse. This book came out in 1992, and it is a little frightening to see Stephenson predict the future with virtual reality. As a programmer myself, I enjoyed the extra effort Stephenson put in to actually explain the technology behind the metaverse. Speaking of technology, the gadgets the characters use are sick. One character is a courier who skates around on a skateboard that can adapt its wheels to any terrain, and one of the villains uses a knife that is so sharp it is 1 atom wide. I also found the plot to be fast-paced which was a plus. My favorite chapter involved a detailed description of a character who works for "The Feds". She is watched every second during her job. She receives a memo, and she times herself so that her boss can see she spent the perfect amount of time reading it:
Not only is this section hilarious, but there is a sad underlying truth that I felt Stephenson was trying to convey to us. There are many sections like this, poking fun at what happens when corporations take over.
While all of this sounds awesome, my enjoyable reading experience ended about halfway into the book. I was in love with everything I had just described, and around the middle mark, I encountered a complete snooze-fest of a section that felt like it had lasted 100 pages. Our main character ends up wanting to learn more about this Snow Crash virus/disease/religion, so he asks his librarian robot for a history lesson on language, and the Tower of Babel. This was a complete 180 and it felt like one big history dump. I checked out in the middle of the section, praying that not all of this was going to be relevant to the story. It's not exactly fair as the reader, but at a certain point, I stopped caring about the rest of the story since the magic had disappeared. I was at my limit with 150 pages left, so I decided against DNFing. I also was not personally a fan of the writing. This might just be my preference as a reader, but it felt very vulgar and elementary at times. Here is one example:
This just felt so cheesy to me, and there were a few other moments like this too. In one scene, a character throws a "rock" at her mom's work computer. Her mom obviously becomes livid, but "Finally Mom winds down, defeated by Y.T.'s strategy of silence". Maybe I am biased but that did not feel realistic at all. This is the same mom who works for "The Feds", and I'd imagine she wouldn't calm down until she found a way to explain herself. The ending is also very abrupt and almost didn't feel like it was a real ending. Lastly, the pacing towards the end felt too fast. While action sequences can be thrilling, having too many back-to-back takes away from other parts of the story like character development and world-building.
I think there's a lot to like in this book, but a majority of the book was not enjoyable for me.
Hiro Protagonist — yeah, that’s his name — is a freelance hacker and unemployed pizza deliveryman lost in a post-lapsarian, hyper-capitalist future America in which the central government has withered away, leaving behind a landscape of gated communities and endless strip malls lined with cookie-cutter retail franchises. When a virulent computer virus (or is it a drug? or a religion?) called Snow Crash gets loose and somehow starts infecting humans, Hiro teams up with a sassy skateboard messenger to save both the real world and cyberspace. Stephenson is that rare—no, unique—thing, both a virtuosic literary stylist and a consummate observer of a brave new world where information flows freely between humans and computers, to the point where the two are no longer easily distinguishable.
This hooked me immediately. And within a few days, I had a copy of the book. The book starts very strong. I have not read much science fiction, but the cyberpunk world was one of the highlights for sure. The story is set in the very far future. The land is filled with everything, from lawless areas run by savages to gated communities set up by business franchises. There is also a lot of cool technology. My favorite part of the world-building was the metaverse. This book came out in 1992, and it is a little frightening to see Stephenson predict the future with virtual reality. As a programmer myself, I enjoyed the extra effort Stephenson put in to actually explain the technology behind the metaverse. Speaking of technology, the gadgets the characters use are sick. One character is a courier who skates around on a skateboard that can adapt its wheels to any terrain, and one of the villains uses a knife that is so sharp it is 1 atom wide. I also found the plot to be fast-paced which was a plus. My favorite chapter involved a detailed description of a character who works for "The Feds". She is watched every second during her job. She receives a memo, and she times herself so that her boss can see she spent the perfect amount of time reading it:
Y.T.'s mom pulls up the new memo, checks the time, and starts reading it. The estimated reading time is 15.62 minutes. Later, when Marietta does her end-of-day statistical roundup, sitting in her private office at 9:00 P.M., she will see the name of each employee and next to it, the amount of time spent reading this memo, and her reaction, based on the time spent, will go something like this:
Less than 10 mm. Time for an employee conference and possible attitude counseling.
10-14 min. Keep an eye on this employee; may be developing slipshod attitude.
14-15.61 mm. Employee is an efficient worker, may sometimes miss important details.
Exactly 15.62 mm. Smartass. Needs attitude counseling.
15.63-16 mm. Asswipe. Not to be trusted.
16-18 mm. Employee is a methodical worker, may sometimes get hung up on minor details.
More than 18 mm. Check the security videotape, see just what this employee was up to (e.g., possible unauthorized restroom break).
Y.T.'s mom decides to spend between fourteen and fifteen minutes reading the memo. It's better for younger workers to spend too long, to show that they're careful, not cocky. It's better for older workers to go a little fast, to show good management potential. She's pushing forty. She scans through the memo, hitting the Page Down button at reasonably regular intervals, occasionally paging back up to pretend to reread some earlier section. The computer is going to notice all this. It approves of rereading. It's a small thing, but over a decade or so this stuff really shows up on your work-habits summary.
Not only is this section hilarious, but there is a sad underlying truth that I felt Stephenson was trying to convey to us. There are many sections like this, poking fun at what happens when corporations take over.
While all of this sounds awesome, my enjoyable reading experience ended about halfway into the book. I was in love with everything I had just described, and around the middle mark, I encountered a complete snooze-fest of a section that felt like it had lasted 100 pages. Our main character ends up wanting to learn more about this Snow Crash virus/disease/religion, so he asks his librarian robot for a history lesson on language, and the Tower of Babel. This was a complete 180 and it felt like one big history dump. I checked out in the middle of the section, praying that not all of this was going to be relevant to the story. It's not exactly fair as the reader, but at a certain point, I stopped caring about the rest of the story since the magic had disappeared. I was at my limit with 150 pages left, so I decided against DNFing. I also was not personally a fan of the writing. This might just be my preference as a reader, but it felt very vulgar and elementary at times. Here is one example:
Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years, If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge, If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.
Hiro used to feel that way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this is liberating. He no longer has to worry about trying to be the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken.
This just felt so cheesy to me, and there were a few other moments like this too. In one scene, a character throws a "rock" at her mom's work computer. Her mom obviously becomes livid, but "Finally Mom winds down, defeated by Y.T.'s strategy of silence". Maybe I am biased but that did not feel realistic at all. This is the same mom who works for "The Feds", and I'd imagine she wouldn't calm down until she found a way to explain herself. The ending is also very abrupt and almost didn't feel like it was a real ending. Lastly, the pacing towards the end felt too fast. While action sequences can be thrilling, having too many back-to-back takes away from other parts of the story like character development and world-building.
I think there's a lot to like in this book, but a majority of the book was not enjoyable for me.
The story was great, but the setting and jokes just wasn't for me. Would recommend to others for the humor.
Read this a while ago while on floors lol. it was a lot of fun
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Slow to start but once it pick up pace it is fairly engaging. The characters were well rounded and likeable. The ending was abrupt but worked.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The story is just okay, but the humor is great! The tongue in cheek kept catching me off guard, and I found myself laughing out loud!
An overall fun and enjoyable read that is hampered by the some of the style that Stephenson started developing in his career.
The setting alone for this book is flat out fun, even for it's dystopian condition. The world is somehow crafted so that even the lowliest delivery girl is able to make clever notes about the failings of the free market extravaganza that is the west coast of the former U.S.
This is a quintessential Stephenson book in that there are 5-6 stretches of the book that are just incredibly exciting and action packed, leaving you rearing to go for the next chapter. This is also a quintessential Stephenson book in that there are 10-15 stretches of exposition, that although interesting, are further confirmation that he really enjoys studying two to three broad ideas and just going into almost extravagant levels of detail about them. It just so happens that this book features programming/the internet, linguistics, and how ancient Sumerian myths link the two together. Almost no one in the world is crazy enough to do this, so I have to respect Stephenson for doing it.
After all is read and done, you get the feeling that you just got off of a rollercoaster while having a textbook read to you over speakers. I'm not sure that it's a recommendable experience, but it's unique enough to have made the time spent worth it all.
The setting alone for this book is flat out fun, even for it's dystopian condition. The world is somehow crafted so that even the lowliest delivery girl is able to make clever notes about the failings of the free market extravaganza that is the west coast of the former U.S.
This is a quintessential Stephenson book in that there are 5-6 stretches of the book that are just incredibly exciting and action packed, leaving you rearing to go for the next chapter. This is also a quintessential Stephenson book in that there are 10-15 stretches of exposition, that although interesting, are further confirmation that he really enjoys studying two to three broad ideas and just going into almost extravagant levels of detail about them. It just so happens that this book features programming/the internet, linguistics, and how ancient Sumerian myths link the two together. Almost no one in the world is crazy enough to do this, so I have to respect Stephenson for doing it.
After all is read and done, you get the feeling that you just got off of a rollercoaster while having a textbook read to you over speakers. I'm not sure that it's a recommendable experience, but it's unique enough to have made the time spent worth it all.
adventurous
dark
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
challenging
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Violence
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death