Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
It almost feels like cheating to count Stephenson rereads against my reading goal, because even though they are long, they go down soooooo easy. Snow Crash isn’t and won’t ever be God-tier Stephenson for me — there’s too much graphic violence, and it is a little gross that Y.T. is only 15 — but it’s hard not to enjoy a book that’s got hackers, the mafia, and Sumerian mythology in it, all while not taking itself too terribly seriously.
A very funny look at a future that could be. Snow Crash is a great mix of cyberpunk and humor; I highly recommend.
This book was cool: a strange amalgam of the Matrix, Tower of Babel allegories, and a "Protagonist" outfitted with samurai swords.
Starts off teeming with action, grinds to a stop with a mid-book info dump, then closes with more action. It's a grand ride.
I still can't understand why everyone in the book was fascinated with a 15-year-old girl, though. Rather discomforting.
Starts off teeming with action, grinds to a stop with a mid-book info dump, then closes with more action. It's a grand ride.
I still can't understand why everyone in the book was fascinated with a 15-year-old girl, though. Rather discomforting.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Prophetic. Orwellian, even. Brilliant social commentary.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I struggled with this one. I can't decide if it's a good book tarred by the context of the last 30 years (every time I read metaverse it took me out of the story about, damn you Zuckerberg!) or simply a mediocre book.
Firstly the characters, possibly the weakest element of the novel. I didn't particularly find any character likeable or noteworthy. I couldn't stand the way YT was written, which seemed to be peak 'man writing a teenage girl', and Hiro was a forgettable protagonist.
Next the plot, there's some hooks here which disappointingly could've been interesting to explore further, the main plot is fine and seems to proceed at a good pace until the last few chapters which seems to race right to the end as quickly as possible. I felt the book needed a bit more time to breath at the end.
Finally, the concepts and the world were the most interesting to me, if a little contrived at points.
It wasn't a terrible book and I finished it. But ultimately, I couldn't help but think the book didn't deliver on its initial promise and there's better books out there that explore similar concepts, such as Neuromancer.
Firstly the characters, possibly the weakest element of the novel. I didn't particularly find any character likeable or noteworthy. I couldn't stand the way YT was written, which seemed to be peak 'man writing a teenage girl', and Hiro was a forgettable protagonist.
Next the plot, there's some hooks here which disappointingly could've been interesting to explore further, the main plot is fine and seems to proceed at a good pace until the last few chapters which seems to race right to the end as quickly as possible. I felt the book needed a bit more time to breath at the end.
Finally, the concepts and the world were the most interesting to me, if a little contrived at points.
It wasn't a terrible book and I finished it. But ultimately, I couldn't help but think the book didn't deliver on its initial promise and there's better books out there that explore similar concepts, such as Neuromancer.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Well, I hated this. I didn't think I would love it when I got it from a white elephant, but after reading the first 30 pages or so last December I thought I would at least like it. The dystopian society seemed cool and the premise seemed interesting, but I don't think I fully comprehended a single thing that happened.
Society has become so capitalist that everything is owned by corporations, so much that they are considered countries of their own. Inflation has blown out of control. The world's largest pizza chain is controled by the Mafia. Hiro Protagonist is a half-Black, half-Asian hacker and swordsman who is also a pizza delivery guy. Y.T. is a fifteen-year-old girl who is a Kourier, or a futuristic delivery person. When a virus that may have connections to Sumerian mythology starts spreading in the virtual reality that Hiro helped create, they have to help stop it from destroying the minds of people everywhere.
I don't think I could explain a single other thing about this book. I don't understand almost everything that happened. The only thing I liked about this was that the main character was Blasian and there was a powerful disabled side character, and I would say there was a teenage girl main character that wasn't sexualized, but that stopped being true. There were slurs against Black and Asian characters, which would have been one thing since the main character identifies with both and the characters he was opposing used the slurs, but there were also slurs against Jewish and disabled people for no reason. The disabled character wasn't there and there were no Jewish characters. The amount of info-dumping wasn't funny, and I usually handle info-dumping really well and even like it sometimes. Let's not even talk about how the fifteen-year-old girl, who had NO REASON to be fifteen, had sex (e.g. statutory rape) with a grown man, as well as how unrealistically the sex itself was written. I don't feel like talking about this anymore.
+ diverse characters?
- underutilized virtual reality
- flat characters
- info-dumping
- connections between mythology and current-day not clear enough
Society has become so capitalist that everything is owned by corporations, so much that they are considered countries of their own. Inflation has blown out of control. The world's largest pizza chain is controled by the Mafia. Hiro Protagonist is a half-Black, half-Asian hacker and swordsman who is also a pizza delivery guy. Y.T. is a fifteen-year-old girl who is a Kourier, or a futuristic delivery person. When a virus that may have connections to Sumerian mythology starts spreading in the virtual reality that Hiro helped create, they have to help stop it from destroying the minds of people everywhere.
I don't think I could explain a single other thing about this book. I don't understand almost everything that happened. The only thing I liked about this was that the main character was Blasian and there was a powerful disabled side character, and I would say there was a teenage girl main character that wasn't sexualized, but that stopped being true. There were slurs against Black and Asian characters, which would have been one thing since the main character identifies with both and the characters he was opposing used the slurs, but there were also slurs against Jewish and disabled people for no reason. The disabled character wasn't there and there were no Jewish characters. The amount of info-dumping wasn't funny, and I usually handle info-dumping really well and even like it sometimes. Let's not even talk about how the fifteen-year-old girl, who had NO REASON to be fifteen, had sex (e.g. statutory rape) with a grown man, as well as how unrealistically the sex itself was written. I don't feel like talking about this anymore.
+ diverse characters?
- underutilized virtual reality
- flat characters
- info-dumping
- connections between mythology and current-day not clear enough