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3mmers's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
fast-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
4.0
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson gets my vote for most surprising book of the quarter, in a good way. This book rules.
I didn’t expect it to be a mostly astute social commentary. I didn’t expect it to have great characters. I definitely didn’t expect it to be funny as hell.
Snow Crash has been adopted as the touchstone of just the most annoying dudes on the internet. ‘The Metaverse’ was, for a time, the Next Big Thing. The next innovation that would make the internet immeasurably more annoying and expensive for its regular users but would allow techbros to move money around in a way that they would assure us was definitely good.
At best, I was expecting Sword Art Online, a potentially interesting idea in practise quite dull, and at worst the corporate dick-sucking of Ready Player One or ninth circle of capitalist hell of Decentraland and the other wasteoids branding themselves as blockchain metaverses.
Oh me of little faith. Snow Crash beats ass.
Obviously this book has stuck around because it is super prescient about the ways in which people would one day use the Internet. Snow Crash was written in the paleolitic era of the early 90s but its online future will be very familiar to the 21st century man. A few programmers who when from college students experimenting with niche tech to super wealthy off of being the first nerds in the space, is where most of today’s richest men came from. The default avatars, that’s just how Fortnite (not to mention any number of online social experiences) works. A 3D continuous metaverse is probably never going to be in the cards, but a real world dominated by chain businesses designed to extract profit from even those activities we might hope are removed from capitalism? We’re already there.
Of course, Stephenson couldn’t predict everything. And the things he ended up being wrong about are honestly even funnier than the things he got right. One thing he didn’t foresee was the ubiquity of smartphones, so in the world of Snow Crash using the Internet while on the go is the event horizon separating normies from the irrecoverably geeky. Less funny as in haha and funny as in strange is the way the narrative treats programmers as a group. The programmer is a unique species innocent of the travails of the regular adult, like a unicorn or perhaps a bird of paradise. When they get rich it’s mostly by accident and it doesn’t really change much about them other than the quality of booze at the parties. They’re compelled by curiosity to solve technological problems but don’t have any of the venal motivations that cause social ones. They’re easily manipulated into doing destructive things, but aren’t ever bad in and of themselves. As a result the metaverse is a reprieve form the the corporate platforms that have come to dominate the real world. While there is money and exclusivity in the metaverse, it is also infinite and free to access, which means there is theoretically space for everyone.
It’s a native and kinda sweet perspective, and easy to miss with Snow Crash’s otherwise insane plot, but it did stick with me. It’s a very programmer kind of a way to think.
The plot mystery is also ultimately a very programmer way to think. When all you are is a coder, you tend to see everything as being reducible to code. This bothers me specifically because my background is history of science and, to make a long story short, we tend to see it as quite the opposite. Humans are not like code or computers because computers and code reflect some fundamental logic of the universe or whatever. Rather, comparing our brains to our technologies has been a continual historical cycle. Before computers it was watches, and if we hadn’t invented the computer, we would have imagined our minds as whatever other technology we did invent. The iron-clad certainty of stem-majors that they’re unique positioned to understand the universe.No, Mr. Stephenson, that’s not what the code of Hammurabi means. Ultimately though, this is a me problem. If Snow Crash think’s it is making a deep philosophical point then I don’t agree. Take the code-magic the same way you took the pizza delivering Mafia and you’ll be better for it.
Snow Crash’s most unusual feature is how it pre-dates the interminable modern discourse on representation in media. Most of the characters read like a bad faith hyperbole of a character with too many identities to be plausible, because of woke. A catholic Latina female programmer? An indigenous nuclear biker merc? A teen girl skateboard courier? A mixed race Black Japanese samurai coder? L. Ron Hubbard? What’s next? Pronouns??
It’s refreshing for this to be justified by little more that rule of cool. The characters’ backgrounds are important — Juanita’s Mexican catholic background informs her ideas about identity and selfhood, which is how she is able to solve the plot, Raven’s backstory is that he wants to nuke America as revenge for genocide and colonialism — but they’re there because it makes the book more interesting, not because of woke. Whatever that is supposed to mean. It reveals the whole ‘forced diversity makes stories worse’ for what it is, a shitty and ahistorical argument reverse engineered to defend a poorly understood reaction to Captain Marvel movies. Forced diversity was not a problem in 1992. Diversity was included because it was cool and interesting. One wonders what stories would exist if we extended this grace to racialized authors in addition to white ones.
Ultimately, Snow Crash is great like a theme park ride. There are bright lights and big thrills, but if you insist on looking behind the scenery, there’s less there than you’d expect. Insubstantiality doesn’t make the show any less impressive. I’ve got to hand it to the tech bros on this one; even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I didn’t expect it to be a mostly astute social commentary. I didn’t expect it to have great characters. I definitely didn’t expect it to be funny as hell.
Snow Crash has been adopted as the touchstone of just the most annoying dudes on the internet. ‘The Metaverse’ was, for a time, the Next Big Thing. The next innovation that would make the internet immeasurably more annoying and expensive for its regular users but would allow techbros to move money around in a way that they would assure us was definitely good.
At best, I was expecting Sword Art Online, a potentially interesting idea in practise quite dull, and at worst the corporate dick-sucking of Ready Player One or ninth circle of capitalist hell of Decentraland and the other wasteoids branding themselves as blockchain metaverses.
Oh me of little faith. Snow Crash beats ass.
Obviously this book has stuck around because it is super prescient about the ways in which people would one day use the Internet. Snow Crash was written in the paleolitic era of the early 90s but its online future will be very familiar to the 21st century man. A few programmers who when from college students experimenting with niche tech to super wealthy off of being the first nerds in the space, is where most of today’s richest men came from. The default avatars, that’s just how Fortnite (not to mention any number of online social experiences) works. A 3D continuous metaverse is probably never going to be in the cards, but a real world dominated by chain businesses designed to extract profit from even those activities we might hope are removed from capitalism? We’re already there.
Of course, Stephenson couldn’t predict everything. And the things he ended up being wrong about are honestly even funnier than the things he got right. One thing he didn’t foresee was the ubiquity of smartphones, so in the world of Snow Crash using the Internet while on the go is the event horizon separating normies from the irrecoverably geeky. Less funny as in haha and funny as in strange is the way the narrative treats programmers as a group. The programmer is a unique species innocent of the travails of the regular adult, like a unicorn or perhaps a bird of paradise. When they get rich it’s mostly by accident and it doesn’t really change much about them other than the quality of booze at the parties. They’re compelled by curiosity to solve technological problems but don’t have any of the venal motivations that cause social ones. They’re easily manipulated into doing destructive things, but aren’t ever bad in and of themselves. As a result the metaverse is a reprieve form the the corporate platforms that have come to dominate the real world. While there is money and exclusivity in the metaverse, it is also infinite and free to access, which means there is theoretically space for everyone.
It’s a native and kinda sweet perspective, and easy to miss with Snow Crash’s otherwise insane plot, but it did stick with me. It’s a very programmer kind of a way to think.
The plot mystery is also ultimately a very programmer way to think. When all you are is a coder, you tend to see everything as being reducible to code. This bothers me specifically because my background is history of science and, to make a long story short, we tend to see it as quite the opposite. Humans are not like code or computers because computers and code reflect some fundamental logic of the universe or whatever. Rather, comparing our brains to our technologies has been a continual historical cycle. Before computers it was watches, and if we hadn’t invented the computer, we would have imagined our minds as whatever other technology we did invent. The iron-clad certainty of stem-majors that they’re unique positioned to understand the universe.
Snow Crash’s most unusual feature is how it pre-dates the interminable modern discourse on representation in media. Most of the characters read like a bad faith hyperbole of a character with too many identities to be plausible, because of woke. A catholic Latina female programmer? An indigenous nuclear biker merc? A teen girl skateboard courier? A mixed race Black Japanese samurai coder? L. Ron Hubbard? What’s next? Pronouns??
It’s refreshing for this to be justified by little more that rule of cool. The characters’ backgrounds are important — Juanita’s Mexican catholic background informs her ideas about identity and selfhood, which is how she is able to solve the plot, Raven’s backstory is that he wants to nuke America as revenge for genocide and colonialism — but they’re there because it makes the book more interesting, not because of woke. Whatever that is supposed to mean. It reveals the whole ‘forced diversity makes stories worse’ for what it is, a shitty and ahistorical argument reverse engineered to defend a poorly understood reaction to Captain Marvel movies. Forced diversity was not a problem in 1992. Diversity was included because it was cool and interesting. One wonders what stories would exist if we extended this grace to racialized authors in addition to white ones.
Ultimately, Snow Crash is great like a theme park ride. There are bright lights and big thrills, but if you insist on looking behind the scenery, there’s less there than you’d expect. Insubstantiality doesn’t make the show any less impressive. I’ve got to hand it to the tech bros on this one; even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship
nutmeg47's review
adventurous
challenging
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? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship
dasonic's review
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
A great beginning, a boring and hard to read middle, an exciting buildup and a fumbled ending.
I loved the start of this book, I couldn't put it down, then there is suddenly chapters of just a character dumping information on Hiro and we go from a cyberpunk story totwo characters talking about an ancient religion and viruses. I struggled through this section, hoping it would get back to it. And it does, eventually, and I started to enjoy it again, although not as much as before. And just when I thought the book was getting good again, it ends. I stared at the last page and went "oh. I guess that's an ending". It was very underwhelming and felt like a lot of build up with no payoff.
I also found the sexualisation of YT (a 15 year old girl) uncomfortable, feeling out of place and taking away from what otherwise was a great character.
Do I regret reading the book? No. Would I read it again? I doubt it. Would I recommend you read it? Not really, but I wouldn't actively try and convince you not to.
For me, this book is the epitome of "just okay"
I loved the start of this book, I couldn't put it down, then there is suddenly chapters of just a character dumping information on Hiro and we go from a cyberpunk story to
I also found the sexualisation of YT (a 15 year old girl) uncomfortable, feeling out of place and taking away from what otherwise was a great character.
Do I regret reading the book? No. Would I read it again? I doubt it. Would I recommend you read it? Not really, but I wouldn't actively try and convince you not to.
For me, this book is the epitome of "just okay"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship
Minor: Rape
venti's review
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
laudelui's review
adventurous
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Promete mucho el argumento, o igual tenía unas expectativas equivocadas. Pero me dio la sensación que algunas partes no enlazan bien o que faltaban trozos por explicar. Sobre explica algunas partes de la historia que luego no vienen al caso y otras dices pues se ha flipado.
Si te gusta una historia con contenido de mitología y/o religiones antiguas con trazas de ciberpunk, persecuciones locas e invento con energía nuclear, es para ti .
La parte del final remonta y me recordó a una película de Hollywood de los años noventa.
Si te gusta una historia con contenido de mitología y/o religiones antiguas con trazas de ciberpunk, persecuciones locas e invento con energía nuclear, es para ti .
La parte del final remonta y me recordó a una película de Hollywood de los años noventa.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship and Sexual content
Moderate: Violence, Drug use, Pedophilia, and Gun violence
Minor: Racism
bellbirdie's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship and Violence
Moderate: Gun violence, Blood, Racism, Drug abuse, and Confinement
Minor: Addiction, Sexual violence, and Racial slurs
trankz's review
adventurous
dark
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
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship
Moderate: Racism and Racial slurs
Minor: Violence
conorrobinson's review
adventurous
dark
funny
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? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Violence, and Sexual assault
cattit00d's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny, Drug use, Rape, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Racial slurs, Racism, and Homophobia
tahnok's review
3.5
This was an important book to me as a kid but boy did it not stand up to closer scrutiny.
It's a Gen X vision of the future, and it's kind of fun for most of it, but there's some big flaws
The ending felt super rushed, and chaotic, and hard to follow as it moves all over the place. This explains why I literally never remember how it ends despite reading it three times
But the biggest flaw is with how YT is treated on the raft.there's no way to say that she slept with Raven consensualy. She's 15. She's trapped and can't leave and Raven is clearly capable and willing to be extremely violent. And her being underage seems unimportant to the plot. She could easily have been 18, which would help a little bit make the scene less gross
It's a Gen X vision of the future, and it's kind of fun for most of it, but there's some big flaws
The ending felt super rushed, and chaotic, and hard to follow as it moves all over the place. This explains why I literally never remember how it ends despite reading it three times
But the biggest flaw is with how YT is treated on the raft.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship and Sexual assault