Reviews - Snow crash | The StoryGraph

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3.44k reviews for:

Snow crash

Neal Stephenson

3.89 AVERAGE

viopgzkx's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark informative reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

hetstaine's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous funny slow-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

randomprogrammer's review against another edition

3.0

Fantastically imaginative, yet often painfully over-explained, Snow Crash is a book that rarely trusts the intelligence of its reader, and one that often has the reader wondering about the intelligence of its author.

The society portrayed is a fascinatingly fractured, post-capitalist anarchy where the Mafia is a friendly franchise and US government is a parodied enclave. It features a what laughable mix of technology, where software has apparently only progressed 10 years and materials science has progressed 100. It's a world where a 15 year old girl's skateboard has enough nanotechnology to make a US General drool, AI is advanced enough to carry on a conversation but not to summarize a document, and hand knapped glass knives are powerful enough to slice through military-grade bullet proof armor.

There's no doubt that it is a fun book to read, but if you know even the first thing about the scientific or historical concepts being discussed, then by the last chapter your face will be left in a permanent rictus of astonished cringe. For every new topic he explores, it's like he overheard the least important 30 seconds of a one hour lecture on the subject, and then proceeded to expand on his shallow knowledge for a book length treatment. God help me if I have to hear that binary is the universal computer language one more time.

Binary provides an illustrative example. One of his core plot points relies on the premise that binary is the deep language of computers, and that over the course of years of hacking, software engineers internalize it in a meaningful way. Which is ridiculous of course. Yes all computers technically share binary, but nothing approaching a language happens until you get to assembly code, and that will be different for every processor. In biological terms, he's saying something like, atoms are the deep code underlying all life on earth. Technically true, I guess, but the example he was really searching for is DNA. And just like no zookeeper will ever meaningfully internalize the language of DNA, much less atoms, no hacker will ever meaningfully internalize binary.

I mentioned it earlier, but he really, really does not trust the intelligence of the reader. All of his world building is excruciatingly explained, instead of shown through the plot, and every little joke or pun is painfully spelled out. To be fair, he did build a really interesting world full of satire and hijinks, but he's constantly ruining it with his overbearing explanations. I would have loved to have this world revealed organically in the manner of Perdido Street Station. And also to be fair, his does interperse his explanatory expositions with some really wonderfully subversive, off-the-wall descriptions, like his camera case/lingerie comparison that I'll leave at the bottom.

On a more generous day I might have given this book a 4, but I don't think it's the sort of thing I would go around recommending to anyone. There is more to be said about the pacing of the plot and the action, the elements of surrealism, and the book's historical place in the sci-fi canon but I'm sure other reviewers have all explored these elements better than I will.

The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens, a polished glass dome with a purplish optical coating. Whenever Hiro is using the machine, this lens emerges and clicks into place, its base flush with the surface of the computer. The neighborhood loglo is curved and foreshortened on its surface.

Hiro finds it erotic. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. But there's more to it. Hiro's father, who was stationed in Japan for many years, was obsessed with cameras. He kept bringing them back from his stints in the Far East, encased in many protective layers, so that when he took them out to show Hiro, it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon, zippers and straps. And once the lens was finally exposed, pure geometric equation made real, so powerful and vulnerable at once, Hiro could only think it was like nuzzling through skirts and lingerie and outer labia and inner labia. . . . It made him feel naked and weak and brave.

The lens can see half of the universe—the half that is above the computer, which includes most of Hiro. In this way, it can generally keep track of where Hiro is and what direction he's looking in.

tucked_snuggly's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark funny tense fast-paced

I read this whole novel and still can’t believe Stephenson named his protagonists “Hiro Protagonist” and “Yours Truly.” It’s a totally unhinged thing to do, but also very funny.

It’s a very fast-paced and violent novel, and I never read fast-paced, violent novels. Breaking my rule has only made me want to adhere more strictly to my rule in the future. The many action sequences just served to make me anxious (and weirdly crabby?)—not a feeling I’m into. I imagine that Stephenson was drinking battery acid while he was writing. The tone has this acerbic tang to it that’s fun to read in spurts but put me on edge over the course of a marathon reading session.

The deep dive on Sumerian history/mythology was very interesting, and not something I thought a cyberpunk sci-fi novel would get into (regardless of the cover). Somehow lots of what I’ve been reading or watching lately has had to do with Kabbalists and golems—I’m not making a conscious decision to read stuff that has to do with this, so it’s weird. That being said, the ideas behind Kabbalah are interesting, so I don’t mean to complain.

A lot of grown men (like, middle-age) try (

and one succeeds! [kinda]

) to have sex with Y.T., a fifteen year old girl, throughout the course of this novel. Pedophilia is a bad time, but unnecessary pedophilia is an even worse one. I understand that Y.T. needs to live with her mom for plot reasons, but there’s no reason Y.T. couldn’t have been eighteen instead. That way, she’s still living with her mom, but it’s not pedophilia when various characters court her. But no, she had to be FIFTEEN. I can’t understand the thought process here. Y.T. has an age-appropriate boyfriend (I guess I'm just assuming he is, come to think of it), but he’s hardly ever mentioned and never shows up. Woof.

I’m still unclear on why everyone cares so much about using Y.T. as a pawn. Is it just because Enzo has a thing for her? In which case, how does anyone know he has a thing for her? Their conversations should be very private, given he's synonymous with The Mob.

And the boat people the U.S. government gives her to don’t care about using her as a pawn, they don’t care about anything. And if the U.S. government were giving her to the boat people because they’re in league with Rife, why did it seem like he didn’t know about her being on the raft?

It really never clicked for me, although it’s possible I missed the explanation, I guess.