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frga 's review for:
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
medium-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
Yes, it's a cyberpunk novel, but I guess you could call it almost the opposite of Neuromancer. If Neuromancer takes itself seriously and is stylistically dry, Snow Crash is more like an over-the-top Hollywood action movie.
The visual descriptions are abundant and detailed. Someone described it as “not a very serious” book, but it is actually just a caricature. Two examples: the protagonist is named Hiro Protagonist and his Russian roommate Vitaly Chernobyl; to describe the inefficiency of the government, a 5-page letter is quoted that a boss writes about how to manage the toilet paper in the building where the feds work. The novel just screams at your face what it is trying to tell you. It may annoy some people, not particularly me: every now and then I found myself grinning as I shook my head, because it's as if the author is repeatedly giving you the most obvious wink in the world, in a playful sort of way.
On the plot I have more complaints . It almost seems to me that the book is divided into three parts. In the first one we don't really understand what is happening, we are introduced to the characters and the (amazingly built) world but in a seemingly somewhat confusing way. In the second one we begin to understand what the stakes are, and there is an interesting but somewhat excessive infodump about sumerian culture (!). The last part, on the other hand, is just pure action and fun, and manages to make you understand why certain things were talked about in the first part. I appreciated how the novel manages to pull the threads together (or some of them) and bring back, in the finale, various seemingly marginal elements.
All in all, however, the style is a bit fragmented, there are parts of the novel that are super serious and others that are more satirical or naive. I understand why someone has referred to Snow Crash as not knowing what it wants to be: in that sense it is a justified criticism. To me it is simply a super fun, blustery caricature cyberpunk with several interesting ideas that make it well worth reading.
Oh, and yes: sexualizing a 15 year-old girl is not very cool and I can't fathom why she HAD to be 15 instead of, like, 16. But in the grand scheme of things this plays a very minor role in the novel, so it's more than bearable.
The visual descriptions are abundant and detailed. Someone described it as “not a very serious” book, but it is actually just a caricature. Two examples: the protagonist is named Hiro Protagonist and his Russian roommate Vitaly Chernobyl; to describe the inefficiency of the government, a 5-page letter is quoted that a boss writes about how to manage the toilet paper in the building where the feds work. The novel just screams at your face what it is trying to tell you. It may annoy some people, not particularly me: every now and then I found myself grinning as I shook my head, because it's as if the author is repeatedly giving you the most obvious wink in the world, in a playful sort of way.
On the plot I have more complaints . It almost seems to me that the book is divided into three parts. In the first one we don't really understand what is happening, we are introduced to the characters and the (amazingly built) world but in a seemingly somewhat confusing way. In the second one we begin to understand what the stakes are, and there is an interesting but somewhat excessive infodump about sumerian culture (!). The last part, on the other hand, is just pure action and fun, and manages to make you understand why certain things were talked about in the first part. I appreciated how the novel manages to pull the threads together (or some of them) and bring back, in the finale, various seemingly marginal elements.
All in all, however, the style is a bit fragmented, there are parts of the novel that are super serious and others that are more satirical or naive. I understand why someone has referred to Snow Crash as not knowing what it wants to be: in that sense it is a justified criticism. To me it is simply a super fun, blustery caricature cyberpunk with several interesting ideas that make it well worth reading.
Oh, and yes: sexualizing a 15 year-old girl is not very cool and I can't fathom why she HAD to be 15 instead of, like, 16. But in the grand scheme of things this plays a very minor role in the novel, so it's more than bearable.
Content Warnings
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content