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russellarbenfox 's review for:
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
I picked up this book for free; someone here at the university was clearing out their shelves, and this was one of the books they were giving away. I've heard a lot about Stephenson over the years, but never read anything by him. I was actually thinking that I'd use my fiction-reading time this summer to tackle Patrick Rothfuss or China Mieville, but I ended taking Snow Crash on vacation. I am so happy I did--and now, my summer reading plans have definitely changed.
Summaries of Snow Crash can be found everywhere; suffice to say, it's a cyberpunk sci-fi novel, with an interesting tension at its core. On the one hand, it is grounded in a great deal of sharp observational humor about a possible future America that is obviously extrapolated from our own; on the other hand, it is fueled by a plot which supposes a profound connection between our most elementary cognitive functions and Sumerian mythology. Between those two poles, you have some fascinating characters running about, causing trouble, discovering deadly threats to life as they know it, cutting people apart with swords, and skateboarding. I recognized even as I worked through it that there wasn't enough connection between the two narrative lines to really make the whole thing hold together, but I enjoyed myself immensely all the same.
In the end, Stephenson basically throws up his hands, says "That's all I got folks," and then contrives a crisis moment with lots of explosions to make sure all his primary characters are either 1) safely returned to their significant others, or 2) dead. But even with that, it remained a lot of fun right to the very end. After getting this taste, I'll definitely be reading more Stephenson, and soon.
Summaries of Snow Crash can be found everywhere; suffice to say, it's a cyberpunk sci-fi novel, with an interesting tension at its core. On the one hand, it is grounded in a great deal of sharp observational humor about a possible future America that is obviously extrapolated from our own; on the other hand, it is fueled by a plot which supposes a profound connection between our most elementary cognitive functions and Sumerian mythology. Between those two poles, you have some fascinating characters running about, causing trouble, discovering deadly threats to life as they know it, cutting people apart with swords, and skateboarding. I recognized even as I worked through it that there wasn't enough connection between the two narrative lines to really make the whole thing hold together, but I enjoyed myself immensely all the same.
In the end, Stephenson basically throws up his hands, says "That's all I got folks," and then contrives a crisis moment with lots of explosions to make sure all his primary characters are either 1) safely returned to their significant others, or 2) dead. But even with that, it remained a lot of fun right to the very end. After getting this taste, I'll definitely be reading more Stephenson, and soon.