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champipen 's review for:
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
When I was young, I had a stunning, creative idea to have the different components of a computer strapped to my body. I thought it was clever, original, and have always intended to build it someday.
Only to find out in reading Snow Crash that the idea had been brought up and explored 31 years ago.
Living in shipping containers. The Metaverse. NPCs. Corporatocracy. Weaponized ideologies and religion. Cyber and viral warfare. The haves, the have-nots. Making a living online, and doing so by buying and selling trade secrets.
So many of the things- technologies, lifestyles, outlooks- that I thought were innovative and cutting edge among my generation are lifted straight from this book. Whether people read it and set about making it real, or the author just nailed what progress would look like, either way it's astounding. I feel like a 13 year old kid being told that he was really adopted after seeing how all this connects and references back to this work.
Additionally it's a great read, with lively imagery and great turns of phrase that strike home one after the other. There was one 17-page sequence of recap and explaining that I feel could have been cut, but other than that, I have almost no qualms with this book. This is Cyberpunk, this is Sci-fi, this is fiction in fine form.
Recommend to anybody and everybody. Will definitely be purchasing a copy and re-reading at some point.
Only to find out in reading Snow Crash that the idea had been brought up and explored 31 years ago.
Living in shipping containers. The Metaverse. NPCs. Corporatocracy. Weaponized ideologies and religion. Cyber and viral warfare. The haves, the have-nots. Making a living online, and doing so by buying and selling trade secrets.
So many of the things- technologies, lifestyles, outlooks- that I thought were innovative and cutting edge among my generation are lifted straight from this book. Whether people read it and set about making it real, or the author just nailed what progress would look like, either way it's astounding. I feel like a 13 year old kid being told that he was really adopted after seeing how all this connects and references back to this work.
Additionally it's a great read, with lively imagery and great turns of phrase that strike home one after the other. There was one 17-page sequence of recap and explaining that I feel could have been cut, but other than that, I have almost no qualms with this book. This is Cyberpunk, this is Sci-fi, this is fiction in fine form.
Recommend to anybody and everybody. Will definitely be purchasing a copy and re-reading at some point.