Paperback, 440 pages
English language
Published Aug. 13, 1993 by Penguin (ROC imprint).
Within the Metaverse, Hiro is offered a datafile named Snow Crash by a man named Raven who hints that it is a form of narcotic. Hiro's friend and fellow hacker Da5id views a bitmap image contained in the file which causes his computer to crash and Da5id to suffer brain damage in the real world.
This is the future we now live where all can be brought to life in the metaverse and now all can be taken away. Follow on an adventure with Hiro and YT as they work with the mob to uncover a plot of biblical proportions.
It is now obvious that Stephenson was imagining the consequences of a Trump victory for the setting of this story. How he did that in 1992 is still a little foggy but I presume when the relevant Sumerian cuneiform tablets are understood this will become clear.
Entertaining, well written, and overall pretty brilliant, but ultimately goes off the rails and becomes tedious in the second half.
Snow Crash reminded me of [b:Neuromancer|22328|Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)|William Gibson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1285017005s/22328.jpg|909457] and [b:Foucault's Pendulum|17841|Foucault's Pendulum|Umberto Eco|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1396645125s/17841.jpg|11221066] at once. It's simpler than both in the language department (which means it's readable on first try for me) but much more complex and structured in many other ways. I have so many notes and clipping from it...each second sentence is a gem of potentially real historical information. There probably aren't many authors who could make a transition form Sumer culture into virtual reality and anarchistic future USA as smoothly as Neil Stephenson. And then there is of course his ability to actually depict hacker culture and mindset. Mentions of BIOS, compiler and several programming languages. And Metaverse! Not to mention a great main protagonist (pun intended): An American/Japanese Hacker/Samurai.
In short: It's an great book, well worth its cult status.
"He turns off all of the techno-shit in his goggles. All it does is confuse …
Snow Crash reminded me of [b:Neuromancer|22328|Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)|William Gibson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1285017005s/22328.jpg|909457] and [b:Foucault's Pendulum|17841|Foucault's Pendulum|Umberto Eco|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1396645125s/17841.jpg|11221066] at once. It's simpler than both in the language department (which means it's readable on first try for me) but much more complex and structured in many other ways. I have so many notes and clipping from it...each second sentence is a gem of potentially real historical information. There probably aren't many authors who could make a transition form Sumer culture into virtual reality and anarchistic future USA as smoothly as Neil Stephenson. And then there is of course his ability to actually depict hacker culture and mindset. Mentions of BIOS, compiler and several programming languages. And Metaverse! Not to mention a great main protagonist (pun intended): An American/Japanese Hacker/Samurai.
In short: It's an great book, well worth its cult status.
"He turns off all of the techno-shit in his goggles. All it does is confuse him; he stands there reading statistics about his own death even as it's happening to him. Very post-modern. Time to get immersed in Reality, like all the people around him"
Awesome book, trying it in Japanese now for a challenge.
Holds up surprisingly well since my last reading 15 years ago. A surprise to realize the ideas that overlap with Diamond Age.
A good read. But disjointed. Especially those chapters which feel like cut and paste from Studies in Sumerian Gods. I was expecting a little more, but enjoyable and at times very clever all the same.
So very good.
After slogging through The Baroque Cycle, this book reinvigorated my deep appreciation of Stephenson's chops. That this book was originally written to be paired with a graphic novel can be seen in its movie-like, pop sci-fi esthetic. This is a quick, fun read that yet still provides that surprising intellectual depth of a strong core idea that Stephenson excels at. Loved it.
4.5 well paced many likable characters.
This book had an huge influence on me, I bought 3 super expensive head mounted display's, developed a few wearable input systems and created my own virtual spaces with unreal builder and much later opensim. Outdated, improbable but vey fun and inspiring story which is/was a must read in the emerging cyberculture of the nineties.
Snow Crash is a semi-post-apocalyptic view of the world in the future. America, Britain, China, India - all gone. In their place are franchise nations, dotting the landscape of every continent. The internet has become the Metaverse, sort of like SecondLife, but on steroids. It is exciting, intriguing, and worth multiple rereads.
I probably would have rated this book higher if I hadn't read [b: Vellum: The Book of All Hours|490966|Vellum (The Book of All Hours, #1)|Hal Duncan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388280313s/490966.jpg|1214913] first, which deals with a lot of the same ideas in a very different way. They're both awesome books, though.
''But when a businessman from New Jersey goes to Dubuque, he knows he can walk into a McDonald's and no one will stare at him. He can order without having to look at the menu, and the food will always taste the same. McDonald's is Home, condensed into a three-ring binder and xeroxed. ''No surprises'' is the motto of the franchise ghetto, its Good Housekeeping seal, subliminally blazoned on every sign and logo that make up the curves and grids of light that outline the Basin.
The people of America, who live in the world's most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hip-hop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree …
''But when a businessman from New Jersey goes to Dubuque, he knows he can walk into a McDonald's and no one will stare at him. He can order without having to look at the menu, and the food will always taste the same. McDonald's is Home, condensed into a three-ring binder and xeroxed. ''No surprises'' is the motto of the franchise ghetto, its Good Housekeeping seal, subliminally blazoned on every sign and logo that make up the curves and grids of light that outline the Basin.
The people of America, who live in the world's most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hip-hop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree killers, space walks, buffalo jumps, drive-bys, cruise missiles, Sherman's March, gridlock, motorcycle ganges, and bungee jumping. They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture.''
My SciFi readings are embarrassingly few, but I did thoroughly enjoy Snow Crash, a futuristic cyberpunk adventure.
The Metaverse he describes (think widespread "Second Life") feels believable and familiar in our current technology landscape, despite the fact that this book was written 15 years ago.
The first chapter is one of the finest pieces of prose ever written.
