SNOW CRASH

[E. Magill]

The book for July/August 2013 is SNOW CRASH by Neal Stephenson. Amelia has been trying to get me to read this for ages, and now that she's won the random die roll (I swear the game wasn't rigged!), I finally must comply. Looking around online, I see this book listed as one of the greatest sci-fi books of all time, or at least of the last fifteen years, and the description makes it sound like a modern-day Neuromancer. I'm a sucker for cyberpunk, so I'm excited.

Here's the Amazon.com description:

"In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous…you’ll recognize it immediately."

[kwirk]

This was a re-listen for me. I listened to this a couple years ago when I started delving into sci-fi and started picking out award winners. Though a second listen I didn't remember too much. The few things I did remember, and therefore the most memorable parts for me, were:
- skateboarding, cyber world, mutant-dog (I'm a dog person), and cool action scenes on the raft

The cyberpunk tone is fun, it feels like a tough action film. I was thinking that it could be a pretty cool movie with today's technology. I also got immersed in the sci-fi reality which I can sometimes find lacking. I think he does a good job of creating the setting.

For whatever reason, my favorite part of the book is when YT takes out Raven accidentally. The 'Oh #!%&' moment is wonderful. Even though Raven's the bad guy I kind of like him, probably because he's more of a rogue baddie.

The parts I disliked the most were the explanations of the historical babel stuff. Part of it was just boredom. But part of it was just wondering what parts of the historical stuff was fiction vs real. If it were all based in fact I'd find that more interesting, but since I didn't know I had to assume fiction was blended with fact. So then I felt like I was getting a history lesson of a fiction. But in truth, history is my least favorite subject so even if it were all true I find it dull, and useless history is even worse for me.

As a government employee (undergoing furlough) the whole description of the under-payed, over-loyal, feds resonated with me. The only beef I had with the feds was that they seemed a little too capable and had a little too much control over the employees. I think the uber-control jives philosophically with the feds but the I think they'd lack on the execution couldn't manage to secure control of their workforce like that.

I do think Stephenson's endings are too abrupt. I like an open ended conclusion to allow a little speculation on the future, but his are a bit too open ended and end too close to the climax. This one doesn't end too badly but Diamond Age really does.

[E. Magill]

I just finished it, and I pretty much agree with you on all counts. I love the world-building and the setting, and I dig the cyberpunk vibe. There's a lot of cool stuff happening, and the action beats--especially during the long climax--are memorable.

It's hard to muddle through the Babel stuff. I appreciate the work Stephenson put into it--and I don't mind mixing real history with fictional history to come up with a cool information age take on ancient myth--but you just get the sense that he's showing off too much. It goes on for WAAAAY too long and has far too much detail. He needed to be more succinct in his exposition.

On the other hand, I thought his writing for the rest of the book was too brisk and too stylized. I liked the rhythm of it, but I'll be honest: I had no idea what was going on half the time.

The section on the feds is probably my favorite part of the whole book. The five pages about pooling toilet paper resources cracked me up, and Amelia agrees with you, Linda, in that she can relate to it from her time working for the gov't.

The ending comes completely out of nowhere, and leaves practically everything dangling. Okay, so Rife and the virus are dead, but... Raven's in pretty bad shape and is presumably in a fight to the death with Uncle Enzo, and did everybody just agree to forget about the whole nuclear bomb thing? Hiro saved the hackers from Snow Crash, but what happened with him and Jaunita back on the Raft? Books have denouements for a reason.

I'm no prude, but Y.T. being fifteen and so overtly sexualized bothered the crap out of me. Maybe it's because I'm a parent, but that's pretty messed up imho.

So, to sum up: I like the setting, the cyberpunk feel of it, the socio-economic-political insanity, the characters, and the plot itself. I don't like the writing style, the ridiculously abrupt ending, the stupid names ("Hiro Protagonist" has got to be the laziest name in the history of fiction), and the mind-numbingly long sections about Sumerian pseudo-history.

[sarahcv]

But you guys are missing the central conflict: how do you pronounce Da5id?

[kwirk]

Sept 6, 2013 15:19:19 GMT -5 sarahcv said:

But you guys are missing the central conflict: how do you pronounce Da5id?

If it helps, the audio book went with David.

[amelia]

I love this book, I have read it many times. But I admit that I do skip over the library guy and the history lesson most of the time. I feel like this book has so many good action scenes that keep the plot moving so quickly. I love everything about Raven and everything about the floating city. I love all the scenes with YT (but hate her name). Then YT and Raven get in scenes together and it's awesome! The world building is so good, better than any of his other books. I've pretty much given up on all the other stuff. I admit, Neal Stephenson has gotten to be a bit of a windbag, but this book flows so well. Eric and I actually had a mini-fight about the end of the book. I really like it - the openess... but i'm just a reader, not a writer, so I admist that there are probably technical issues with the ending. But not all fights have a winner and a loser, sometimes there are just losers and life goes on. If he kept writing it would have been another story, not this story. Not the story of Hiro and his quest. Hiro and his quest for me ends on the ship. Everything else is just denoumount.