cleverpun’s 2020 Reading Journal: March · 6:35pm Apr 9th, 2020
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
It is the future. Every government has collapsed, replaced in function by corporations. Every street and corner is covered in neon advertising. The internet represented by the Metaverse; where avatars are physical representations of yourself. Hiro Protagonist—hacker and sword-slinger—starts out the story delivering pizza for a Mafia-owned pizza chain. He meets a ‘Kourier’ named Y.T.—a skateboarder whose job it is to deliver things by latching onto cars with a magnetic grappling hook.
Along with the help of various other individuals—including the corporate mascots/owners of Hong Kong and the Mafia—they have to figure out the origin of a new virus called Snow Crash. Snow Crash is more than just a computer virus—it’s also a religion and a drug. And anyone who uses it has their brain fried.
This is a book that has a lot of great ideas in it. Clearly it must be, since many of the ideas were so good they made their way into real life. (The term ‘avatar’ was popularized by this book, and many aspects of its technology inspired real-life tech.) The world is described in no shortage of detail, from the modus operandi of Kouriers, to the mechanics and history of the Metaverse, to hyperinflation and the justice system. There’s no shortage of great worldbuilding and intriguing ideas here.
Unfortunately, that’s where my praise ends. The prose is long-winded, especially at the beginning, and it uses lots of slang to drive home the different timeframe. The story spends pages upon pages on inelegantly delivered exposition. The ideas that these exposition is explaining are frankly silly, and not in a good way. I actually started skimming over it after the first few times, and I don’t feel it damaged my experience in any way.
The plot and characters are fine. Hiro may be a bit of a Marty Stu, but that didn’t really bother me. Y.T. is fun to watch, although late in the book she has a sex scene which made me physically cringe. Uncle Enzo—the aforementioned mascot/owner of the Mafia—is interesting, but gets limited screentime. Many of the other characters are just bland and flat, particularly the people from Hiro’s past like Juanita or Da5id.
I’ve heard speculation/analysis that this story was meant to be a parody; a satiric and/or absurdist jab at cyberpunk. In reality, the book doesn’t reach the crazy extremes needed to be interpreted as a parody. It’s self-serious and preposterous, but not in a consistent or entertaining way.
There is things to like here; enough things that I finished the book. But this is one of those works that I finished, but cannot safely recommend.
Wow, its been years since I read that... I have vague memories of Col. Sanders being awesome. The vagueness indicates it is time for a re-read. Now to find a copy...
I remember reading it and being similarly ambiguously impressed, though admittedly it's been a while.
I think Neal Stephenson in general has a habit of biting off more than he can chew and coming up with ambiguously brilliant stuff. Seveneves was basically three unrelated books, each of which was pretty good, smushed together in a way that detracted from all three. I do remember liking Cryptonomicon much more, but it was also very directly about math in a way that put me in the target audience.
5240856 I think this is one of the first books where I was just so ambivalent, yet still managed to finish it. And I didn't even cover all my feelings (Raven being the epitome of "trying too hard", for instance).
I was looking at The Diamond Age: it has a lot of themes and ideas that are up my alley. I don't think I trust Stephenson enough, however, to try another of his books. He definitely seems like the sort of author that explores too many things at once; reading a synopsis for The Diamond Age or Snow Crash really struggles to point to a single plot point or theme. And that's a shame, because the ideas are ones worth exploring.