Product Description
One of Time magazine's 100 all-time best English-language novels.

Only once in a great while does a writer come along who defies comparison—a writer so original he redefines the way we look at the world. Neal Stephenson is such a writer and Snow Crash is such a novel, weaving virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility to bring us the gigathriller of the information age.

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.

Amazon.com Review
From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 543 reviews)

A Really Fun Cyberpunk Novel

First, let me say that this book has the best first chapter of any book that I have ever read. After you read that chapter, it goes down slightly in quality.

Perhaps Mr. Stephenson rewrote that chapter again and again, or perhaps he wrote it for something else. Regardless, it HUMS. And it feels different from the rest of the story. Darker, more dangerous, just as satirical, but not quite as funny.

Past that, though, the story hardly breaks down. It is entertaining throughout, very amusing in most places, and harbors characters that I will probably never forget. I had previously read a single Neal Stephenson book (The Big U), which I also loved. Every time I see one of his new books come out, I have the feeling that I should buy it. (I had this same feeling with Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, and Kazuo Iguro's Never Let Me Go...now adays, I simply listen to that little voice, obviously).

The story never gets bad, it is entertaining throughout, the characters are original and interesting, so why not five stars? Well, two reasons. First, I don't think that any of the characters develop, at all, in the course of the book. Things happen, people die, and no one changes. Not something that I ordinarily like to give five stars to. Second, while it is terribly fun, it is not terribly relevant. There is nothing here that made me think, "Hrmmm..." in the realms of personal thought or thoughts of import. Again, not something that I like to give five stars to. If I could, I would, also, give it four and a half stars. If only Amazon would give us ten stars to use!!!

I read this book, enjoyed it, and discovered why it is on Time's list of the 100 Best Books in English since 1923 - Because it is good! So, I will be lending it, recommending it, and reading it again. It's definitely worth picking up.

B+

Harkius
October 01, 2008

I think I enjoyed it

Hiro Protagonist is a free-lance hacker for the CIC (the Central Intelligence Corporation) and pizza delivery guy for the Mafia, a concert promoter, and other things to make ends meet. He is also the greatest swordsman in the world of the not too distant future. Most nation states have fallen apart and corporations have taken over running things. Hiro and his sidekick Y.T. are in up to their necks in a plot to take over the world by a "computer virus" as old as civilization itself.

In this very original thriller that smacks of Lethal Weapon and the Matrix (although written in 1992) Neal Stephenson weaves together Sumerian myth, hackers, Pentecostalism, the world of organized crime, and an America that is scarily recognizable into a fast-paced intelligent story that will keep you turning the pages far into the night. The only problems are that Stephenson is sometimes needlessly crass, and the ending of the book is so abrupt it leaves a lot of loose ends that left me gasping for breath and a little put out with the author.

I enjoyed it immensley, but it left me unsatisfied with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
September 21, 2008

Brain BIOS

I liked the linking of how a human brain works and how a computer works. There has to be some hardware/software wired a birth to create the different personalities and to allow consciousness to develop. A funny exciting read.
September 06, 2008

practically unreadable

Sentence construction is an art that extends beyond your high school English teacher's boundaries of correct or incorrect. It's necessary, at a basic level, to ensure that a book's readable, but it can be also used as a tool, among other devices, to enrich an author's message. Stephenson's sentences in Snow Crash are so clunky, top-heavy, and distracting that it gave me a headache. The book is further weighed down by poor humor and cheap jabs.

I tried hard to like Snow Crash. I thought that maybe if I can get beyond the writing style, I'd find myself immersed into a whole new world of ideas. But after a good bit of effort on my part, I had to give up. Consider this sentence from the opening chapter, which occurs during an action sequence involving high-speed driving:

"He knows that when he gets to the place on CSV-5 where the bottom corner of the billboard is obscured by the pseudo-Gothic stained-glass arches of the local Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates franchise, it's time for him to get over into the right lanes where the retards and the bimbo boxes poke along, random, indecisive, looking at each passing franchise's driveway like they don't know if it's a threat or a promise."

Long sentences aren't inherently bad, this one's just awfully constructed. Structurally, the bulk of the sentence revolves around the "when...it's time" construction. The "when" leaves the reader anticipating the next clause which will, presumably, complete the thought. But while we're waiting for the completion, we're given an elaborate description of a view of just the corner of a billboard sign. The description is given merely to add a flare of style, since it contains no content that is meaningful to the reader. All of which would be fine if the description were more precise, but instead we're given a lengthy description of these arches and the unnecessarily long name of some irrelevant franchise. Had the sentence just ended there, it would merely have been a terrible sentence. Characteristic of Stephenson's writing, the sentence doesn't end there, elevating it from terrible to excruciating, as the next clause - intended to complete the "when..." construction - contains an even wordier description of the sort of drivers in the next lane. Not to mention the clumsy "it's time for him to get over into the next lane", which could easily be swapped for something more efficient, along the lines of maybe "he needs to switch lanes" - or just with anything that avoids a superfluous "it's", which immediately takes your mind out of the action by introducing the neutral and meaningless universal subject "it" smack in the middle of the sentence. Redundant with the previous clause, is another "where" construction, which is then used as an excuse to dive down a second whole rabbit hole of unnecessary description and detail. Needless to say, the poking and looking actions of passengers in the neighboring lane does a fine job of burying any muddled intentions that the sentence might have had under a thick layer of fresh concrete.

All of which, mind you, is simply a thought in the character's head (i.e., "He knows that when"), and is occurring during what's supposed to be a high-speed action sequence. And all of which begs the question, how can you possibly be emerged in the action as you slide down numerous tangential clauses, or how could care about the technical intention of the sentence (i.e., what he knows) when you're thrown wordy proper nouns, and how could you simultaneously care in the least about billboard signs and retards driving cars, all at the same time?

Labyrinthine sentences like these aren't speed bumps on the road, they're 6-inch round potholes and roadblocks. And Snow Crash is filled with them on every page. In them, Stephenson throws practically everything at the reader hoping he or she might bite onto something; you might bite onto pieces of it, but it's at the greater expense of losing everything else along with blocking any possibility of literary flow. No matter how hard I tried my mind was kept at an uncomfortable distance from the text as it stumbled over mindless clauses, unnecessary elaborations, and adjectives that were more distracting than descriptive. It all resulted in a gray unmemorable mess.

It's not that Stephenson has bad ideas, it's that he can't effectively get them out on paper. Purchasing an audio version of the book might help, so that someone else has to read the sentences, but it's doesn't make up for the fact that the book's dreadfully written.

I was annoyed by other stylistic techniques throughout the book as well. Curse words are sprinkled liberally throughout the narrative to pointless effect. They're used in place of more descriptive adjectives. Perhaps Stephenson used them to give the book a pulpy feel, but even good pulp consists of more than just four-letter words.

And lastly Stephenson's humor often borders more on cheap than witty. The example that sticks out the most in my mind is his slang term - "bimbo-boxes" - for minivans. I don't own a minivan, or particularly sympathize with those who do, it's just a very superficial brand of humor - a cheap-shot at modern society, not particularly well thought-out or clever. Certainly a timeless piece of literature - even if it's farcical - should have higher standards than calling minivan drivers bimbos merely in passing. There are bigger literary fish to fry.

This sort of humor pervades the whole book. Sometimes it serves a minor plot or thematic function, but more often it's just mentioned in passing, often replacing qualitative character- or world-building. If that's really what you're looking for then there are plenty liberal political/social commentary books, or go to a leftist protest, or check out a Michael Moore film. Just because it's in a sci-fi book doesn't automatically give this sort of humor more merit. Anyone can do it.

I'm sure that there are great ideas in the book - had I read beyond the first eighth of the book, I probably would've come across more of them - but it got to the point where I couldn't imagine how they'd justify the work of clawing through grammatical jungles under the guise of "sentences" and elongated portions of fluff.

August 31, 2008

The book itself has become a reference, you might as well read it

I can easily agree with the many reviewers here, "excellent ideas," "brilliant opening," "later parts overblown," etc., but really it's almost irrelevant now. The book has sprinted past reasonable criticism and become a standard that other books are measured against. This is cyberpunk to many readers. In the same way that calling Tolkien "boring in places" is meaningless now, so too is calling Stephenson's characters "one dimensional parodies."

If you haven't read Snow Crash yet, go grab a copy and follow it up with the source material in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Folks on the train will be much impressed with you.
August 26, 2008

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Cryptonomicon
by Neal Stephenson

Neuromancer
by William Gibson

The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Bantam Spectra Book)
by Neal Stephenson

Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
by Neal Stephenson

Zodiac
by Neal Stephenson