Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3883 in Books
• Published on: 1994-10-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.co.uk 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. --Acton Lane

Synopsis
In the future the only relief from the sea of logos is the computer-generated universe of virtual reality? But now a strange computer virus, called Snow Crash, is striking down hackers, leaving an unlikely young man as humankind's last hope. This book is shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Customer Reviews

Reasonable beginning, Amazing middle section, Weak ending

If you like the sound of this book based on the back of the book (hero called Hiro, pizza delivery, etc etc), then this book is for you. However if you have heard how great this book is but are slightly put off by the description, then there really isn't enough to keep your interested to the end. The book starts slowly; has an amazing middle section where I though "wow this could turn out to be a great novel"; however the ending is weak, and this is where the book really falls down. The trouble is that we find out what is going on far too early in the book and there is nothing left for the ending of the book, which is just one long chase scene after another.

Audience:
Seems to be aimed at the mid/late teen audience, people growing up in the early 90s would also get a lot out of it too.

The good:
There are some great ideas in the book and its influence on films like The Matrix is clear
Some intelligent concepts relating to language and religion
Main character is well written
Does a great job of creating an interesting world (from an early 90s perspective)

The bad:
*Laughably bad sex scene*
Supporting characters are poorly written and often fall back on stereotypes.
Too much filler when the story really needs to move along
Lack of peril/drama
Boring ending

High tech future runs out of steam
Neal Stephenson delights in setting up and describing a parallel reality. Just like our world but not quite. And what a set up. His imagination dazzles in the first third of this story set in the near future, but then things start to go awry. Introducing a librarian to allow long explanations of his ideas and plot is a clunky writing device, made worse still as the story heads towards its climax with the major characters gathered for a final explanation as though this were some 21st century Agatha Christie. As the first part of Snow Crash shows, Stephenson could do better, and would later in his career, as his writing chops caught up with his imagination.

How did I miss this?
As a fan both of the Cyberpunk genre and of Stephenson, it's hard to believe that I've only just found this book. As ever with this writer, there are layers and layers of detail which make the imagined society feel absolutely real. And in 2007, this requires far less of an imagination that it must have in the mid 90s; Stephenson's vision is already developing in reality.

The themes of infection, duality and societal anarchy are explored beautifully and my only quibble is the way we don't get a particularly satisfying conclusion.