Snow Crash, a cyberpunk masterpiece

I just picked up this book and started reading it(so I am not sure if it is a masterpiece or not, yet). This is a remarkable book. Check out the WIKI article.

From terms like 'avatar' (used by many online) and the 'Earth' program in Snow Crash which is basically the same thing as google earth and other similar programs. When I started reading it it seemed like it was new, but I found that it was published in 1992!

So far, it is really good. I hope it stays that way, and I hope others will pick it up as well.

Heh, I have a book called 'Cryptonomicon' by the same author, but I haven't read it yet. When I bought it, I didn't look too closely, and thought it was by Neil Gaiman, whose American Gods I liked. It looks like an interesting book, but I have a lot of unread books kicking around.

How would you compare Snow Crash to William Gibson's cyberpunk, if you are familiar with his work? (Assuming you are, since he's a key figure in that genre) I've read almost all of Gibson's books, so if you tell me that Snow Crash is of similar quality, I'll be sure to put it on my list. (And bump up Cryptonomicon on the to-do reading list!)

Excellent read, Snowcrash. I enjoyed it the first time, and even moreso the second and third times.

Would make an excellent graphic novel or animation.

Would make an excellent graphic novel or animation.

They had a film lined up but it was scrapped. I think that was because the most cyberpunk movies tend to suck, or be compared to the matrix, one or the other.

That's painful to know.

Still, great book. I understand there's an audio-book out there as well somewhere, which should be a nice distraction.

Here is a very notable quote. I removed the swearing. For context it is the F word, twice.

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest mother(REMOVED) in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.
Hiro used to feel this way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this was liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the baddest mother(REMOVED) in the world. The position is taken.

in CHAPTER 36 ("Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson) The parenthetic citation is for the mods.... just in case

I loved Snow Crash. I still think that Hiro Protagonist is one of the better (and funnier) names ever bestowed upon a main character. For the person who bought Cryptonomicon -- it's a good book. You should definitely read it. But heed this warning: the first 50 or so pages are very difficult to wade through if you aren't into math.

/tn.

As you can see by my username, I loved the book, and I believe it to be Stephenson's greatest work, which is saying a lot compared to his later works. Snow Crash was the first book I came across that made me think: Wow, if I was going to write a book, the style of the writing would be exactly like this. Plus, the genre was and is of interest to me. If you enjoy sci-fi/cyberpunk and have a satirical/sarcastic sense of humor, this is a definite recommend!

I love this book! I first read it back in 2001 in high school. We went to powells book store and everyone in the class got to pick out a book. I noticed Hiro on the cover holding up a katana in front of a digital cityscape and decided I would get it. I had no idea it was gonna be so good. Totally ahead of its time, and I love the vision of society in the future. The tie-ins of religion/ancient sumerians/binary code is superb. This book also made me want a glass knife Everyone should read this book atleast once.

I've read Snow Crash since my last post in this thread above (2008, lol) and I did like it, and I would definitely recommend it, but I enjoyed Cryptonomicon a lot more. You can't go wrong with either one, though.

Neal Stephenson is an excellent authour. Snow Crash was very good - the Sumerian Meme Virus concept is quite fun.

I also enjoyed Diamond Age, but had a hard time getting into Cryptonomicon.

Enjoy the read.

reply to post by DINSTAAR


Read the book some years ago, it's a good and fun read.

Some quotes that were funny and interesting from that book.

Snow_Crash
His business card.

HIRO PROTAGONIST
Last of the freelance hackers Greatest sword fighter in the world Stringer, Central Intelligence Corporation Specializing in software-related intel (music, movies & microcode) On the back is gibberish explaining how he may be reached: a telephone number. A universal voice phone locator code. A P.O. box. His address on half a dozen electronic communications nets. And an address in the Metaverse.

Growing Up.

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest mofo in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad. Hiro used to feel this way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this was liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the baddest mofo in the world.

The position is taken.

How the mafia works.

"The important thing is, Hiro, that you have to understand the Mafia way. And the Mafia way is that we pursue larger goals under the guise of personal relationships. ... This is how we avoid the trap of self-perpetuating ideology. Ideology is a virus. So getting this chick back is more than just getting a chick back. It's the concrete manifestation of an abstract policy goal. And we like concrete — right, Vic?"

The importance of being specific.

"It's, like, one of them drug dealer boats," Vic says, looking through his magic sight.
"Five guys on it. Headed our way." He fires another round. "Correction. Four guys on it."
Boom. "Correction. They're not headed our way anymore."
Boom. A fireball erupts from the ocean two hundred feet away. "Correction. No boat."

It had a bunch of stuff on ancient history and religion as well.

"Babel led to an explosion in the number of languages. That was part of Enki's plan.... After a few thousand years, one new language developed — Hebrew — that possessed exceptional flexibility and power. The deuteronomists, a group of radical monotheists in the sixth and seventh centuries B.C., were the first to take advantage of it. They lived in a time of extreme nationalism and xenophobia, which made it easier for them to reject foreign ideas like Asherah worship. They formalized their old stories into the Torah and implanted within it a law that insured its propagation throughout history — a law that said, in effect, 'make an exact copy of me and read it every day.'..."

I mean who cant like a story were the main hero and protagonist of the story is named Hiro Protagonist. There are a few things that could of made the book better, one of them being if they had a main arch villain named Sol Badguy. I think both names have been done in other formats and stories/books but not in the same story together.

reply to post by galadofwarthethird


I'm going to have to re-read that. I had forgotten about the business card.

a reply to: DINSTAAR

Snow Crash is a great book. You all might also like The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. I believe that this book is the first Cyberpunk novel, written in 1975.