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Loading... Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book) (original 1992; edition 2000)by Neal Stephenson
Work InformationSnow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This book was pretty good. Started off a little slow and disjointed, but as you learn more and more of what's going on it all starts fitting together. Some familiar tropes with the Metaverse and a sword-wielding hacker, but a lot of moving parts throughout the book and an interesting theory/idea to build a plot around. ( ) I quite enjoyed this-- it's not my favorite, or even my favorite [a:Neal Stephenson|545|Neal Stephenson|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1192826259p2/545.jpg], but it certainly captures a lot of the things I enjoy about his writing style. Stephenson does really good near-future sci-fi because he excels at taking something from our own time and going crazy with it, but at the same time keeping it detailed and sprawling and very realistic. In the case of [b:Snow Crash|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157396730s/830.jpg|493634], all you have to do is accept one possibly science-fictional idea in order for the rest of the story and world to fall into place with a resounding crash. Near the end where they're author-dumping philosophy of religion... I can even agree with the line of thinking to an extent, but the part where Judaism is summoned up and just as quickly dismissed as 'a good attempt for the time, but outdated and replaced by Christianity' felt like a punch in the stomach. That's a pretty good simplification of the way it looks from the outside, but it's something Jews hear all the time, as if Judaism is made irrelevant and pointless by its eventually more popular offshoot. Almost as a side note, I was entertained to notice the similarities of Hiro's "Earth" program to Google Earth. I wonder whether Google got their inspiration from the book, or if it's just an obvious idea. (Probably more the latter.) Re-read this after a number of years, and I must say it held up much better than I expected it to, especially for something originally written so long ago. Long before there was anything like Second Life or any of the elaborate MMORPGs we have today, Stephenson conjured up a digital world for his characters to play in. This gives him the title of techno-prophet, in my book. Ultimately, though, it is the characters of Hiro Protagonist (best character name, ever) and Y.T. and Stephenson's not-entirely-dystopian-but-certainly-not-utopian future that draw me in and hold me even a second time around. Meh, I am not quite sure what all of the fuss is about this book. I just read it because I had previously read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, and an old room-mate of mine recommended it to me since I liked the aforementioned book quite a bit. However, this proved to be a disappointment. Maybe it served as some screenplay for The Matrix movies which speaks volume as I think the second and third of the trilogy are complete garbage. Meh, I am not quite sure what all of the fuss is about this book. I just read it because I had previously read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, and an old room-mate of mine recommended it to me since I liked the aforementioned book quite a bit. However, this proved to be a disappointment. Maybe it served as some screenplay for The Matrix movies which speaks volume as I think the second and third of the trilogy are complete garbage.
Hiro Protagonist (who has chosen his own name, of course) turns out to be entertaining company, and Mr. Stephenson turns out to be an engaging guide to an onrushing tomorrow that is as farcical as it is horrific. Stephenson has not stepped, he has vaulted onto the literary stage with this novel. A cross between Neuromancer and Thomas Pynchon's Vineland. This is no mere hyperbole. Belongs to Publisher SeriesGoldmann (45302) Is contained inContainsHas as a student's study guideAwardsNotable Lists
Fiction.
Science Fiction.
HTML:The brilliantly realized (The New York Times Book Review) modern classic that coined the term metaverseone of Times 100 best English-language novels and a foundational text of the cyberpunk movement (Wired) In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzos CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse hes a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus thats 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 . . . youll recognize it immediately. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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