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So Snow Crash is...really stupid
- Thread starter JCHandsom
- Start date
Much better, if only because for all its faults it's weird in an inventive way. The "is it cyperpunk or post cyberpunk parody" style of writing, all the deep dive into ancient history and the creation of language, the setting being our world but not really (the aforementioned "Nipponese" thing and the fact that it's seemingly set in a far more technologically advanced version of the 1990s).
It's got some really fun action set pieces as well. IMO, more than a video game or comic adaptation, this would have made for a great 90's style anime.
Anyways, you'll either really enjoy it or come away appreciating some parts while just not liking the novel as a whole. Not a ringing endorsement, but the only way I can recommend reading RPO is if you're between 40 and 50 years old and were really into D&D, arcade games and saturday morning cartoons. If that ain't you, watch the movie instead, because it's much better.
You have to remember that the book was written in 1992, 10 or so years before Wikipedia became a thing, 3 years before Altavista started (you know, the thing everyone used to google stuff before google became a thing).
Those infodumps were seriously mindblowing at the time.
Those infodumps were seriously mindblowing at the time.
So much of the book boils down to what is basically Hiro asking Siri to read Wikipedia entries to him, so from that perspective it was quite prescient.
The audiobook is funny about the info dumps. You feel like this is a Hideo Kojima game the way the narrator remains dead serious while going through the verbosity of those sections.
I find with most of Neil Stephenson's books that part of the book (or a couple of storylines) are amazing and some really don't work for me. Snow crash had brilliant sections and terrible sections - so did Cryptonomicon. One or two parts of Big U were really neat ideas.
I read somewhere that the first chapter of Snow Crash (delivering the pizza) had a different tone to the rest of the book because it was written at a different time?
Zodiac is still probably my favorite of his books. baroque cycle didn't work for me.
I read somewhere that the first chapter of Snow Crash (delivering the pizza) had a different tone to the rest of the book because it was written at a different time?
Zodiac is still probably my favorite of his books. baroque cycle didn't work for me.
Bug Jack Barron (Spinrad, 1970) is probably the most revolutionary futurological depiction of the era of democratised media. Others to look at are Shock Wave Rider (Brunner, 1975, based on the works of Alvin Toffler) and needless to say the works of Philip K Dick read literally like the ramblings of somebody sent back in time by the technology of the film Twelve Monkeys.
I listened to the audio book version and remember liking the concepts in it. There's a part in there where it's just exposition about dead languages or some shit and I had to fast forward through that. I'm sure someone somewhere enjoyed those parts.
Yeah, more that it forever set up the boxes that were to be then ticket.
It's great to see that others recognise that cyberpunk existed long before it was given a name.
Edit: in my previous post I forgot to mention the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem. His novels include The Futurological Congress (1971) which is like an onion, skin built upon skin. It's a remarkable work.
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It's a great book. It's deliberately a little goofy. If you can't tell that from the character names and the opening, I just don't know what to tell you.
Someone asked "Is it better than Ready Player One?" Yes, your daily dump is better than Ready Player One.
Someone asked "Is it better than Ready Player One?" Yes, your daily dump is better than Ready Player One.
I'm pretty sure the first chapter is written like how Hiro sees himself. The Deliverator = making something cool and exciting that is actually extremely unglamorous and pretty dangerous considering the Mafia runs the business.
Agreed. I read it earlier this year and didn't really see what the big deal was.
Neuromancer was a bit better, though I had a similarly difficult time getting through it. Both very slow reads for me.
Neuromancer was a bit better, though I had a similarly difficult time getting through it. Both very slow reads for me.
I mean a lot of your complaints are kind of complaints about Stephenson in general. His books are often just loose, enjoyably-written frameworks within which he is able to expound upon whatever topics he's been noodling over the past few years. I love it, personally, but it's not for everyone.