Book report: Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash contains at least 7,000 clever ideas, any one of which could form the basis of a personal philosophy, a system of government, a business plan, a religion, a video game, an action movie, a floor wax, or a dessert topping. How can an author include so many ideas within the plot of a novel? Well, he can’t: they stick out of the actual story like Post-It notes on book pages.
Neal Stephenson has never heard of the writer’s motto “Show, don’t tell”, so instead you get “conversations” that consist of character X asking, “What do you know about Sumerian mythology?”, to which character Y responds with a 6-page encyclopedia entry. In other parts of the book, the author can’t even be bothered with that meager illusion of story-telling, and simply presents large slabs of information directly to the reader, without bothering the actual characters, who presumably have other things to do.
Oddly, there are characters in this book. The hero, or protagonist, is named Hiro Protagonist, no doubt to let us know who to root for. He fortuitously has every skill necessary to allow him to foil someone in their nefarious plot to do something – I never could figure it all out. Hiro can wield katana swords in both real life and online, program rings around anyone else on earth, ride a motorcycle expertly, sort out abstruse problems in hieroglyphics and neurolinguistics, and master any weapon that lands in his hands. How does this paragon make his living? Delivering pizzas, of course.
The major bad guy, before we meet the actual major bad guy, is a dude named Raven, who routinely filets anyone he has a grudge against – and he has a grudge against the entire USA – and who tools around on his own motorcycle with a nuclear weapon in the sidecar. When he gets in over his head in a fight, he threatens to detonate the nuke and, for some reason, people capitulate. I guess he’s never met anyone nuttier than he is to say, “Go ahead.” Or maybe he’s just the prime example of an observation of mine that, in any confrontation, the craziest person wins.
My favorite character is YT, but then I’m a sucker for a 15-year-old girl who can rescue herself from any danger, thank you very much, and, after a long night of adventure, change back into her schoolgirl persona so her mom won’t worry about her. She’s a package courier: note this for later discussions.
In this world, government – all government – has abdicated its responsibilities, and the power vacuum has been filled by various corporations that have staked out various territories and enticed the population into a bewildering array of multiple citizenships. Everyone seems to have a business-slash-government, including the Mafia, the Yakuza, white supremacists, Hong Kong, and televangelists. A lot of the fun in the novel – and it is very funny in places – arises from Stephenson satirizing actual businesses and governments with the logical outcome of their development.
Stephenson is celebrated in geek circles for inventing the idea of the metaverse, an online world where the avatars of actual people can interact regardless of the real physical location of the people involved. He describes the metaverse exhaustively and exhaustingly. Some people claim that modern MMORPGs owe a lot to his description, but I don’t quite see it. What he’s describing does seem a lot like the clunky old video game BattleZone.
You will learn a lot from this book, about ancient Sumer, neurolinguistics, the Aleuts, World War II, computer viruses, Japanese swordfighting, program design, religion, robotic dogs (or, possibly, dogotic robots), archeology, economics, fractal blades, bureaucracy, Mafia respect rituals, skateboard technology, virtual reality, the Gospel as mental vaccination, and a new interpretation of the Biblical story of Babel. It has a central intriguing idea about the possibility of crashing the software that runs on the human brain, the Snow Crash of the title. This problem is never actually solved in the book, but enough bad guys die to make it all seem worthwhile, and enough survive to make a sequel possible.
I read this book because I realized that there were some gaps in my geek cred, but it’s hard to recommend Snow Crash. It has some nice writing, but the relentless firehose of information is overwhelming. If you do read it, at least you know what to expect.
It’s interesting to contrast Snow Crash with Virtual Light, by William Gibson. They were published around the same time (1992 and 1993, respectively). Both deal with the consequences of economic near-collapse. Both have strong female leads who are couriers. Both involve extended chases around MacGuffins.
However, Virtual Light is by far the superior novel. Gibson doesn’t hit us over the head with economic theory and lectures, as Stephenson does. Instead, he shows ordinary people selling items they’ve scavenged from the trash, to make ends meet (as Gibson himself did before earning success as a writer), or being denied entrance to restaurants or hotels reserved for the uber-class. He doesn’t explain the origin, development, and implications of technology, as Stephenson does. Instead, he shows people wearing goggles and talking to what looks like a dinosaur, or worshipping TV. It doesn’t take much to get the reader the message. A picture is worth a thousand words, even if the picture is described in words.
Also, Virtual Light has actual characters that we care about. Rydell is a genuinely good person recruited to do a dirty job he doesn’t suspect. Chevette is a very real young woman who doesn’t know how to live her life, having had no good role models. Even Skinner, a down-and-outer who has gained an almost oracular reputation just because he’s survived so much, is a fascinating character we can care about. Maybe this is why I re-read Virtual Light about once a year, but I wouldn’t re-read Snow Crash for a largish sum of money.
Therefore, my recommendation is that, if Snow Crash sounds at all interesting, you read as much as you can stand, then read Virtual Light. See if you agree with me.
Snow Crash contains at least 7,000 clever ideas, any one of which could form the basis of a personal philosophy, a system of government, a business plan, a religion, a video game, an action movie, a floor wax, or a dessert topping. How can an author include so many ideas within the plot of a novel? Well, he can’t: they stick out of the actual story like Post-It notes on book pages.
Neal Stephenson has never heard of the writer’s motto “Show, don’t tell”, so instead you get “conversations” that consist of character X asking, “What do you know about Sumerian mythology?”, to which character Y responds with a 6-page encyclopedia entry. In other parts of the book, the author can’t even be bothered with that meager illusion of story-telling, and simply presents large slabs of information directly to the reader, without bothering the actual characters, who presumably have other things to do.
Oddly, there are characters in this book. The hero, or protagonist, is named Hiro Protagonist, no doubt to let us know who to root for. He fortuitously has every skill necessary to allow him to foil someone in their nefarious plot to do something – I never could figure it all out. Hiro can wield katana swords in both real life and online, program rings around anyone else on earth, ride a motorcycle expertly, sort out abstruse problems in hieroglyphics and neurolinguistics, and master any weapon that lands in his hands. How does this paragon make his living? Delivering pizzas, of course.
The major bad guy, before we meet the actual major bad guy, is a dude named Raven, who routinely filets anyone he has a grudge against – and he has a grudge against the entire USA – and who tools around on his own motorcycle with a nuclear weapon in the sidecar. When he gets in over his head in a fight, he threatens to detonate the nuke and, for some reason, people capitulate. I guess he’s never met anyone nuttier than he is to say, “Go ahead.” Or maybe he’s just the prime example of an observation of mine that, in any confrontation, the craziest person wins.
My favorite character is YT, but then I’m a sucker for a 15-year-old girl who can rescue herself from any danger, thank you very much, and, after a long night of adventure, change back into her schoolgirl persona so her mom won’t worry about her. She’s a package courier: note this for later discussions.
In this world, government – all government – has abdicated its responsibilities, and the power vacuum has been filled by various corporations that have staked out various territories and enticed the population into a bewildering array of multiple citizenships. Everyone seems to have a business-slash-government, including the Mafia, the Yakuza, white supremacists, Hong Kong, and televangelists. A lot of the fun in the novel – and it is very funny in places – arises from Stephenson satirizing actual businesses and governments with the logical outcome of their development.
Stephenson is celebrated in geek circles for inventing the idea of the metaverse, an online world where the avatars of actual people can interact regardless of the real physical location of the people involved. He describes the metaverse exhaustively and exhaustingly. Some people claim that modern MMORPGs owe a lot to his description, but I don’t quite see it. What he’s describing does seem a lot like the clunky old video game BattleZone.
You will learn a lot from this book, about ancient Sumer, neurolinguistics, the Aleuts, World War II, computer viruses, Japanese swordfighting, program design, religion, robotic dogs (or, possibly, dogotic robots), archeology, economics, fractal blades, bureaucracy, Mafia respect rituals, skateboard technology, virtual reality, the Gospel as mental vaccination, and a new interpretation of the Biblical story of Babel. It has a central intriguing idea about the possibility of crashing the software that runs on the human brain, the Snow Crash of the title. This problem is never actually solved in the book, but enough bad guys die to make it all seem worthwhile, and enough survive to make a sequel possible.
I read this book because I realized that there were some gaps in my geek cred, but it’s hard to recommend Snow Crash. It has some nice writing, but the relentless firehose of information is overwhelming. If you do read it, at least you know what to expect.
It’s interesting to contrast Snow Crash with Virtual Light, by William Gibson. They were published around the same time (1992 and 1993, respectively). Both deal with the consequences of economic near-collapse. Both have strong female leads who are couriers. Both involve extended chases around MacGuffins.
However, Virtual Light is by far the superior novel. Gibson doesn’t hit us over the head with economic theory and lectures, as Stephenson does. Instead, he shows ordinary people selling items they’ve scavenged from the trash, to make ends meet (as Gibson himself did before earning success as a writer), or being denied entrance to restaurants or hotels reserved for the uber-class. He doesn’t explain the origin, development, and implications of technology, as Stephenson does. Instead, he shows people wearing goggles and talking to what looks like a dinosaur, or worshipping TV. It doesn’t take much to get the reader the message. A picture is worth a thousand words, even if the picture is described in words.
Also, Virtual Light has actual characters that we care about. Rydell is a genuinely good person recruited to do a dirty job he doesn’t suspect. Chevette is a very real young woman who doesn’t know how to live her life, having had no good role models. Even Skinner, a down-and-outer who has gained an almost oracular reputation just because he’s survived so much, is a fascinating character we can care about. Maybe this is why I re-read Virtual Light about once a year, but I wouldn’t re-read Snow Crash for a largish sum of money.
Therefore, my recommendation is that, if Snow Crash sounds at all interesting, you read as much as you can stand, then read Virtual Light. See if you agree with me.
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