Snow Crash

By: Neal Stephenson

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Only once in a great while does a writer come along who defies comparison - a writer so original he redefines the way we look at the world. Neal Stephenson is such a writer and Snow Crash is such a novel, weaving virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility to bring us the gigathriller of the information age.

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's 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...you'll recognize it immediately.

©1992 Neal Stephenson (P)2001 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Brilliantly realized...Stephenson turns out to be an engaging guide to an onrushing tomorrow." (The New York Times Book Review)
"Fast-forward free-style mall mythology for the 21st century." (William Gibson)

Long to start but engaging once into it

I found that the techno jargon/slang was initially fairly shallow and repetitive. The story could have done with a much shorter setup of the characters and period, with a bit less attempt at a clever approach. This almost felt like word filling to make a minimum.

However, once the story got going, it developed into a very engaging and well through out tale. The characters and interactions kept me listening until the very end, where I found it to be nicely all wrapped up.

Snow Crash

One of the worst sci-fi books I have ever read. The writing alternates between purple prose and deadening exposition interspersed with some all-too-few descriptions of place. The plot reveals the author's superficial understanding of biological and linguistic evolution, ancient civilizations, and religion. The main character is African-American/Chinese, yet this comes off as a shallow attempt at PC, especially considering the utter lack of a discussion of Eastern religions in the excruciatingly long passages on religion-as-virus. The characters are almost all, with the exception of YT perhaps, little more than expositors. Reads like a tech manuel: a souless and brain-numbing execution of some interesting ideas. Consequently, this book represents 16 hours of wasted time and left me with the question: Do book editors actually edit the books they publish? This would have been much better if someone had imposed a little discipline on the author.

brilliant!

neal stephenson was ot known to me until recently (well a few month back) and I stumbled upon his name in a few podcasts and was very appealed by what the hosts said. I am a huge cyberpunk fan having played the cyberpunk pen and paper rpg and especially shadowrun, so I started with his novel "snow crash" which was recommended at many places. and I haven't been disappointed. what a wonderful read. it sucks you in and won't let you go till the last page. a brilliant and sharp story, packed with interesting and within the story unique characters. if you are into scifi and cyberpunk it is a must read.

Sadly Dated

I felt that the story which rests very heavily on what it calls the Metaverse, but what we would today consider to be an instance of 'Second Life', is now rather badly dated. Problems with rendering, spatial interactions etc in this realm now seem ludicrous. I also took exception to the author's heavily descriptive style which robbed the narrative of any tension or pace. It was as if a postmodern rush of strangely juxtapositioned descriptive terms were thought more important than what later emerged as a really good story.

What a ride!

Any additional comments?

As one of the other reviewers noted, if I had to do it over again, I would have read this book instead of listening to it - not that there is anything wrong with the narration, which is excellent. It is, however, a very involved plot with lots of descriptions and lots of characters. I found that I had to stop whatever I was doing at the same time and really pay attention to it or I would start losing the thread.

It took some dedication to get through a slightly slow start but I'm glad I stuck with it. Stephenson manages to weave together wildly disparate themes. The book swings back and forth between very detailed explanations (with which I occasionally became impatient) and rocketing action. I normally would never recommend this but I think I might have gotten a bit more out of the book if I had read the WIkipedia precis first, so I had some lay of the futureland that Stephenson has created.