Snow Crash

By: Neal Stephenson

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

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)

Cyberpunk meets history

WOW – truly new, well written, fun and full some of the coolest analogies I have heard since Raymond Chandler . This one of the first audio book a got and to this day I still enjoy hearing it.

One of the best

The hero of this book at 17: "He understood only two things, and he understood them far too well: the MacIntosh computer and samurai movies."
Now Hiero is in his late 20s, and has been just drifting for a number of years, until.....

You can't go wrong with a samurai ronin (look it up) and 15 yr old skater fighting the Anti-Christ (in a form that is not immediately recognizable) with the help of the Mafia, and using Sumerian mythology and neurolinguistics... and a pair of samurai swords, of course.

I've seen some of the reviews and it is clear that many could not get past the beginning, with its non-sequential story line, and no hint at what is to come. It is true that there are places where he spends too much tie harping on a single subject (bureaucracy), but hell, it was the guy's first book, at 20.

Horrible Audio

Seriously, whoever owns the audio rights to this book should be ashamed! This is probably the worst “professionally” recorded audiobook I’ve ever listened too.

The audio sounds like it was recorded back in the 80s, super tinny and hollow. There’s sections where it’s clear the narrator missed a line and had to re-record it, but the new audio clip doesn’t match or sound like the original source at all! It’s like no one even tried to record or edit this book with any kind of quality standards.

Then there’s the potentially racist audio interstitials. They’re just super awkward, out of place, and completely unnecessary. Remove them.

Made my road trip

This is one of my favorite science fiction stories. I had to drive a total of 40 hours in one week, and I listened to this audio book for a good portion of it. I'd already read it, so it was easy for me to follow along with. The reader did a very good job with it.

Captivating story read perfectly.

This novel was a surprise having never read anything by Stephenson. Excellently lent to audio due to action packed sections and punctuated by excellent narration.

awesome

Amazing story, great narration. pretty bad sound quality but that's not a dealbreaker. would definitely recommend

Fantastic narration!

What an entertaining listen! Supremely memorable characters, and the storytelling ability of both the author and the narrator have guaranteed I will listen to more of both their work.

Great narration, fun characters, and profound concepts! A+

This book was recommended to me by a sci-fi fanatic. While I bought the book originally, I decided to listen to the audiobook during my commute.

The way I knew it was a good book was when I realized I didn't want my commute to come to an end. The narration by Johnathan Davis is great! His ability to adapt to each character made it feel like a whole cast of narrators.

The story itself was thought provoking. The characters were rich and fun. Stephenson does a great job of illustrating complex characters that, at times, you see as both good and bad.

The tasteful tongue in cheek had me chuckling out loud. At times I wondered if Mike Judge and Neal Stephenson collaborated, as the dim dystopia made me think of Judge's "Idiocracy" more than once.

The ending was a little underwhelming, but was more than made up for by the twists and turns throughout the book.

Awesome Alternate Reality

This was the book where I was introduced to Neal Stephenson and his imaginative, edgy, way of writing. It's fresh, tech-edged, and like a wack upside the head to hear how he has fleshed out this metaverse. I also liked the research and analogies he used to illustrate his points as to how this could happen. Religious references or no, I never felt that this book bashed Christianity, but maybe its theory of the origins of the Bible would surprise some.

Made me want to look for more books from Neal. "Diamond Age" was on the longish side, but the world there too was very well defined. Neal does tend to get wordy and in too much detail sometimes in order to show you that his ideas are grounded either in science or math or some facts that he's like to use as his springboard. But all in all, I can highly recommend Snow Crash--especially people who like technical-gadgets and an intelligent story.

Finally: Neal apparently does not believe his readers are stupid, and he does not write that way. This too is another reason I recommend this book.

A favorite listen

I've listened to this book a few times and it just gets better with each listen. The characters are engaging and the story line is complex and captivating.