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)

it's ok

cool setting, but you can skip like 2 hours of dialogue or anything to do with the character of the "librarian" because the book tells you the whole plot at the end as well anyway

Slow start, but worth the wait.

When I first started this book, I was bored, and not really interested in the ideas as presented. I'm glad I stuck with it, however, because the depth of this book turned out to be amazing. Excellent read.

Uncle Enzo!

I enjoyed the book a lot. Narration was pretty good. I'm not sure if I need to hear the babbling every chapter. Otherwise the narrator was good at doing voices and everything was clear aside from the babbling. The story was entertaining but sometimes the storyline or action scenes felt like they ended too quickly or the author got bored about writing the scene and wrapped it up. I also did not realize the book was going to end so quickly. I guess I was expecting saying goodbye to all the characters and did not realize those were their last scenes. Thinking back I guess it does fit their characters to end like that. Those are minor complaints though. I enjoyed it enough to look into Stephenson's other books!

Forward-Looking 90's Book With An 80's 'Rad' Feel

OK, so I grew up in the 1980's. I watched a lot of action shows on network television and in the movies. (What 80's kid didn't?!) The writing and storytelling style of this book definitely harkens back to the age this book was written in; with its cheesy audio interludes and stereotypical portrayal of the skater culture of the time. I'm almost surprised some of the characters didn't utter a "Gnarly!" or Radical!" while doing a kickflip over a moving car.

Yet...

What sold me on the story was how forward thinking the sci-fi was. Reading this book today is like pouring over an ancient tome of the history of the cyberpunk genre. Yes, there are earlier examples out there, but Snow Crash really seems to be on-point with many of its ideas of where the primordial internet's "Information Superhighway" would evolve into. You see direct references to MMORPG's, Google Maps, Wikipedia, and anti-virus software years before they they became a reality. It's amazing how close Neal Stephenson got these back in 1992.

And speaking of ancient tomes: The back story of the computer virus was also an interesting bit of history. Although the author does drag it out a bit longer than I thought was necessary, it makes a rather compelling answer to the story arc. It's also a nice little bit of hidden Edutainment, as I found myself doing some research into the mythos to learn more about the subject. I found the ancient history quite fascinating, leading up to me wanting to grab a book on the subject here on Audible.

There were a few irksome issues with Snow Crash, I hate to say. Although it was refreshing to see a complicated and very human mixed race protagonist, (and the uncommon lineage of the main antagonist), in a story from this time period, I think there could've been a bit more fleshing out of his character. It seems like the author wanted to say more about him, but got caught up in describing all the other cliche stereotypes of the auxiliary players. Another by-product of the time, perhaps? And the ending? Well, let's just say I found it to be rather... abrupt.

Overall, my take on Snow Crash is it's a great read for those that like to reminiscence about the early days of the cyberpunk genre. It's also a fascinating premonition of the technology of today, and possibly the next 5-10 years. And I really enjoyed the connection ancient history made to the computer age in this story. What were disliked and distracting were some of the long-in-the-tooth history lessons, the seemingly under-developed characters, and overused used stereotypes and then-current pop culture references that didn't age well. And that ending... Sheesh! But beyond that I will say I enjoyed the story. And I hope you do, too.

Just go into it with the mindset that you're reading "The Matrix", but stuck in 1984. Both figuratively and literally.

(This review was written for the Audible 20 Review Sweepstakes Entry)

An amazing story.

I've loved this book for decades now and really enjoy it in audio book form. Action, intrigue, swords, drugs, guns, religion, and peculiar phrasing makes it a pleasure to listen to.

Okay

It a decent story but in my opinion had a fairly abrupt and disappointing ending.

such promise

Started out so good, absolutely incredible world building. Unfortunately, the story falls apart spectacularly in the last third. It felt like watching a movie that ran out of time and budget and had to wrap up as many storylines as it could in the shortest time possible.

brilliant

This is my second time reading through Snow Crash, from the vivid world that Stephenson has created to the compelling characters I was hooked from page one. The new sci-fi fantasy starts here and it's a great ride

Good, until the end...

What happened at the end of this book? Up until the last 10 or 15 minutes there was lots of great story, but at the end it just died a sudden death! Still, it was entertaining and worth a listen, just expect to be left hanging at the end.

Neal...you've done better.

The book premise shows promise, the characters are good, but gesh. It drones on and on...this is the first of your books I simply have to put down because it did not know when enough was enough. I am an avid reader 50+ books a year...this was a bit much sir.