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)

Written in 1992, still feels fresh in 2017

Great world-building, loved the characters. Multiple ethnic groups are represented, though there are some over-the-top stereotypes (e.g. Mafia) the book feels representative. The hero (Hiro Protagonist!) is half black and half Japanese. His ex-girlfriend is hispanic. Another main character is Aleutian. It's nice that people in the future are not just white! Really enjoyed the audio version.

Dated, a bit fantastic for my tastes

Liked the premise, but the background story for how the bad guy came to power was too over the top. If you have any training in computer engineering and/or theology, the cringing will overpower the interesting plot items.

Fun silly wild ride.

great characters, the computer world felt dated to the real world. I think that was the biggest loss to Me in the story. at times confusing but when it started rolling it was fun and funny.

Great Ideas with Poor Pacing and a Lackluster Ending

I loved the social commentary of "Snow Crash," and a lot of the sci-fi gizmos featured in the book are really inspiring. The extended histories of civilizations and religions were extremely protracted, and there was zero payoff there. In the final hour or so of the book, it's pure action, completely discarding any consequence, resolution, or fulfillment of the ideas promised to come to fruition.

Great narration

Story
Like:
Interesting setting, like-able character, main plot line quite interesting
Dislike:
-Author has a major case of ADD and suddenly picks some useless thing to describe for a long time on multiple occasions.
-The relationships that "just happen" seem very unlikely
-The main plot doesn't really kick in until about half way through the book

Narrator
Like:
He's excellent
Dislike:
Nothing

Audible
Dislike:
The app
Chapters in audible are not chapters of the book

Great book!

A bit dated, but we'll worth the read. And an occasional reread. The audio version is quite enjoyable.

It’s not a fully developed story

Overall it’s not a bad story and has great elements, but it’s not fully developed for it all to work. There is a lot of world building done, but either there is just too much to world build in one story or the author just wants the reader to fill in the blank. Either way it doesn’t it work well. YT and Hiro are complex characters that aren’t fully developed. All in all the story wraps up kind of half hazard. A lot of potential, but as a stand alone book just doesn’t work.

A classic but still very relevant

Though I've heard of this book previously and know about it's early imaginings of VR and the Internet, I listened to it recently for the first time. I was surprised by its relevance and how well the story has aged, it would have been nice if the last 24 years had rendered this future entirely implausible but It' still very relevant to us now and there's a lot to consider. On a less serious note, this is a very entertaining and colourful story!

Just didn't quite make it there.

Once the author started bringing in god and trying to convince his readers that there is a "belief" gene, all I could see were the glaring science errors. Being a computer programmer didn't help with the computer science fallacies either. If you're going to write is a world that parallels our own, get it right please or just use your imagination.

Interesting cyberpunk tale

Any additional comments?

As I listened to this, I had to Google when this book was published, and when I saw it was 1992, I developed a new level of appreciation for the cyberpunk setting of the world this takes place in.

There's things in this novel that are pretty parallel to things in our world - the multiverse seemed like the Internet, or more specifically like MMORPG games, "demons" seemed like NPC characters from MMORPG games, and the viral information plot line reminded me of memes, which are also called viral and which spread online like crazy.

I found the story to be interesting, though it does require a suspension of disbelief that is a bit steep once the story goes into it's religious-history, viral-thinking, Babel-speaking plot arc. I am a nurse and it was hard at times to suspend how I actually understand the human brain to work, or my understanding of history, but it is a fictional tale though it uses real world places and historical events to tie the plot together. I think the suspension of disbelief is easier sometimes when the plot just explains things as magical, versus how Snow Crash tried to explain medically and technologically the viral information phenomenon, as I understand medicine and technology, and they are things that are rational and part of reality, while magic obviously is supernatural and far from my understanding. It was an interesting story nevertheless and I enjoyed it.

The world of Snow Crash is jaded and dystopian, and at times it is funny but other times, it feels uncomfortable. The jaded, indifferent, grew-up-way-too-quick Y.T. is often equal parts uncomfortable as she is funny, for example. I am 25, so I was 15 (like Y.T.) ten years ago, and I can't imagine half the jadedness, promiscuity, indifference to violence and thrill seeking, plus she speaks like a world weary sailor. Nevertheless, the entire world the story takes place in is pretty warped. Equally uncomfortable is Y.T.'s mom's workplace, which is like a prison, with every tiny aspect of the worker's lives and performance micromanaged, including memos on toilet paper use, and then timed observation even of how long it takes employees to read the memos, with consequences regardless whether too quickly or too slowly. And of course, even the name of Hero Protagonist is a jape, obviously.

Still, this is an interesting and fast listen and I would recommend it to sci fi fans.