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Snow Crash
I read this book regularly. It defines so much of my world view. In my opinion one of the best visions of Los Angeles ever, and one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written. This book is required reading, without a doubt.
Snow Crash
This book was goofy and dated the minute it hit the presses, but as long as you turn off your brain, it's pleasant enough.
Snow Crash
After reading the earler reviews, I must say I agree with most: Snow Crash is a fantastically fun ride through cyberpunk, satire, computer technology, obscure brainwashing techniques and anything else Stephenson got his hands on. Yes, the ending is weak. I am confident that a sequel will be forthcoming. What disturbs me are the numerous reviews which cited the resemblance between Snow Crash and Gibson's Virtual Light. Let's get one thing straight. Snow Crash came out at least a year (I think it may have been longer) before Virtual Light. As hard as it may be to conceive perhaps the father of cyberpunk is not above common plagiarism. If you want Stephenson with more grounding in the real world check out the two books he wrote with his cousin (?) under the pen name Stephen Bury. Interface and The Cobweb. Both very fun reads.
Snow Crash
i found this book through recommendations from friends and the user reviews here.far from being a great work of science fiction literature, this book reads like a movie aimed at teenagers. i found the characters to be paper thin and not unlike saturday morning sci-fi adventure cartoon characters. the dialog is often too dramatic or cute.it's interesting, it has some good twists, it reads quickly. the author has done a fairly interesting job of creating his cyber-punk world. however, there's not much substance here. it suffers from a weak attempt to combine religion, technology, viruses, and ancient sumerian culture into a plot line, which eventually all falls flat into a laughable combination. the car chases and a sprinkling of sex with minors does nothing to help.overall, i'd have to say skip this book; there's plenty of great sci-fi and cyberpunk stuff out there, and this certainly isn't the best.
Snow Crash
I do a fair amount of reading, usually 2 or 3 books at a time. I have a problem though in that I _RARELY_ finish books that I start becuase I find most modern fiction thin and the characters too underdeveloped. Snow Crash was just great, however, and the comic-book style Hiro Protagonist was surprisingly well developed. Hiro carried the storyline, but all the supporting characters were so vividly "drawn together" that the whole story was just a hilarious ride.
Snow Crash
Snow Crash is by far the best book I have read in the Cyberpunk genre. The story flow is excellent, there are very few dull parts, the character descriptions and settings are reasonable, and the character development flows to the point they seem truly human.Neal Stephenson truly knows how to write a convincing story, and I must say the plot was well-wrapped and not too blatantly obvious. Compared to other books I have read in the same genre, this is the most plausible plot and the best developed characters. No post-nuclear holocaust here, just an extremely advanced form of Republicanism. The characters are described and seen through enough to provide an edge of personality to temper the realism. There are no super-people here, no cyborgs, and no in-depth description of cyberspace (which is very much like what we have now-not the lethal playground of the advanced hackers depicted in so many other books).There are a few downsides to this book, however. There is a very heavy correlation to ancient history dealing with religion that, for those many of us who are historically deficient mentally, is a bit overwhelming. Also, this isn't exactly a kiddie book, with many **ahem** colorfully described scenes and scenarios, as well as prolific profanity. For those of us used to modern society, though, this just adds to the flow and believability of the book.All in all a good read, and on a 5 star system it would get a solid 4 from me. As an explanation for the lacking of the 5th star, I am not truly fond of the cyberpunk genre, being from the digital age. It seems so many of the books in this genre were written before I was born, and I have seen the partial realization of some of the points, and the total failure of others.