Snow Crash

Roman

Paperback, 533 pages

German language

Published June 5, 2002 by Goldmann.

ISBN:
978-3-442-45302-3
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
76335636

View on OpenLibrary

3 stars (4 reviews)

Within the Metaverse, Hiro is offered a datafile named Snow Crash by a man named Raven who hints that it is a form of narcotic. Hiro's friend and fellow hacker Da5id views a bitmap image contained in the file which causes his computer to crash and Da5id to suffer brain damage in the real world.

This is the future we now live where all can be brought to life in the metaverse and now all can be taken away. Follow on an adventure with Hiro and YT as they work with the mob to uncover a plot of biblical proportions.

23 editions

Disappointing

2 stars

I suspect that I would have enjoyed this a lot more if I'd read it 30 years ago. Reading it now, the cyberpunk stylings all feel incredibly dated and are unable to paper over the many problems with this novel. Starting with the characters, who amount to a collection of one-dimensional stereotypes about which it is impossible to care.

The plot doesn't feel like it's going anywhere for much of the time and when Stephenson starts talking about technology, everything starts to become increasingly ludicrous. This book really hasn't aged well.

Review of 'Snow Crash' on 'Storygraph'

2 stars

Wrote a whole long review about why I didn't like it, but got bored of my own opinion.

In short:

While clever, the linguistic virus, Sumerian, and religion lessons were long and dull
Characters unbelievable, and didn't really invest in them.
Sex with a minor scene - didn't want that

Did like:
the world
the technology
the prologue bit about pizza delivery. Loved that world building, really great opening! Then the main story wrecked it (for me).