...
It can be safely assumed that these people haven’t read Snow Crash.
What this book achieves and what Neuromancer fails to do, is give you a highly imaginative cypberpunk story that ISN’T confusing to read. It also leaves you in no doubt of the authors intentions. Something ... Read review
From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novelSnow Crash, Neal Stephenson ... more
plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson ... more
plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchis...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson ... more
plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchis...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
The only relief from the sea of logos is within the well-guarded borders of the ... more
Burbclaves. Is it any wonder that most sane folks have forsaken the real world and chosen to live in the computer-generated universe of virtual reality? In a major city, the size of a dozen Manhattans, is a domain of pleasures limited only by the imagination.
Advantages: fast paced, brilliant story Disadvantages: may be too bizarre for some
...that these people haven’t read Snow Crash.
What this book achieves and what Neuromancer fails to do, is give you a highly imaginative cypberpunk story that ISN’T confusing to read. It also leaves you in no doubt of the authors intentions. Something I found lacking in the deeply confusing Neuromancer.
The book sets off in what can only be described as “one hell of a pace”. The first chapter will leave ... ...– it just gets better.
Set in the near future, in a strange world where the Mafia controls Pizza delivery, America is a group of franchised corporate states and the Internet is replaced by the Metaverse
The Metaverse is a kind of Virtual Reality Internet in which the user walks around in the form of an avatar of his own choice. (Note: an avatar is an incarnation in human form)
Many people regard William Gibson’s Neuromancer as the definitive Cyberpunk Novel. It can be safely assumed that these people haven’t read Snow Crash. What this book achieves and what Neuromancer fails to do, is give you a highly imaginative cypberpunk story that ISN’T confusing to read. It also leaves you in no doubt of the authors intentions. Something I found lacking in the deeply confusing Neuromancer.
The book sets off in what can only be described as “one hell of a pace”. The first chapter will leave you gasping for breath. Trust me, from that moment on – it just gets better. Set in the near future, in a strange world where the Mafia controls Pizza delivery, America is a group of franchised corporate states and the Internet is replaced by the Metaverse
The Metaverse is a kind of Virtual Reality Internet in which the user walks around in the form of an avatar of his own choice. (Note: an avatar is an incarnation in human form)
Here lies the catch. The computer virus “Snow Crash” effects the users and not the computer.
So when the lead characters best friend’s brain gets fried by this virus – and his ex-girlfriend requests his help on the matter, what else can a man with the name Hiro Protagonist do?
Hiro is a pizza delivery driver / hacker / samurai swordsman and along with the help of a young girl sets about to rescue the whole sorry mess.
All this may sound a little bizarre, but the book is clever enough to make it all very plausible. Its full of original ideas, entwined in a brilliant story.
The author also gives credit to one of his friends at the end of the book. Instead of trying to reword his friends thoughts on the world, he places him in the book in the form of the librarian. This character seems to slow the books fast pace down a little in places, but in the end rewards the reader with some truly thought provoking material.
Advantages: I love the name Hiro Protaganist; well written, and entertaining. Disadvantages: Rather more science than I generally like from my fiction
...read the book. Snow Crash is a drug that has strange effects on people - on most people, it seems to make them speak in tongues; on a hacker, though, it is much more serious - it seems to short-circuit their brains.
The plot involves Hiro trying to find the source of the drug, and stop his friends and colleagues being affected. The origin of the drug is quite, quite incredible, though there is rather a lot of explanation involved - you can see that ...
andrewsi 15.04.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Advantages: action packed Disadvantages: un realistic
Snow Crash is a fast-paced, near-future, cyberpunk thriller. Neither its technology (with cybernetic dogs, portable nuclear-powered gatling guns, and ancient Sumerian neuro-linguistic programming), its politics (a libertarian world where the Mafia deliver pizzas and the Library of Congress has merged with the Central Intelligence Agency to form a public company), or its plot (the principal characters have a superhero-like immunity to being hit when ...
nickf70 12.07.2000
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
This was the first of Neal's books i ever read, having been recomended to it by a friend.
Right from the start of the book i was hooked, The characters, world and events are described in wonderful detail and come together in a spectactular conclusion.
The story follows Hiro Protagonist (swordsman and free-lance hacker) as he becomes involved in a world threatening probelm. A virus which can be transmitted both didgitally and biologically. Read ...
Fisheye 14.07.2000
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Advantages: Great original story Disadvantages: I can't find it to read again
...hotel waiting for it to snow so I could go skiing, although the book has nothing whatsoever to do with skiing or snow.
Hiro Protagonist is a hacker who winds his way through the cyberverse as an avatar, a phrase that has been coined now and is used on many rather average interactive websites. This is definitely internet3 stuff from Stephenson though, being an avatar in this world is like actually being inside the web.
Hiro tries to prevent a multi-faceted ... ...everything. Many of the things in the book (Written about 6 years ago IIRC) are happening already, so it makes the book even more relevant. A great yarn with some very interesting insights into where things are heading, a must for netheads. I've just written a rather more detailed review about his latest (Bigger and better, I thought) offering - Cryptonomicon, if anyone wants to read it. ...
jambo6 05.08.2000 (17.12.2000)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Recently 'resigned' from his job as the coolest samurai sword-toting pizza delivery guy in the world, Hiro has had to fall back on his old hi-tech scavenger ways. Not that he's a nobody on the virtual street - one of the founders of The Black Sun, he helped to write the rule-book for the digital Metaverse. Which is why he's so confused when he's offered a cyber-drug called Snow Crash - 'cos there are no such things as drugs in their computer-generated world. And yet here it is, complete with devastating side-effects. Who could have made it? And what the Hell does it actually do?
Compare Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson to other similar Science Fiction Books »
