スノウ・クラッシュ

Highly recommended, if you're at all into technology. It doesn't always make a lot of sense, and often isn't easy to follow, but I did enjoy it.

Liked the background world
Overall story not bad but conclusion seemed a little rushed/short?
Still definitely worth the read.

I enjoyed that the author explored the virtual world of the future.

A very well written wild ride

THE ENDING SUCKED

I was skeptical when I started reading the story. I didn't quite think I would like the main character or follow all the terms used to describe the new corporate America. All I can say is that I am very happy I kept reading because the story was amazing. I loved the YT character - reminds me of old punk days. I was also blown away when I realized how old the book is - based on the tech-talk, I could have sworn it was written in the last decade! It's a must read for sci-fi fans.

Totally fresh (even though it is old) - could not put it down. The detail, the imagery - everything - wow!

The story is good but the main deal is the setting. Imagining how things eventually turn out and the degradation of society as a whole is a interesting perspective - where pizza delivery is a top notch job and requires a degree! A must read.
The delivery of the item itself was OK. However, the shipper forgot to put my flat no. on my parcel. It was sitting in the mail room for days until I finally noted and picked it up.

I enjoyed this one. It turned into a college lecture on history/religion/socioeconomics in a couple of places, which was a bit much, but the characters and the world were fun, and the plot worked enough.

Great book, awesome look at a future. Wonderful characters, and just enough WTF going on. Recommended ...

I have read this book a few times. Hero and YT are great characters.

I liked the sarcastically anti-utopian world built in the book, but all of the alternative history about the tower of Babel and biblical age language bored me to the point that I put this book down for months before finishing it. It finished strong though.

Great book.

It started off with so much potential but right around the middle it became like someone’s thesis (language as a virus) in a story format. The elements were all there for a better story and it fell flat

Much like Dan Brown, we get pages of exposition that’s interesting but not rigidly accurate to history or theory. How much you enjoy this probably depends on how often you get lost clicking through Wikipedia. This doesn’t make up for a thin plot, and thinner characters. Still an amusing artifact of the 90s peering into the Information Age and virtual reality.
Oh and even for the 90s, if you have a fifteen year old character, don’t give them a sex scene with an adult. Thanks.

gift

Snow Crash was an interesting and excellent read. It started out with what felt more like a comedic mood, slightly putting me off, however it quickly turned into an interesting, engrossing, and serious story. Very cyberpunk-like, this book is my gateway to Neal Stephenson and I will be sure to pick up his other works.

SciFi done with the analytical style of Michael Crichton , fun VR adventures similar to Ready Player One, and religious history exposition reminiscent of Karen Armstrong. Slightly dated with respect to where technology is headed, but not much considering the publication date. Overall a great story.

I didn't love it. The high octane opening seems to have fooled everybody. The opening feels like a short story that was later built on to make a novel, so irrelevant is it to most of the plot, and even to the protagonist.

It's very long and draws a lot of spurious analogies between biological and computer viruses that don't really fly, mixed in with clumsy pages of information about Sumeria or somewhere which turns out later to be relevant, but only as flimsy justification for a fairly boring plot device.

There's some good action, but it sure does go on a bit. The whole novel does. It should have been 100 pages shorter at least, and not as accomplished as people seem to make out - I'm really not sure why this didn't sink into the slush of post-Neuromancer 90s sci-fi and disappear forever. Its vision of virtual reality isn't just poor in retrospect, it's poor even for its time, unimaginative and filled with convenient rules that serve the plot but not the world-building.

Bizarrely, regular coders employed by corporations to do their jobs are referred to as 'hackers'. That's not what a hacker is, Neal.

Points for: Strong female lead, even if there's constant partial-nudity and sex references; fantastic opening chapter or two; consistent writing and plenty of action, if that's what floats your boat; diversity.

I can't say I recommend it, unless you mainly read sci-fi, in which case it's definitely not the worst of 90s sci-fi.

6.5/10
David Brookes
Author of 'The Gun of Our Maker'

This. Book. It started off so strong! I loved the setting and all the characters- until Stephenson made all the characters heterosexual tropes, the men either predators or hapless machos while the females somehow so smart they were unfazed by the gross abuse and/or immaturity of their love interests. Whatever. I eventually had to spend more time convincing myself to keep reading than actually reading. The greater plot and futuristic dystopia were super cool. Too bad I had to see it through eyes of the heroines.