スノウ・クラッシュ

I thought the world building of this novel was incredible. The story was fun and the way Neal Stephenson lays out the mystery makes you want to keep reading. In the end the story wraps up so quickly it almost makes you wish there was more.

It's just so chaotic though. I wish there were a double length version of this to space out the infodumps and make the plot more explicit. As it stands I had the sensation big chunks had been torn from the story.

It wasn't as good as I was expecting. I probably would have enjoyed it more had I read it as a teenager.

While the book had cool ideas about VR, a meta verse and neurolinguistic programming (and its relation to software) it lacked the depth and the reasoning a good book needs. Undeveloped characters, events that are off shoots and offer no development, and seemingly unmotivated choices made me pause several times due to.. well, a lack of wanting to continue. Would have gained massively with more editing resources.

Snow Crash is a Frankenstein monster, a hybrid of a techno-thriller-action movie and a neuro-linguistic-philosophical lecture. The combination is not well mixed. But both parts are fascinating, and they would die without each other. Apparently this is where “avatar” and “metaverse” were born. Stephenson’s characters are memorable, especially the Deliverator and his race to get his pizza to the customer before the deadline. I’m glad I read this one, and will try another one asap.

Very entertaining, well written book. Compelling story line, interesting characters, very poor, seemingly rushed ending. Damn near ruined the entire book.

The book was a relatively interesting read although the ancient idea that serves as the basis of the story was a bit confusing and boring at times. I found the storytelling a bit disjointed & sometimes not quite flowing, but it was still a reasonably entertaining book. I would consider reading other works by this author but I will not be recommending Snow Crash to friends. In my personal opinion, I thought Ready Player One & Altered Carbon to be better stories to this.

Starts out rough, but if you hang in there for a couple of chapters the story is actually good. I like Neal Stephenson - his stories take a while for the proper setting and is usually worth the effort.

I read this based on the recommendation of several friends from my local hackerspace. I'm a huge fan of Gibson, but Stephenson just doesn't do it for me. I find the characters one dimensional and the prose insipidly droll. Cheap jokes are no substitute for good writing. The plot progresses linearly and boringly.

The book is so fast paced, I'm not sure why they chose to slow it down with ad infinitum dialogue with the "librarian" about Sumerian myths and language that the reader could have been brought up to speed on in a few paragraphs. I would have given this book 5 stars if not for the long, boring, pace destroying dialogue. The story is so good, but I think it could have been way better. Lots of humor, lots of action.

It's a little weird as a story goes but it has a streak that kept me reading. It was recommended to me by someone that thought I'd find it amusing due to my long computing background. That may be the only reason I read it to the end. It's only a three star read.

Excellent concept and an interesting "franchise" version of a dystopian post-American landscape. However the story completely fell apart at the end and there was absolutely no resolution to the storyline. It felt like the author literally just forgot to finish the book.

Having read and enjoyed many of Neal S. books I decided to read this earlier book. I had just finished SevenEves and enjoyed it. I had noticed when I mention Neal Stephenson to readers the most commonly read book they submit is 'Snow Crash'. Figured it must be good so picked it up and loaded it to my Kindle. I was disappointed, although realizing the age of the book, thought it pretty good for its time. I think Neal's writing has improved notable since he wrote this book. It did seem a lot like a graphic novel, apparently the original intent for the effort.

Good read and held me to the end. The end seemed a bit rushed to tie up all the treads for the story. Enjoyed it.

I know this book is really popular and a cyber punk classic but I lost interest with how in depth the story links back to some sort of biblical history.

Not bad. Lots of good ideas. Bit hard to read in places. Worth reading just for the wild ideas. M'kay
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It's ok. Childish at times and really runs out of steam in the last chapters.

This book is a mixed bag. There are some entertaining parts that get quite lost in the bizarre ancient language / virus discussion. It was difficult to follow and seemed quite pointless after reading the synopsis Hiro gives to the bosses near the end.

The book really drug on with very little payoff in the end.

Good cyber-punk novel. Easy to read and action packed. The mystical angle doesn't quite work on a scientific angle but is interesting and the idea of "me" which is similar to Dawkin's memes are an interesting angle. Great characters and realistic future of economic decay, government collapse and the growth of the franchise corporate society.

A book like this is hard to rate. It is seminal to the cyber punk genre, so any slight of its cliches or stereotypes may just be a backwards-looking judgment. However, the book has a very misguided sense of plot. While there are great ideas and entertaining moments in the book, the tendons that hold the story together are kinda flimsy. The story exists to get the characters from one cool moment to another.

Speaking of, this book lives and dies on the "Rule of Cool". Neo-punk skateboards out of the FBI headquarters while telling them to suck it? Check. Motorcycle race-battle in cyberpsace? Check. Protagonist hero literally named "Hiro Protagonist", who is also one of the architects of cyberspace and one of the best swordsmen of all time, check. You roll your eyes at the silliness of it all, and yet there's a kernel of intellectual thought at the core of the story.

That core orbits around the idea of language and the power it has to actually gestate ideas within people. The book takes the idea to the literal extreme, positing a universal language that actually can program people like a virus. Take that for what you want. But, the concepts underneath the silly drive to make everything/everyone "cool as hell " are intriguing.

However, the ending is a massive letdown. I had to check my book twice to make sure I wasn't missing pages, since it just kinda...ends. No closure and no real pay-off for the concepts of the novel or the characters that he built. However, I quickly got over it since the characters existed as either conduits of plot or puppets to be cool.