Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash

By Neal Stephenson

  • Release Date: 1992-05-01
  • Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 1,226 Ratings
$6.99 On itunes Buy on Amazon

Description

Now featuring never-before-seen material, the “brilliantly realized” (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators

Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.

Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30 U-Stor-It. He spends most of his time goggled in to the Metaverse, where his avatar is legendary.

But in the club known as The Black Sun, his fellow hackers are being felled by a weird new drug called Snow Crash that reduces them to nothing more than a jittering cloud of bad digital karma (and IRL, a vegetative state).

Investigating the Infocalypse leads Hiro all the way back to the beginning of language itself, with roots in an ancient Sumerian priesthood. He’ll be joined by Y.T., a fearless teenaged skateboard courier. Together, they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.

Reviews

  • Awesome!

    5
    By DDario
    I missed out by not reading this in the ‘90s, but really glad I caught up.

  • Interesting dystopian vision

    3
    By trmb2769
    This was an interesting dystopian vision as viewed from the 1990s. I'm sure this book had some effect on Zuckerberg's vision for the Metaverse. An interesting read with some plot holes, and a difficult connection between technology and ancient Sumerian.

  • Legendary

    5
    By richoid
    This is the book. That is all.

  • waste of time lol

    2
    By Zodiac308
    If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought this was written by some self inserting weeb on tumblr or Twitter. The author wastes your time with info dumps and focusing on things that will never be important or brought up again. Which is why I was like “what…THATS IT?” When I realized I read the last page. I give it two stars for characters and humor. Though at some point the comedy just disappears. Even though it wasted my time, I don’t regret reading it. Just wish I didn’t buy it. I had to force myself to keep reading at 50% of the way and double secret force myself at 77%.

  • Review from an ancient perspective

    5
    By An Mho Rioghian
    Few of the concepts that are the foundation of our real and current use of tech existed when this book was printed and released. In 1992, the only people using the internet at all were building it. I have a print copy of the first email I received in 1992…from researchers in Antarctica. Mosaic was just a thought, and Netscape and Google were inventing spiders. I can’t emphasize how much this book influenced all that followed. Especially the relationship to hardwired language. It’s interesting to read comments from people who are likely approaching their 40’s, who can’t see why nerds like me recognized the info on language as the key to many puzzles unsolved at the time. I bless Stephenson’s ability to create an entire cosmos that became real because he shared it, and it was good.

  • The Cyberpunk Novel

    5
    By Cumrade Li
    Ahh I now feel much more cultured after reading this lol

  • Excellent Ideas

    5
    By boy15not16
    This book was quite fun, silly, and informative. The author dives into the basic concepts of language and how that parallels to our current understanding of computer science. There are references to ancient sumarian concepts, and exciting ideas about how the future of humanity will play out. All in all a terrific read

  • Amazing Read & Inspiration

    5
    By cchiemelu
    Book holds up well and would enjoy a sequel to this universe.

  • issues of current times not foreseeable almost 20 years ago when the book was written.

    5
    By Bus Dev Guy
    Very imaginative with great character development and unexpected twists. Theories on ancient languages and direct input brain short circuiting add a very bizarre mysticism. Recent disregard for law and order, unchecked immigration/invasion and power hungry technocrats carried to ultimate outcomes.

  • Worth the hype

    5
    By Stoked3351
    This book is worth the hype.

Comments

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