Mini Review: Snow Crash

[Luvian]

I just finished reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, and I thought I'd talk a little a bout it.

I've always been interested in "Cyberpunk" ala Blade Runner and such, but I've never really seen any books that I really liked. Reading online, I saw many people recommending this book as an interesting, more lighthearted cyberpunk, so I gave it a try.

The book started out well. I liked the author's writing style, and I think it had one of the best introduction I've read in a long while. The characters were interesting, and there was a good pace, but then in the middle it started to drag a little.

The problem is that the plot is based on a virus that's related to one of the first human civilization. That's ok, but then the author decided to give us an history lesson, so he put in multiple whole sections of exposition on this people, their religions etc. Some background was needed for the plot, but he really went overboard with this, after reading a couple of pages of this I knew what I needed to know for the plot, so every time there was more exposition, it didn't actually really add anything to the plot and I think it actually detracted from it. I decided to skip those pages and just go on with the story. Eventually things went back on track, and the plot became interesting again.

Still... once you skip all the history lessons the book is decent. I'm more a "characters" than a "plot" person. Give me interesting characters, some characterization and a decent pace, and I'll be entertained. This isn't the best book I've read, but it was interesting. I'd like to read another book from the same author, but with a more traditional plot. It would probably be pretty nice.

There's just one other thing. In that extra exposition I pretty much skipped, the civilization's religion get discussed, and then our religions too, and we get the author's point of view on our religions. His point of view in non-traditional and could offend religiously sensible people.

Thinking back on it, it wasn't a perfect novel. I've seen many places that could have been done better. The quality level tended to vary. There were some very well written parts, followed by some pretty average stuff. It's not a novel to be read if you want a perfect story, but if you don't mind some problems, it's interesting.

This is a hard book to rate. There's some very well done parts, and then some horrible ones. There are some great characters, then there are some two dimensional ones.

[ 03-28-2007, 08:25 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

[Thoran]

I read Snow Crash a couple years ago and came out with a similar opinion... although I think the flaws in the book outweighed the good. What it did do is get me looking for cyberpunk type novels. Turns out that these days cyberpunk seems to have integrated itself into mainstream Sci-Fi and shows up in a lot of the literature of the genre... so it's not hard to find.

You might try Tad Williams "Otherland" series, definitely some cyberpunk currents there, with a signature Tad Williams story. Complex, deep plot, multidimensional characters, varied and intricately imagined settings... LONG (which I like but some may see as a negative).

For an even more gritty series (again with very strong cyberpunk underpinnings, although not as extreme as Snow Crash), check out Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon" and "Broken Angels". Both books much better all around than Snow Crash.

[Luvian]

Alright I'll give them a try. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Sir Krustin]

All of Richard Morgans books are excellent.

On a side note, all of them so far are based on the same background with the same lead character except for Market Forces which is an amazingly cynical view of the ultimate development of cut-throat capitalism.