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Edward Hahn
, June 25, 2013
(view all comments by Edward Hahn)
I attended a lecture by Stephenson upon the release of his latest book, "Reamde". I was impressed with his sense of irony and especially with his advice to aspiring writers. Based on the lecture, particularly the Q and A session, I decided to read some of his stuff and was told to start with this one, "Snow Crash". Some acknowledge Stephenson as the creator of a new genre, Cyber SciFi, so I was even more motivated since I enjoy Sci-Fi and Fantasy, though in small doses.
Unfortunately, I was not overly impressed with this effort. Perhaps my expectations got in the way. I struggled to finish the book and was ultimately disappointed with the ending, kind of a whimper rather than a bang, to borrow an idea from T.S. Eliot. The plot basically involves the uncovering of a conspiracy to take over the world by scrambling and infusing people's consciousness with an ancient Sumerian "program" that moves people to speak in tongues and also allows an outside force to control their behavior.
The plot, however isn't as important as Stephenson's picture of a future world in which hackers rule a virtual "Metaverse" and various commercial interests rule the physical world. The environment he describes is imaginable and in many ways is an extension of where we are headed today. It's astounding that this book, published in 1992 is as accurate in its predictions of where we are headed as it is.
The story jumps back and forth between the two major characters Hiro Protagonist, a katana adept hacker, and Y.T., a messenger who delivers her packages on a technologically advanced skateboard. There are some other important characters like Juanita, a beautiful genius hacker, Raven, an insane Aleut who has the power to detonate nuclear weapons, and dozens of others populating Stephenson's fictional world.
I wanted to like this book more than I did. The ideas Stephenson presents are fascinating but ultimately the book drags with all the descriptions and a fairly muddled plot.
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