I don't read Snow Crash as a Neuromancer parody. Stephenson has too many of his own ideas for that. When it comes to ideas, Stephenson is unusually playful.

I don't read Snow Crash as a Neuromancer parody. Stephenson has too many of his own ideas for that. When it comes to ideas, Stephenson is unusually playful. (See also the Enlightenment philosophers in the Baroque cycle.) He's not great on plot or characterization, or structuring a novel in general, but Stephenson can write one hell of a sentence, and he often keeps it up for a paragraph at a time. Gibson, whose books I also adore, has basically nothing at all to do with Stephenson. The only thing connecting them is that some of their books are set in dystopian near-futures. Gibson at his best is bracingly bleak. Cyberpunk was a marketing term for publishers and critics who couldn't get their heads around him. Early Gibson is pure punk. Even more than Neuromancer, read the stories in Burning Chrome for their hard, angry edge.