3 ms·
Snow Crash is way uneven. I believe the first chapter was actually storyboarded, to be a comic book. So it makes an amazing hook, but the rest of the book Needs
by jldugger 4y ago
Snow Crash is way uneven. I believe the first chapter was actually storyboarded, to be a comic book. So it makes an amazing hook, but the rest of the book Needs An Editor.
It reads as almost a picaresque satire, like Candide. It's full of good jokes like "I'm sure he'll listen to Reason" and "the most important technology man has created is the three ring binder", and uses the adventure structure to make commentary about his particular dystopia.
Buuuuut, its also laced with random boring history lessons on ancient mesopotamia. There are just too many locations, characters and digressions to move the plot up coherently and keep in your head, and the flipping between protagonists is hard to follow and remember. Wikipedia's plot summary doesn't even mention several key points, like a nuclear fission powered guard dog nearly going critical. Some the jokes are dated references to the 1980's (Godfather's pizza, Moonies).
There is a good book in there, but wait for the miniseries in 2050.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- FPGAhacker 4y agoThat’s pretty interesting. Snow crash is the only Stephenson book I liked. The others I disliked because of all the digressions and aimlessness. So now I wonder if snow crash was really any different or if it was me and the mood I was in.
- JohnFen 4y agoSnow Crash is my second favorite Stephenson book (The Diamond Age is my favorite). I can see the validity of the literary criticisms of it -- but it still hits a sweet spot for me, and I have enjoyed it just as much every time I've read it again.
- jldugger 4y agoI imagine every award Stephenson wins allows him more freedom from editors, and now if you don't enjoy his work, society insists its somehow your fault. You must not be smart enough to enjoy fictional histories of cryptography. And don't get me wrong, the works of his I've read are set in imaginative worlds, amazing yet somehow just a hyperbolic version of today. It's just that the rejected Wikipedia articles that come along don't much serve the world building or narrative.