4 ms·

Snow Crash is satire of more "serious" cyberpunk like Gibson. You’re missing that the low effort and placeholder names are part of the joke, making fun of how

by _yb2s 3y ago

Snow Crash is satire of more "serious" cyberpunk like Gibson. You’re missing that the low effort and placeholder names are part of the joke, making fun of how cyberpunk tries to seem cool by trying to be raw, gritty, and low effort… like rock stars that try too hard at pretending to care about nothing. Stephenson does it to a comical extreme, e.g. naming his main character Hiro Protagonist. His other books are not in that style.

batch12 3y ago
I have heard this, but it seems more like laziness to me. Thanks for the perspective.
- _yb2s 3y ago
  The density of creative jokes about being gritty and low effort in Snow Crash isn't possible without substantially more thought and effort than writing normal fiction. Laziness won't produce a book that has people laughing out loud as they read it 32 years later. If anything, I think the problem with Snow Crash is it has become so popular and lasted so long, people get less of the jokes now, because nobody remembers what he was satirizing anymore.
busfahrer 3y ago
Low-effort and high-tech, to paraphrase Gibson‘s M.O.
blincoln 3y ago
> Snow Crash is satire of more "serious" cyberpunk Agree 100%. If anyone has trouble seeing that Snow Crash is satire, I recommend reading Headcrash, by Bruce Bethke, then going back to Snow Crash. If Snow Crash is the original Robocop (a satire that was deadpan enough that many people missed the satire entirely), then Headcrash is Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (completely over-the-top). > like Gibson. It's easy to assume Gibson's work is serious, but I think anyone that does is subconsciously glossing over a lot of little details that - in sum - make it pretty clear that Gibson is also a satirist, just extraordinarily deadpan and casual about it. Almost everyone gets a gritty Blade Runner image in their mind when reading his Sprawl stories, but consider that a key plot element is a space station built by weed-smoking Rastafarians. i.e. they are "so high they're in orbit", and that there are offhand references to an "Aryan reggae band". The military veteran - abandoned by an uncaring government - that happens to be a dolphin. Then consider that the film and TV projects directly involving Gibson have typically featured plenty of comedic elements, and most have a bright, colourful look. Johnny Mnemonic (the film). The "First Person Shooter" and "Kill Switch" episodes of The X-Files.

by _yb2s 3y ago

batch12 3y ago

I have heard this, but it seems more like laziness to me. Thanks for the perspective.

_yb2s 3y ago
The density of creative jokes about being gritty and low effort in Snow Crash isn't possible without substantially more thought and effort than writing normal fiction. Laziness won't produce a book that has people laughing out loud as they read it 32 years later. If anything, I think the problem with Snow Crash is it has become so popular and lasted so long, people get less of the jokes now, because nobody remembers what he was satirizing anymore.

busfahrer 3y ago

Low-effort and high-tech, to paraphrase Gibson‘s M.O.

blincoln 3y ago

> Snow Crash is satire of more "serious" cyberpunk Agree 100%. If anyone has trouble seeing that Snow Crash is satire, I recommend reading Headcrash, by Bruce Bethke, then going back to Snow Crash. If Snow Crash is the original Robocop (a satire that was deadpan enough that many people missed the satire entirely), then Headcrash is Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (completely over-the-top). > like Gibson. It's easy to assume Gibson's work is serious, but I think anyone that does is subconsciously glossing over a lot of little details that - in sum - make it pretty clear that Gibson is also a satirist, just extraordinarily deadpan and casual about it. Almost everyone gets a gritty Blade Runner image in their mind when reading his Sprawl stories, but consider that a key plot element is a space station built by weed-smoking Rastafarians. i.e. they are "so high they're in orbit", and that there are offhand references to an "Aryan reggae band". The military veteran - abandoned by an uncaring government - that happens to be a dolphin. Then consider that the film and TV projects directly involving Gibson have typically featured plenty of comedic elements, and most have a bright, colourful look. Johnny Mnemonic (the film). The "First Person Shooter" and "Kill Switch" episodes of The X-Files.