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Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book)

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80% Recommended by our customers.
Publisher: Spectra
Catalog: Book
Release date: 2000-05-02
Media: Paperback
Number of pages: 480
Ean: 9780553380958
Book Isbn: 0553380958

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Author:

Neal Stephenson

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User Reviews:

Written on August 31, 2008
Summary: practically unreadable
Sentence construction is an art that extends beyond your high school English teacher's boundaries of correct or incorrect. It's necessary, at a basic level, to ensure that a book's readable, but it can be also used as a tool, among other devices, to enrich an author's message. Stephenson's sentences in Snow Crash are so clunky, top-heavy, and distracting that it gave me a headache. The book is further weighed down by poor humor and cheap jabs.

I tried hard to like Snow Crash. I thought that maybe if I can get beyond the writing style, I'd find myself immersed into a whole new world of ideas. But after a good bit of effort on my part, I had to give up. Consider this sentence from the opening chapter, which occurs during an action sequence involving high-speed driving:

"He knows that when he gets to the place on CSV-5 where the bottom corner of the billboard is obscured by the pseudo-Gothic stained-glass arches of the local Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates franchise, it's time for him to get over into the right lanes where the retards and the bimbo boxes poke along, random, indecisive, looking at each passing franchise's driveway like they don't know if it's a threat or a promise."

Long sentences aren't inherently bad, this one's just awfully constructed. Structurally, the bulk of the sentence revolves around the "when...it's time" construction. The "when" leaves the reader anticipating the next clause which will, presumably, complete the thought. But while we're waiting for the completion, we're given an elaborate description of a view of just the corner of a billboard sign. The description is given merely to add a flare of style, since it contains no content that is meaningful to the reader. All of which would be fine if the description were more precise, but instead we're given a lengthy description of these arches and the unnecessarily long name of some irrelevant franchise. Had the sentence just ended there, it would merely have been a terrible sentence. Characteristic of Stephenson's writing, the sentence doesn't end there, elevating it from terrible to excruciating, as the next clause - intended to complete the "when..." construction - contains an even wordier description of the sort of drivers in the next lane. Not to mention the clumsy "it's time for him to get over into the next lane", which could easily be swapped for something more efficient, along the lines of maybe "he needs to switch lanes" - or just with anything that avoids a superfluous "it's", which immediately takes your mind out of the action by introducing the neutral and meaningless universal subject "it" smack in the middle of the sentence. Redundant with the previous clause, is another "where" construction, which is then used as an excuse to dive down a second whole rabbit hole of unnecessary description and detail. Needless to say, the poking and looking actions of passengers in the neighboring lane does a fine job of burying any muddled intentions that the sentence might have had under a thick layer of fresh concrete.

All of which, mind you, is simply a thought in the character's head (i.e., "He knows that when"), and is occurring during what's supposed to be a high-speed action sequence. And all of which begs the question, how can you possibly be emerged in the action as you slide down numerous tangential clauses, or how could care about the technical intention of the sentence (i.e., what he knows) when you're thrown wordy proper nouns, and how could you simultaneously care in the least about billboard signs and retards driving cars, all at the same time?

Labyrinthine sentences like these aren't speed bumps on the road, they're 6-inch round potholes and roadblocks. And Snow Crash is filled with them on every page. In them, Stephenson throws practically everything at the reader hoping he or she might bite onto something; you might bite onto pieces of it, but it's at the greater expense of losing everything else along with blocking any possibility of literary flow. No matter how hard I tried my mind was kept at an uncomfortable distance from the text as it stumbled over mindless clauses, unnecessary elaborations, and adjectives that were more distracting than descriptive. It all resulted in a gray unmemorable mess.

It's not that Stephenson has bad ideas, it's that he can't effectively get them out on paper. Purchasing an audio version of the book might help, so that someone else has to read the sentences, but it's doesn't make up for the fact that the book's dreadfully written.

I was annoyed by other stylistic techniques throughout the book as well. Curse words are sprinkled liberally throughout the narrative to pointless effect. They're used in place of more descriptive adjectives. Perhaps Stephenson used them to give the book a pulpy feel, but even good pulp consists of more than just four-letter words.

And lastly Stephenson's humor often borders more on cheap than witty. The example that sticks out the most in my mind is his slang term - "bimbo-boxes" - for minivans. I don't own a minivan, or particularly sympathize with those who do, it's just a very superficial brand of humor - a cheap-shot at modern society, not particularly well thought-out or clever. Certainly a timeless piece of literature - even if it's farcical - should have higher standards than calling minivan drivers bimbos merely in passing. There are bigger literary fish to fry.

This sort of humor pervades the whole book. Sometimes it serves a minor plot or thematic function, but more often it's just mentioned in passing, often replacing qualitative character- or world-building. If that's really what you're looking for then there are plenty liberal political/social commentary books, or go to a leftist protest, or check out a Michael Moore film. Just because it's in a sci-fi book doesn't automatically give this sort of humor more merit. Anyone can do it.

I'm sure that there are great ideas in the book - had I read beyond the first eighth of the book, I probably would've come across more of them - but it got to the point where I couldn't imagine how they'd justify the work of clawing through grammatical jungles under the guise of "sentences" and elongated portions of fluff.

Written on August 26, 2008
Summary: The book itself has become a reference, you might as well read it
I can easily agree with the many reviewers here, "excellent ideas," "brilliant opening," "later parts overblown," etc., but really it's almost irrelevant now. The book has sprinted past reasonable criticism and become a standard that other books are measured against. This is cyberpunk to many readers. In the same way that calling Tolkien "boring in places" is meaningless now, so too is calling Stephenson's characters "one dimensional parodies."

If you haven't read Snow Crash yet, go grab a copy and follow it up with the source material in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Folks on the train will be much impressed with you.

Written on August 23, 2008
Summary: Awesome Cyberpunk
I've read this book at least a dozen times. Quick whit, parallel storylines. It reads like a movie, or a graphic novel (as it was originally intended)

If you're into SciFi with a cyber twist, this is a must read

Written on August 19, 2008
Summary: Sci-Fi for Anyone
This is the only science fiction novel that I'd recommend to anyone. It stands on its creativity, literacy, and wicked humor. It's complex, engaging, and just plain cool. Perhaps it's not high art, but it's certainly highly entertaining.

Written on August 12, 2008
Summary: Inconsistent and ultimately disappointing
Snow Crash is a modestly-compelling novel with elements of mystery, action, and historical fiction. The characters are well developed; I had no trouble placing Hiro as a multi-cultured and skilled hacker lost in mediocrity and Y.T. as just a stupid, annoying [expletive deleted]. The details into Sumerian myth and the Tower of Babel were well thought out, and while the connection with the technologically advanced Snow Crash metavirus may seem ostensibly tenuous, the author's slow-paced narrative between Hiro and the computerised Librarian is interesting enough.

Unfortunately, the novel suffers from a Hollywood-esque violent action ending that ruins the story.

Comparison map

Wondering how the book "Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book)" relates to similar books? Find out at a glance here:

Price comparison	Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book)	Cryptonomicon	Neuromancer	The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated...	Anathem	Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
Our price	$10.20	$8.99	$15.60	$10.20	$14.98	$10.85
List price	$15.00	$8.99	$25.00	$15.00	$29.95	$15.95
Lowest used price	$5.50	$3.25	$12.74	$3.99	$11.00	$0.96
Lowest new price	$8.12	$5.13	$14.12	$4.99	$11.44	$5.98
Collectible price	$14.00	$10.00	-	$15.00	$29.95	$15.95
Catalog	Book	Book	Book	Book	Book	Book
Release date	2000-05-02	2002-11-05	2004-11-02	2000-05-02	2008-09-09	2004-09-21
Media	Paperback	Mass Market Paperback	Hardcover	Paperback	Hardcover	Paperback
Number of pages	480	1168	384	512	960	960
Ean	9780553380958	9780060512804	9780441012039	9780553380965	9780061474095	9780060593087
Book Isbn	0553380958	0060512806	0441012035	0553380966	0061474096	0060593083
Upc	-	-	072742025009	-	-	-
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Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book)