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A review by sakusha
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Content warning: the book contains an adult having sex with a minor.
Reminded me of Ready Player One and Jennifer Government, but I liked both of those better than this book.
Takes place in a futuristic world where corporations have surpassed the government, and there’s a lot of violence, crime, and poor living conditions. The beginning has lots of cussing and is wordy with a lot of elaborate similes. There are so many slangs and new words and terms that it’s like the book is half in another language. That makes it difficult to read, difficult to stay focussed and engaged, and therefore boring.
A lot of things dont make sense. Hiro and YT meet by chance. They partner up. Why? YT’s age is stated, but not Hiro’s.
Hiro’s last name is seriously Protagonist? Was he born this way or did he choose his own name?
Who are Roadkill and Uncle Enzo? There’s never any explanation as far as I can remember. First I assumed Enzo was Hiro’s actual uncle and boss. Then I thought it was the new name for Uncle Sam. After that I didn’t know who he was. Why does Uncle Enzo care so much about YT’s mother when he has never met her, unless he has and the author didn’t say so (171)?
It’s confusing that in one chapter Hiro is swordfighting in the metaverse, and in the next chapter he’s breaking YT out of jail. Then the next chapter he’s swordfighting in the metaverse again. Is he doing both at once? Would be nice if the book were more clear about this.
Then why does a cop let Hiro tag along while chasing down Raven? Why does Hiro take time out of his life to investigate snow crash? He isnt a detective or cop. His friend was affected by snow crash, but Hiro hardly bats an eye. He doesn’t seem to care at all. So what is his motivation for taking on the investigation? The book never explains.
Hiro takes the trouble to bail YT out of jail early in the book, which maybe was to pay her back for helping him earlier, but he doesnt seem to ever panic about her being kidnapped (349). He just rescues her without thought or feeling. Actually maybe he doesnt try to rescue her. Maybe he is just using her for information. Would be nice if the book were more clear on character motivations.
Hiro gets very wealthy, but chooses to spend his money on a new motorcycle that soon gets destroyed (which he seems to not even care about); he doesn’t even think about spending his wealth on upgrading his housing, which is a storage box.
The whole book is like bouncing randomly from one adventure to the next with no thought or reflection by the characters.
YT’s mother gets in trouble and there’s no explanation for how she gets out of it.
Sushi K does a concert, and we’re never told whether the audience liked it or not (138). Why even include the concert in the book? Just for laughs?
The author might’ve said he didn’t include the audience reaction or character reflections or motivations because it’d make the book longer. Well, he could’ve cut out most of the first chapter which was just talking about Hiro delivering pizza which had no relevance to the rest of the story. And I suppose the concert had no relevance either.
Error by the author: there’s hyperinflation making people carry around trillions of dollars, but it still only takes a quarter to use a pay phone (440).
There were some accurate predictions made by the author, some of which might’ve already been known at the time the book was written (1992): “Smart” technology (4, 27), digital screens in vehicles including maps (4), Metaverse (18), flameproof clothing that causes cancer (18), fiber optic Internet (21), PVP fighting (25), avatars (35), NPCs (the book calls them daemons) (55), cell phones with voice command (77-78), Google earth & GPS (106), data and images through phones (115), reality TV (132), and harmful vaccines (404).
“The more you use it—the more viruses you get exposed to—the better your immune system becomes” (429). So stop vaccinating to protect yourself, and let your immune system fight off viruses the natural way. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And almost all the illnesses vaccines are supposed to protect you from have a very low morality rate.
Possibly the kind of woman that beta males find attractive: tomboys like YT, or sarcastic nerds like Juanita (56). Juanita “had long, glossy black hair that had never been subjected to any chemical process other than regular shampooing. She didn’t wear blue stuff on her eyelids. Her clothing was dark, tailored, restrained. And she didn’t take shit from anyone, not even her professors, which seemed shrewish and threatening to him at the time” (58). Or maybe it’s the kind they settle for since they can’t get the attractive bimbos who go for alpha males. Beta males are unhappy because they settle for the females they think are betas, but the “beta females” end up being strong independent types who the beta males can’t control or dominate, and therefore the beta males end up unhappy. Beta males are in a paradox of wanting to dominate but being too shy or unconfident to do it, so they end up with a dominant woman which makes them frustrated because she doesn’t satisfy his inner desire.
Juanita believes “that no matter how good it is, the Metaverse is distorting the way people talk to each other” (64). I would’ve liked the book to explore this concept more. Instead, the book is focussed on adventures which are brainless aside from their tie to ancient Sumeria. The villain in the book just wants shallow revenge. A better storyline would be either the hero or villain wanting to bring down the Metaverse for how it’s ruining society. But it seems that the main people who use the Metaverse are hackers, not the general public. And “hacker” in this book seems to mean a computer programmer, or maybe just a computer user.
The most interesting parts of this book for me were the parts that had to do with ancient history and religion, and I could have just read a nonfiction book for that.
Juanita says: “99% of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire 100% is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people’s minds” (69). “Anyone who takes the trouble to study the gospels can see that the bodily resurrection is a myth that was tacked onto the real story several years after the real histories were written” (201).
I learned some things about the Bible: I already knew Pharisees were the group of Jews who took the religious laws very seriously and expected everyone to follow those laws. But I learned more about the other two groups of Jews: the Sadducees believed that that there was no spiritual world, only the material world. And Essenes were like communist monks who tried to make their bodies and food as pure/clean as possible. “They even had their own version of the Gospels in which Jesus healed possessed people, not with miracles, but by driving parasites, such as tapeworm, out of their body. These parasites are considered to be synonymous with demons” (209). That’s in line with my theory that Jesus healed people like a doctor, not like a witch.
Asherah was a consort of El, AKA Yahweh. Asherah was AKA Elat, Dione/Rhea (Greek), Nintu/Ninhursag (Sumerian), Tannit/Hawwa (Canaanites), which is another name for Eve (227-228). Tannit means “the one of the serpent.” She was worshipped by “everyone who lived between India and Spain, from the second millennium B.C. Up into the Christian era. With the exception of the Hebrews, who only worshipped her until the religious reforms of Hezekiah and, later, Josiah” (228). Hawwa is an ophidian (serpent) mother goddess associated with trees (231).
The Hebrews were actually not monotheists, they were monolatrists; they didn’t deny the existence of other gods, but they were only supposed to worship Yahweh (228). That makes lines in the Bible make sense when God tells people to worship him, not because he’s the only god, but because he’s a jealous god. And when the Bible says “let us make man in our image.”
Asherah was purged from Judaism by deuteronomics who rewrote and reorganized the old tales (228). The deuteronomics were in favor of monarchy and centralizing the religion in the Temple in Jerusalem (229). They were responsible for the Bible being written and people going to church and reading it rather than making animal sacrifices and spreading the religion orally (229).
“All cultures seem to have a myth about Paradise, and the Fall from Paradise” (232).
“According to the interpretation of Hvidberg and, later, Wyatt, Adam in his garden is a parable for the king in his sanctuary, specifically King Hosea, who ruled the northern kingdom until it was conquered by Sargon II in 722 BC. . . . ‘Eden,’ which can be understood simply as the Hebrew word for ‘delight,’ stands for the happy state in which the king existed prior to the conquest. The expulsion from Eden to the bitter lands to the east is a parable for the massive deportation of Israelites to Assyria following Sargon II’s victory. According to this interpretation, the king was enticed away from the path of righteousness by the cult of El, with its associated worship of Asherah. . . . And his association with Asherah somehow caused him to be conquered—so when the deuteronomists reached Jerusalem, they recast the Adam and Eve story as a warning to the leaders of the southern kingdom” (233).
Babel literally means “gate of god” (398). When people all speak the same language and live in close proximity, things spread quickly (400). That’s good if the thing spreading is a good thing (revolting against corrupt leader), but bad if the thing spreading is a bad thing (virus).
“After the crucifixion, the apostles went to his tomb hoping to find his body and instead found nothing. The message was clear enough: we are not to idolize Jesus, because his ideas stand alone, his church is no longer centralized in one person but dispersed among all the people. People who were used to the rigid theocracy of the Pharisees couldn’t handle the idea of a popular, nonhierarchical church. They wanted popes and bishops and priests. And so the myth of the Resurrection was added onto the gospels. The message was changed to a form of idolatry” (401-402). I don’t think the Pharisees wanted popes and bishops; that was the Romans who wanted that. And the Pharisees were never in favor of Jesus, before or after he died. It was his followers who spread the lie about his resurrection, in order to form a new religion and to make people believe he was god’s son instead of the son of man.
Reminded me of Ready Player One and Jennifer Government, but I liked both of those better than this book.
Takes place in a futuristic world where corporations have surpassed the government, and there’s a lot of violence, crime, and poor living conditions. The beginning has lots of cussing and is wordy with a lot of elaborate similes. There are so many slangs and new words and terms that it’s like the book is half in another language. That makes it difficult to read, difficult to stay focussed and engaged, and therefore boring.
A lot of things dont make sense. Hiro and YT meet by chance. They partner up. Why? YT’s age is stated, but not Hiro’s.
Hiro’s last name is seriously Protagonist? Was he born this way or did he choose his own name?
Who are Roadkill and Uncle Enzo? There’s never any explanation as far as I can remember. First I assumed Enzo was Hiro’s actual uncle and boss. Then I thought it was the new name for Uncle Sam. After that I didn’t know who he was. Why does Uncle Enzo care so much about YT’s mother when he has never met her, unless he has and the author didn’t say so (171)?
The whole book is like bouncing randomly from one adventure to the next with no thought or reflection by the characters.
YT’s mother gets in trouble and there’s no explanation for how she gets out of it.
Sushi K does a concert, and we’re never told whether the audience liked it or not (138). Why even include the concert in the book? Just for laughs?
The author might’ve said he didn’t include the audience reaction or character reflections or motivations because it’d make the book longer. Well, he could’ve cut out most of the first chapter which was just talking about Hiro delivering pizza which had no relevance to the rest of the story. And I suppose the concert had no relevance either.
Error by the author: there’s hyperinflation making people carry around trillions of dollars, but it still only takes a quarter to use a pay phone (440).
There were some accurate predictions made by the author, some of which might’ve already been known at the time the book was written (1992): “Smart” technology (4, 27), digital screens in vehicles including maps (4), Metaverse (18), flameproof clothing that causes cancer (18), fiber optic Internet (21), PVP fighting (25), avatars (35), NPCs (the book calls them daemons) (55), cell phones with voice command (77-78), Google earth & GPS (106), data and images through phones (115), reality TV (132), and harmful vaccines (404).
“The more you use it—the more viruses you get exposed to—the better your immune system becomes” (429). So stop vaccinating to protect yourself, and let your immune system fight off viruses the natural way. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And almost all the illnesses vaccines are supposed to protect you from have a very low morality rate.
Possibly the kind of woman that beta males find attractive: tomboys like YT, or sarcastic nerds like Juanita (56). Juanita “had long, glossy black hair that had never been subjected to any chemical process other than regular shampooing. She didn’t wear blue stuff on her eyelids. Her clothing was dark, tailored, restrained. And she didn’t take shit from anyone, not even her professors, which seemed shrewish and threatening to him at the time” (58). Or maybe it’s the kind they settle for since they can’t get the attractive bimbos who go for alpha males. Beta males are unhappy because they settle for the females they think are betas, but the “beta females” end up being strong independent types who the beta males can’t control or dominate, and therefore the beta males end up unhappy. Beta males are in a paradox of wanting to dominate but being too shy or unconfident to do it, so they end up with a dominant woman which makes them frustrated because she doesn’t satisfy his inner desire.
Juanita believes “that no matter how good it is, the Metaverse is distorting the way people talk to each other” (64). I would’ve liked the book to explore this concept more. Instead, the book is focussed on adventures which are brainless aside from their tie to ancient Sumeria. The villain in the book just wants shallow revenge. A better storyline would be either the hero or villain wanting to bring down the Metaverse for how it’s ruining society. But it seems that the main people who use the Metaverse are hackers, not the general public. And “hacker” in this book seems to mean a computer programmer, or maybe just a computer user.
The most interesting parts of this book for me were the parts that had to do with ancient history and religion, and I could have just read a nonfiction book for that.
Juanita says: “99% of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire 100% is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people’s minds” (69). “Anyone who takes the trouble to study the gospels can see that the bodily resurrection is a myth that was tacked onto the real story several years after the real histories were written” (201).
I learned some things about the Bible: I already knew Pharisees were the group of Jews who took the religious laws very seriously and expected everyone to follow those laws. But I learned more about the other two groups of Jews: the Sadducees believed that that there was no spiritual world, only the material world. And Essenes were like communist monks who tried to make their bodies and food as pure/clean as possible. “They even had their own version of the Gospels in which Jesus healed possessed people, not with miracles, but by driving parasites, such as tapeworm, out of their body. These parasites are considered to be synonymous with demons” (209). That’s in line with my theory that Jesus healed people like a doctor, not like a witch.
Asherah was a consort of El, AKA Yahweh. Asherah was AKA Elat, Dione/Rhea (Greek), Nintu/Ninhursag (Sumerian), Tannit/Hawwa (Canaanites), which is another name for Eve (227-228). Tannit means “the one of the serpent.” She was worshipped by “everyone who lived between India and Spain, from the second millennium B.C. Up into the Christian era. With the exception of the Hebrews, who only worshipped her until the religious reforms of Hezekiah and, later, Josiah” (228). Hawwa is an ophidian (serpent) mother goddess associated with trees (231).
The Hebrews were actually not monotheists, they were monolatrists; they didn’t deny the existence of other gods, but they were only supposed to worship Yahweh (228). That makes lines in the Bible make sense when God tells people to worship him, not because he’s the only god, but because he’s a jealous god. And when the Bible says “let us make man in our image.”
Asherah was purged from Judaism by deuteronomics who rewrote and reorganized the old tales (228). The deuteronomics were in favor of monarchy and centralizing the religion in the Temple in Jerusalem (229). They were responsible for the Bible being written and people going to church and reading it rather than making animal sacrifices and spreading the religion orally (229).
“All cultures seem to have a myth about Paradise, and the Fall from Paradise” (232).
“According to the interpretation of Hvidberg and, later, Wyatt, Adam in his garden is a parable for the king in his sanctuary, specifically King Hosea, who ruled the northern kingdom until it was conquered by Sargon II in 722 BC. . . . ‘Eden,’ which can be understood simply as the Hebrew word for ‘delight,’ stands for the happy state in which the king existed prior to the conquest. The expulsion from Eden to the bitter lands to the east is a parable for the massive deportation of Israelites to Assyria following Sargon II’s victory. According to this interpretation, the king was enticed away from the path of righteousness by the cult of El, with its associated worship of Asherah. . . . And his association with Asherah somehow caused him to be conquered—so when the deuteronomists reached Jerusalem, they recast the Adam and Eve story as a warning to the leaders of the southern kingdom” (233).
Babel literally means “gate of god” (398). When people all speak the same language and live in close proximity, things spread quickly (400). That’s good if the thing spreading is a good thing (revolting against corrupt leader), but bad if the thing spreading is a bad thing (virus).
“After the crucifixion, the apostles went to his tomb hoping to find his body and instead found nothing. The message was clear enough: we are not to idolize Jesus, because his ideas stand alone, his church is no longer centralized in one person but dispersed among all the people. People who were used to the rigid theocracy of the Pharisees couldn’t handle the idea of a popular, nonhierarchical church. They wanted popes and bishops and priests. And so the myth of the Resurrection was added onto the gospels. The message was changed to a form of idolatry” (401-402). I don’t think the Pharisees wanted popes and bishops; that was the Romans who wanted that. And the Pharisees were never in favor of Jesus, before or after he died. It was his followers who spread the lie about his resurrection, in order to form a new religion and to make people believe he was god’s son instead of the son of man.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content