Snow Crash

[Firemeboy]

Anybody read it?  Heard of it?

I think I mentioned in my intro post that I was working on my Ph. D. in Instructional Tehcnology.  I've heard about this book several times now in relation to my major.  One instructor  even made it required reading in his course, and now I've just read about it in Wired Magazine in relation to X-Box 360...

Anway, so is this a classic I've missed?

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Ent just read it... and I read it years ago... it has pacing problems but is very good.

[Chimera]

You need to get EUOL to comment on it. He was reading it, until I assigned him some other books to read (I was tired of him and our friend Isaac always discussing books I hadn't read, so I made them read books I wanted to discuss).   He was enjoying it, and from what he told me it sounded interesting. I believe he described it as being reminiscient of "Cyber Punk." I can't remember whether he has finished it yet or not...

[fuzzyoctopus]

I was tired of him and our friend Isaac always discussing books I hadn't read, so I made them read books I wanted to discuss).  

Ok, seriously, you need to teach my how to do this with my husband.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

From the Ex-Machina RPG's history of Cyberpunk fiction...

Neal Stephanson is as important to the history of cyberpunk concerns as William Gibson was for them in the 1980's. His 1992 novel, Snow Crash set a pattern for a great deal of the cyberpunk related work of the next decade, even though it didnt kick off and explosion of new work from others in the way that Neuromancer did. Snow Crash takes the post Cold War and inflates all its trends to the extreme, offering a vision of the Mafia running security firms and Pizza delivery services, the US government working by contract, franchise governments with official housing tract designs, and a scheme to rule the world with the help of humanities first language. Its density and wildness of vision defy easy summery. The book is weakened by an unsatisfying ending, but if Neuromancer shares a spirit with the vigorous, experimental sounds of a New Wave keyboardist at work, Snow Crash is the enthusiastic and sometimes out of control jamming of a hip hop or electronica DJ throwing it all into the mix. Stepenson raised the benchmark for what cyberpunk descended fiction could accomplish; everyone who follows this path must take him into account, one way or another.

[Chimera]

What can I say? EUOL's really a sweetie underneath that undeadness. 'Course, it helped that he wanted to read all the things I wanted him to (Lemony Snicket, Artemis Fowl, Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle so we can enjoy the anime when it finally comes to America, etc.) We have similar tastes on many things, and when we don't we have fun discussing it anyway.

If he hadn't had the desire, I don't think he would have read what I 'assigned' him. But it was very accomodating of him. I asked, and I received.

I don't know what to do about your husband. Ask?

P.S. Sorry to go off topic.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

we dont care about that here... (going off topic that is)

[Chimera]

we dont care about that here... (going off topic that is)

I'm starting to realize that. I was reading a EUOLogy about how beginning writers should not use their RPG campaign for their first novel, and when I linked to the forum I was surprised to find two pages in that the topic completely changed and went on for pages and pages discussing the American public school system. I found the discussion fascinating, but it baffled me slightly that such an interesting thread could be so expertly disguised. It makes me feel I need to venture out onto some of the other areas more (I've been sticking to a few familiar places so far).

[JP Dogberry]

It's CyberPunk, not Cyber Punk. Note the lack of space.

It's not reminicent of Punk, it IS punk.

And very good punk, the last true punk novel.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

nit picker

[Chimera]

nit picker

lol.

I purposely put disclaimers in my post, in case I was saying something totally off. Like how I hadn't even read it, that EUOL had only mentioned it to me, and that I "believed" he had described it as CyberPunk (I did not claim to know this). But the disclaimers did not afford me any protection, apparently.

That's okay. I claim ignorance of the whole CyberPunk area. So I can be corrected without being offended.

[JP Dogberry]

Don't worry, punk is only the most important literary movement of all time, there's nothing to be ashamed of.

[EUOL]

Snow Crash felt pretty much like post-Punk to me, Jam.  True, I didn't finish it, but I thought true Punk was dead by the time Stephanson started writing.  

The writing was excellent, but...yeah, the pacing had trouble keeping me interested.  I was just getting into it, however, when Chimera distracted me.  

[JP Dogberry]

Actually, I'm kinda confused about where to put Snow Crash. it's certainly very self-referential and aware, enough to consider it the real start of post punk, but then, the attitudes and ideas expressed are classic punk. Compare with something like Schismatrix - it's classic in how it's prsented and in it's time, yet it presents a worldview that's very much the postpunk one. That's one reason why I think Schismatrix was so ahead of it's time.

[Entsuropi]

Pulled from my lj.

So lately (thursday) I picked up Snow Crash by neil stephanson. Wierd book. In a way I wish it had kept to the promise of the first few chapters, all crammed prose, blistering speed and vague explanations of precisely who is who. But the central part of the story, all about Sumerian (one of my favourite periods of history) language, language hacking, using certain streams of words to overwrite brain functions... fascinating, intriguing stuff, reminded me heavily of the sort of super-science I like. The kind of super science where it ties together into massive theories of everything, less pretty light shows and more social trend engineering. Where they make a breakthrough, and rather than slapping that breakthrough into a spaceships hardpoints, they use it to cause social chaos and radically rewrite the rules of human behaviour. It's kind of wierd that I didn't like 2001 actually (too slow for my taste, I literally almost fell asleep).

Uh, anyway. So there was this fascinating, but unfortunately rather slow bit. And then another ultra fast bit at the very end. The book worked, but it felt like it only just worked, like the author was pulling two different manuscripts together and made them fit by the edge of his pen.

And I really saw a LOT of influence on the 2020 world in this book. It's not a carbon copy, but some elements were very similar.