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Review Archive
BOOKS
Snow Crashby Neal Stephenson
Bantam Doubleday Dell; New York, NY; 440 pgs; Trade Paperback; $13.95
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash reads much like the Warren Ennis comic Transmetropolitan. Of course, if you're unfamiliar with Neal, SC or Transmet then the previous sentence probably won't mean much. You may now go sit in the corner and be ashamed of yourself.
Snow Crash is set in a very different version of today, but a world that has the same history that we have. Does that make any sense? There was WWII and the Vietnam War and various other historical events, but something happened since...the U.S. government is a corporate entity, suburb developments are franchised out, the CIA is now the CIC (Central Intelligence Corporation), everyone is jacked into the Metaverse (a virtual reality 3-D cyberspace), uber-technology is on the rise, invasive advertisements abound, and being a pizza delivery boy for Uncle Enzo's Costa Nostra Pizza can be a dangerous gig.
(Of course, now that the novel is almost 10 years old, I suppose you can consider it an alternate history novel—since it takes place in the '90s.)
The long and the short of the plot is this: Hiro Protagonist is a badass hacker, programmer, and the greatest samurai in the world (real and virtual). Snow Crash is hitting the streets. Is it a computer virus? A biological virus? A religion? Or are all three the exact same thing? Y.T. is a 15-year-old Kourier who uses her smart-board to skate through traffic, using an electromagnetic harpoon device to attach herself to vehicles. She delivers anything, anywhere, and can skate on anything.
In the end, Snow Crash is a cyberpunk action/mystery novel with Hiro and Y.T. playing a futuristic version of Holmes and Watson, gathering intel to understand Snow Crash. The story is good and enjoyable, though there are a few pitfalls that slowed the book down.
For one, the book is written in first person. It's an odd choice for Stephenson to make. Is this supposed to give a sense of immediacy to the story? I'm not sure. For me, it was nothing more than obvious and obtrusive for the first half of the novel, and easily ignored during the second half.
There are a few sections that have an inordinate amount of exposition in it. I'm not sure if Stephenson had any other way around this—as the information he gives is, well, informative and necessary to the plot. Hiro talks to his computer-generated Librarian who spouts out myriad facts about ancient religions and languages. It's not that these scenes were down-and-out bad, but rather awkward. Maybe more so because the rest of the novel was written so well and had such incredible action, that when it slows down to chapters filled with exposition and explanation...it's very noticeable
Which brings me to the climax of Snow Crash. The last 50+ pages have these great cinematic moments filled with high-velocity guns, katanas, assaults, and computer problems. It builds and builds to a moment that should be the end of the story...and then it continues for another 15 pages. I understand that in order to tie up all of the story strings, these last pages are important, but...well, it creates a flat ending.
Hiro Protagonist is the main character. He's the guy we follow for the entire story. Why, then, does the last scene play out with Uncle Enzo? Perhaps it wouldn't have been believable to have Hiro there...but Enzo is barely in the book. Why finish the story with him?
But these are minor complaints really. Snow Crash is a lot of fun—even more if you're into computers, samurais, or religion.
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