029 - Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash

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Contents 1 From the RSS feed 2 Download this episode 3 Rating 4 Notes and corrections 5 Other books reviewed by the same author 6 Links 7 Listener comments

[edit] From the RSS feed

Luke really lets loose during his review of this classic cyberpunk effort by Neal Stephenson, Snore Crash. Er… Snow Crash.

Link to blog post

[edit] Download this episode

SFBRP #029 - Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash.mp3

Duration: 43:30

Size: 20mb

[edit] Rating

0.9 stars out of 5.

[edit] Notes and corrections

• The Geeknights podcast about this same book can be downloaded here.

[edit] Other books reviewed by the same author

• not any time soon!

[edit] Links

• Snow Crash on Wikipedia
• Snow Crash at Amazon.com

[edit] Listener comments

Hey Luke,

Certainly one of your longer podcasts, but hey, I like the longer format, so no problem there! :)

I think that a lot of your points are pretty sound, but it might be worth reading some William Gibson cyberpunk novels for some context. For many people, the novels were about concept, above and beyond character and plot; I don't think that this is really an exception. In comparison to hard SF, the sort of sleek and well crafted novels that you (and I) like, it is like comparing high literature to a Ludlum thriller; one is art, the other is entertainment.

From the point of view of structure, one of the things I thought was done really well was introducing elements into the story, foreshadowing their use later on. It was perhaps even done to the point of heavy handedness, but at least there was some internal consistency. From earlier podcasts, I would have assumed that you would have picked up on this, but in fairness, it sounds like this wasn't the book for you.

In defense of the author two points are worth mentioning:

1. This was his most ambitious work to date upon it's publication and is a much denser and more complex work than his previous projects (Big U and Zodiac): it suffered because of this. When he writes contemporary fiction or his historical fiction, the quality is better even if some of the topics remain esoteric.

2. Show me five books that deal with the internet well and i will salute you. From my own experience in the creative exploration of the subject it is phenomenally hard to do well. As an aside, you mentioned that the Metaverse in the book was like Second Life... well it's the other way around: Second Life was patterned after the metaverse.

Otherwise, a fun little podcast there! I was smiling when you waxed invective at the book though... I wonder if there is a blooper reel that we should be made aware of, lurking somewhere in your computer? :)

Cheers,

James