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Book #87: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Cannonball Read / Brian Prisco

Book Reviews | May 27, 2009 | Comments (29)

Just shove this into your face and accept you’ve been dominated, punk. You can’t read this book. You can’t digest it in one sitting. It’s a quadruple Whopper with bacon. Having read only Cryptonomicon, I was expecting a long, droll, science-heavy quarkfest geekothon. Instead, I was smacked in the face with a hoverboard and told to cover the bleeding with an icepack laced with X. This book will fuck your brain. You don’t read this — Eric Stoltz jams a needle of it into your cerebral cortex to impress a pierced Arquette.

If I tried to write an SAT problem explaining to you what this book was about, nobody’d break a 1000. A train carrying the Da Vinci Code meets Blade Runner going west heads for a commuter line carrying The Matrix meets Catch-22. They collide somewhere in Chicago in the living room of a man watching Repo Man. Show your work. Give up on life. Join the Borg.

The book is totally ridiculous and amazing. You consume it and can’t believe what’s happening. If you try to stare directly into the characters and plot, you’ll burn your retinas. Hiro Protagonist is a pizza-delivery man/hacker who carries two katanas and works for Uncle Enzo’s Mafia. On a near failed delivery into one of the franchulates — society is now broken up into corporate-sponsored mini-city states/suburban enclaves where a Best Buy doesn’t just sell you flat-screen TVs but also heroin, prostitutes, and is also a prison — he’s saved by a teenage Kourier named Y.T., a badass chick on a killer skateboard. And they somehow get embroiled in a worldwide plot to erase the minds of hackers with a virus called Snow Crash based on the Sumerian nam-shub (think magic spell — wiggity wiggity wizards of waverly YOUR FACE) that caused the downfall of Babel.

Breathe. Breathe! Your brain is fucking flatlining, fool! It doesn’t make sense now, but it will. And shit, I haven’t even got into the fucking Aleut glassassin with the fucking nuke hardwired to his lifeline. You can’t take this heat, you can only get a tan from two states away. Stephenson deftly frappucinos sci-fi and video game avatar with ancient pre-biblical arcana in ways that staple the brain. On the surface, it’s crazy-sexy-cool. With pun names, insane half-spinning plot lines leaping like a speedfreak reading four simultaneous comics, and insan-o forethinking socio-political commentary (this book was written in 1992. wrap your brain around that shit. had Facebook existed at the time, i think N.S. would have gone fucking Tron-bonzer on this bue-weeesness) it’s almost impossible to try to break down in it’s awesomeness.

It’s a book you put in someone’s hand, press a finger to their lips, kiss them on the forehead and walk away. So here you is. Smooches, motherfucker.

This review is part of the Cannonball Read series. For more of Prisco’s reviews, check out his blog, The Gospel According to Prisco.


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Comments

My favourite quote
"I am sure they will listen to reason."

The fun part comes when you understand that
REASON is the name of a portable, nuclear powered
railgun that slices through ships like butter.

I love this book.

Posted by: GD at May 27, 2009 9:16 AM

my god, brian, i haven't had my coffee yet.

geez.

Posted by: gp at May 27, 2009 9:35 AM

Fuck. YES.

Now I kinda want to finish Neuromancer and compare the two.

Posted by: Vermillion at May 27, 2009 9:44 AM

So this is better than Cryptonomicon or the Baroque trilogy? I couldn't finish either of those...too many divergent concepts make my brain hurt. I mean, it's cool that he throws all these fascinating facts and weird characters together, but do they ALL have to relate to every other character in some way?

Posted by: Wednesday at May 27, 2009 9:45 AM

Wow.

Good review, it captures the experience of reading this book very wel.

GD, you forgot a minor detail in that epic scene, namely the Pirates in that ship who were checking out the naked asses of our heros..
heh heh, reason.

Like a Tolkien Nerd, I read this book at least every 2 years. And when i try to explain to someone who hasn't read it yet, somehow saying "It has the cool idea that religion is a firewall in the brain against other religions" doesn't make much sense..

Love this book.
Read it all 2 times

Posted by: Magiel at May 27, 2009 9:51 AM

So this is what a dick in the brain feels like.

Posted by: admin at May 27, 2009 9:59 AM

Yes YES you are right. Read the sequel The Diamond Age, too. It doesn't kick like Crash but YT is in it. Just remember the phrase from the first book:

"Chiseled Spam"

Posted by: Scifi Reader at May 27, 2009 11:21 AM

For some reason the part that always struck me as hilarious was when Hiro and co. are floating in the ocean and a ship full of horny gay pirates happens by, and they make him stand up and model his naked self and cheer lustily at the view, at which point "he felt his anal sphincter contract to the size of a pore."

Another favorite line, same scene:

"They're homos?"

"Shit, man, you didn't even blink when I told you about the scalps."

Posted by: DeadBessie at May 27, 2009 11:44 AM

This is sitting on my desk per my boss' recommendation, mostly because I was apparently espousing politics similar to something discussed in the book. Wish I could read the review, but I'll have to read the book first...

Posted by: Eep at May 27, 2009 12:03 PM

Good book. I've read most of Stephenson's stuff and liked it (Zodiac being my least favorite). I've got Anathem sitting on my bookshelf, but haven't mustered the energy to start it, yet.

Posted by: sosumi at May 27, 2009 12:23 PM

I just read this book a few months ago and I loved it. Though I am surprised that there was no mention of the fact that the cult and cult leader out on the ocean were based on Scientology's Sea Org and L. Ron himself. Added extra levels of weird to an already bizarre yet awesome scifi story.

Posted by: CinnabarriGirl at May 27, 2009 12:34 PM

A friend of mine gave me the book about 11 years ago for Christmas. I still haven't read it yet. I guess I should pull it down from the shelves. That and the Milan Kundera books that are right next to it.

Posted by: DoubleH at May 27, 2009 12:39 PM

@ Scifi Reader

Not many pick up on that one.. thats the fun part with Stephenson, his little easter eggs.

Cryptonomicon > Snowcrash > Diamond Age > Baroque Cycle (all three) > Zodiac > Interface > Pretty much everything else I've been reading.

I know Anathema should be in there somewhere too, but I still havent made up my mind about it.

The Tolkien analogies were always my favorite.

Posted by: strtwise at May 27, 2009 12:44 PM

I love this book. I read it first when I was 15 and I didn't get it. I read it again a few years ago and I was mesmerized. I am feeling like reading ti again now.

Posted by: DemonWaterPolo at May 27, 2009 1:03 PM

I love this book. I did feel guilty for having a Beautiful Girls-esque crush on the underage Y.T.

My only very minor quibble is that the ending is a little anti-climactic.

Posted by: DarthCorleone at May 27, 2009 1:06 PM

Thank you for reading it. I was hoping you would.

Posted by: Lucas at May 27, 2009 1:21 PM

Scifi Reader, I never was really sure if that was YT, or if it was just another skater punk girl grown old. Let's assume it was though, it makes it more fun.

Posted by: Lucas at May 27, 2009 1:26 PM

thanks for the awesome review. makes me want to read it again.

Posted by: spaektor at May 27, 2009 1:30 PM

Just wanted to chime in and say that I LOVED this book. I also thought it was kind of cool, but I also really hated the fact that Microsoft VP J. Allard's gamertag is Hiro Protagonist.

Posted by: JapJay at May 27, 2009 2:04 PM

Wednesday, it's not as difficult a read as Cryptonomicon, and definitely not as much of a time expenditure as the Baroque Cycle. It is, however, completely worth your time.

Posted by: munkymack at May 27, 2009 2:12 PM

Thank you for completely and utterly removing ANY desire I may have had to ever read ANYTHING by Stephenson.

Look, I get it that you are desperate to be seen as a hipster and thus gain at least temporary access to the "cool table" in the cafeteria, but this comes across as both pathetically desperate and utterly unintelligible. Complete gibberish that even a retarded chimp couldn't pound out.

Just review the fucking book and spare me the pathetic "I'm SO desperate to be seen as a hipster" attitude, 'cause it is beyond played out and boring.

Posted by: ILike Whores at May 27, 2009 2:32 PM

Prisco - When did your mother first admit she like whores?

Posted by: strtwise at May 27, 2009 3:26 PM

This may be the only time I have agreed with someone named "ILikeWhores" but so be it...

Prisco, your reviews are painful to read. Your trying-so-hard-to-be-edgy hipster musings do an injustice to even the worst material that you have been assigned to review. I still read them because Pajiba usually provides an excellent take, and I'm always hoping that maybe you remove your head from your smug arse and give me something different than your usual forced, corny metaphors and superlatives, but I am always disappointed. Maybe this makes me a "hater" or whatever they call it, but that's kind of accurate I guess, since hate is the word that best describes how I feel about your writing style.

Posted by: Forrest Crunk at May 27, 2009 4:02 PM

I loved this book so much I stole it from my brother (after I promised I wouldn't) and then made practically every one I knew read it.

Posted by: king at May 27, 2009 4:05 PM

Lame, neutered rip-off of William Gibson's Sprawl books. Snow Crash is Neuromancer for tween girls.

Posted by: Sarah at May 27, 2009 4:24 PM

I liked Snow Crash lots but I kind of had to skate past the 'brains are hardware to run memes, people are just the memes in the brain, brains can be hacked by looking at something'.
Brains don't work like that!
Also you forgot to mention that Snow Crash is really dystopic. When Y.T. 's mothers' employers wanted to ask her something (information she would have been happy to volunteer) they called her in, strapped her to a chair and drugged her unconscious with some kind of truth drug. She wasn't even that mad at them!

Posted by: ChrisD at May 27, 2009 6:49 PM

Anathem ate my brain for breakfast.

Posted by: TL at May 27, 2009 8:21 PM

Holy crap...after this review, I HAVE to read this book. I love books that leave my brain feeling all mush and melty-like.

And the review was a trip all on its own. Beautiful.

Posted by: figgy at May 27, 2009 9:21 PM

Love him love this great review. Definitely captured the spirit. Ya have to admit though, his books go on and on and on and on and on. I'm convinced they only end when he hits his page count limit.

Posted by: DivineGigi at May 28, 2009 8:56 AM