Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

A postponed session, not unfortunately due to snow (how perfect that would have been), but just because I was away in Wales at the time.

Taking place instead on the second week of January, the discussion on Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash was both in-depth and heated.

Plot Synopsis

The only relief from the sea of logos is within the well-guarded borders of the Burbclaves. Is it any wonder that most sane folks have forsaken the real world and chosen to live in the computer-generated universe of virtual reality? In a major city, the size of a dozen Manhattans, is a domain of pleasures limited only by the imagination. But now a strange new computer virus called Snow Crash is striking down hackers everywhere, leaving an unlikely young man as humankind's last best hope.

What Did We Think?

Seemingly, the novel was enjoyed by all, although this does not mean there were no flaws to be found. A particular problem for numerous readers was that of exposition. The librarian character, nothing more than an exposition machine, would engage Hiro in pretend conversations which were in fact long monologues intended to convey a large wad of data or background information in one go. This could be seen as an example of "early-writer syndrome" (Snow Crash was Stephenson's third novel), info-dumping where a more experiences author with more faith in his readers might have drip fed it out to us over time.

Whether the book should have been longer (possibly spread over a number of volumes) or compressed into a series of short stories was a matter hotly debated. On one hand the drip feeding of information would require a longer plot with more stages in its development; on the other the plot as it stood was too unwieldy and the characters whilst interesting to look at were ultimately 2D cut-outs, too robust and unaffected by the traumas the novel imposes upon them, a short story format would compensate for that whilst also allowing us a closer glimpse at other fascinating aspects of the novel: characters such as Uncle Enzo, or the inner workings of Fedland, for example.

Its relationship to Gibson probably doesn't need to be flagged but aside from sharing a cyberpunk setting, there is the same sense of massive ideas slapped onto the page, as well as mixing science fiction action and adventure with humour.

What amazed all of us was that, unlike Gibson, Stephenson, as yet, has not returned to this world (some read the next novel The Diamond Age as a loose sequel but even that is debatable). For all the flaws in character and pacing, for all the frustrations with info-dumping, the world in which the novel is set is so colourful and lively that it is astounding that more has not been made of it - it seems perfect for a Graphic Novel or an anime.

The novel sparked extensive debate on socio-political issues regarding the nature (and identity) of control in society and the idea of anarchy. Flaws could be found in both the science and the sociology (as is almost always the case) and yet on the balance this was a novel which no one seemed to regret reading (although some would not read it a second time). It gained marks for being fun, and "cool", where otherwise the manner in which certain aspects were executed would have caused it to suffer in our abitrarty assignation of a numerical score.

The average score given to Snow Crash was 7

The votes fell as follows: 6, 7, 7, 7, 8 (in absentia), 8, 8


Have you read Snow Crash? Do you agree with what I've summarised here? Do you have an opinion you'd like to share? If so then please do comment below.

Also: because I neglected to include a pre-amble to Snow Crash you may not have seen this article about where the title comes from. Take a look if you're interested in any of the background reading.