Snow Crash Book Review

SNOW CRASH

Nathan Shane Loomis

Snow Crash is a terrific novel that contains science fiction, action, an intriguing story, compelling characters, and so much more. Everyone in the modern age can relate too many of the themes in this book because a lot of technological ideas that were in this book can be found in our everyday lives. Snow Crash is science fiction at its best- these are some of the reasons why.

Neal Stephenson came from a family of scientists and engineers- His father was an electrical engineer and his mother was a biochemist. He graduated from Boston University and got a Bachelor of Arts in geography and a minor in physics. After an essay called In the Beginning... was the Command Line (about a failure in the early Macintosh Computer), Stephenson started to write novels. Stephenson has written other books before and after Snow Crash (such as The Big U, Zodiac, The Cobweb, etc.), but Snow Crash is his most prized possession of all his books.

The motivation for Snow Crash was from his essay In The Beginning... was the Command Line, which explained the failure in the early Macintosh Computer. He described the crash to be like a broken TV’s white static; he called it a ‘snow crash.’ The inspiration also came from Ancient Sumerian history, the bible, and The Tower of Babel. If you take his essay, Ancient Sumerian history, the Bible, The Tower of Babel, and mush them together, you would get Snow Crash.

Stephenson’s main goal with this book must have been to show people his vision of the future, a world where the internet and video games or the “Metaverse” were a part of our everyday lives and where there was no real government in power any more. On a technological standpoint, Stephenson wasn’t too far off. The internet is a big part of humans’ lives. We use it for gathering information, social media, video streaming, etc. Video games, to an extent, are a big part of humans’ lives as well. Stephenson’s “Metaverse” is similar to a Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO) such as World of Warcraft. Stephenson had a very good prediction of the world to come because video games and the internet are our “Metaverse.”

Snow Crash takes place in a futuristic America where there’s really no government, but corporations are in control (such as the Mafia, CIA, a pizza company, etc.). The story starts off with a man known as the Deliverator, but his real name is Hiro Protagonist. Back in the day he was one of the early programmers of Metaverse, but now he works as a pizza delivery man for the Mafia. The Metaverse is basically the evolution of the internet and video games. You make an avatar and go into a virtual world where pretty much anything is possible. In reality, Hiro might be a pizza delivery man, but in the Metaverse he’s a master sword fighter. Hiro goes into an exclusive nightclub in the Metaverse and finds out there’s a new drug called ‘Snow Crash.’ Hiro’s hacker friend takes Snow Crash and Hiro finds out it’s not just a drug, but a virus that changes your behavior in the Metaverse and reality. Hiro joins the CIC (the evolution of the CIA) and teams up with a skater-delivery girl named Y.T (Yours Truly). Together they try to find a way to stop the virus ‘Snow Crash.’

Snow Crash’s style definitely kept me engaged in this story. I was always excited to see what was going to happen next. The book is very intelligent. There are a lot of references to Ancient Sumerian history, computer programming, the internet, video games, and the Bible. There are times where I got confused when Hiro was programming something because it goes into detail of him programming. However, the presentation of the book kept me wanting to read all the programming junk. When Hiro is going through all the codes, I wouldn’t want Snow Crash to be any other way because that is one of the many reasons why Snow Crash is so intelligent and unique. If Stephenson just blew by Hiro programming something, it almost kills the thrill of what Hiro is doing. I appreciated what he was actually doing because programming is not an easy thing. If Stephenson left out the programming parts, then I probably would have blown it off like it was nothing important. It is not like reading Origin of Species where it gets to the point where you can’t read it because it is so hard to understand. It is almost like when a character in a movie, like “Mission Impossible,” is hacking into a computer in the midst of action. You might not know exactly what he is typing in or doing, but you know what he is trying to accomplish. It would help to know a thing or two about technology when reading this novel, but for the most part Snow Crash’s style never leaves you out of the loop of things that are happening.

Snow Crash is a phenomenal adventure that is funny, action packed, dramatic, romantic, intelligent, and presents all these themes flawlessly. If you like science fiction even a little bit- read this book. If you like adventure- read this book. If you like engaging stories- read this book. If you like technology- read this book. I would recommend this book to almost everyone. Snow Crash definitely deserves the label of a literary masterpiece- without question.