Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
First of all, I'd like to thank you guys for recommending this to me. I can totally see why you did and it was quite up my alley.
I must say that for the first 200 pages or so I wasn't sure I was going to like it. I thought it was an interesting concept, but it was the characters that bothered me. Let's review:
* A slackerhacker super genius who also happens to be a swordfighting expert. He's not like those other hackers, but will use their methods ("full-on Gargoyle mode") when it suits him. Also, he's best friends with a zillionaire and a rock star.
*A smart-mouthed, conveniently conventionally-attractive little sasafrass of a teenage girl with an all-access pass. With, of course, yellow hair. Whose job, it turns out, is to be the object of paternal affection and later desire. And then to be rescued. This was a disappointing turn of events for me.
*Genius, exotic out-of-his-league ex-girlfriend who is also Very Deep and who ONLY THE HERO (named Hiro Protagonist, wtfingf) can help.
*Assorted ethnic stereotype power brokers.
*TEH BAD GUY, with motorcycle, long hair, and a grudge. Although the nuclear warhead in the sidecar and the knives were an excellent touch.
Once I was able to get over it and tell myself it's genre fiction and just go with it, I enjoyed it more. The concepts Stephenson brought together were fascinating and he did it very well: smarter than Da Vinci Code, not quite as mind-crunching as Focault's Pendulum. Language as virus, civilization as code, physical disease mixed with addiction, language, religion: it all worked nicely. I also liked how he managed to cite his sources inside the novel. I don't know enough about most of what he was talking about to know if he's full of crap, but it was tied together nicely.
It was written in 1992: I'm amused by how all the early concepts of 'virtual reality' involve goggles. Early technophiles underestimated the ability of the average internetter to tune out the rest of the world without surrounding themselves in a 360degree virtual environment.
I actually wouldn't mind a prequelly thing where he goes into the breakup of civilization as we know it and the re-forming as the new, weird, almost-like-our-world world in which the novel takes place. All in all, I liked it. I will go back to that post where I asked for sci-fi recs and grab some more titles, and I'll probably read more Stephenson. I need to read some litfic or navel-gazing nature writing first, though. Cleanse my palate. ;)
Next up is supposed to be a YA fantasy novel for a book club. There can't possibly be something I'm less interested in reading than YA fantasy, so I'll probably skip it and wait until next month, where we're reading Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I'm very excited to read that. I bought it to read on the train and never got around to it.
I must say that for the first 200 pages or so I wasn't sure I was going to like it. I thought it was an interesting concept, but it was the characters that bothered me. Let's review:
* A slackerhacker super genius who also happens to be a swordfighting expert. He's not like those other hackers, but will use their methods ("full-on Gargoyle mode") when it suits him. Also, he's best friends with a zillionaire and a rock star.
*A smart-mouthed, conveniently conventionally-attractive little sasafrass of a teenage girl with an all-access pass. With, of course, yellow hair. Whose job, it turns out, is to be the object of paternal affection and later desire. And then to be rescued. This was a disappointing turn of events for me.
*Genius, exotic out-of-his-league ex-girlfriend who is also Very Deep and who ONLY THE HERO (named Hiro Protagonist, wtfingf) can help.
*Assorted ethnic stereotype power brokers.
*TEH BAD GUY, with motorcycle, long hair, and a grudge. Although the nuclear warhead in the sidecar and the knives were an excellent touch.
Once I was able to get over it and tell myself it's genre fiction and just go with it, I enjoyed it more. The concepts Stephenson brought together were fascinating and he did it very well: smarter than Da Vinci Code, not quite as mind-crunching as Focault's Pendulum. Language as virus, civilization as code, physical disease mixed with addiction, language, religion: it all worked nicely. I also liked how he managed to cite his sources inside the novel. I don't know enough about most of what he was talking about to know if he's full of crap, but it was tied together nicely.
It was written in 1992: I'm amused by how all the early concepts of 'virtual reality' involve goggles. Early technophiles underestimated the ability of the average internetter to tune out the rest of the world without surrounding themselves in a 360degree virtual environment.
I actually wouldn't mind a prequelly thing where he goes into the breakup of civilization as we know it and the re-forming as the new, weird, almost-like-our-world world in which the novel takes place. All in all, I liked it. I will go back to that post where I asked for sci-fi recs and grab some more titles, and I'll probably read more Stephenson. I need to read some litfic or navel-gazing nature writing first, though. Cleanse my palate. ;)
Next up is supposed to be a YA fantasy novel for a book club. There can't possibly be something I'm less interested in reading than YA fantasy, so I'll probably skip it and wait until next month, where we're reading Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I'm very excited to read that. I bought it to read on the train and never got around to it.