Snow Crash
I hate you all for not locking me in a room with a copy of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and telling me that I'm not coming out until I've read it. Ten pages in, and I'm already grinning from ear to ear and wanting to read more.
The overuse of imagery, the real "fuck you" vibe that carries through the text when describing the state of the US and its Burbclave inhabitants in this particular dystopian future, the fact that Hiro starts as a sword-toting, not to be messed with, badass motherfucking pizza delivery guy, and people go to specialist universities for four years to learn how to do this, like some twisted art form? Yum.
I am so upset that cyberpunk as a genre is practically dead. Seriously, fuck steampunk*, this is fiction I can devour whole.
Of course, the book could completely tank for me in the next several hundred pages. Based on what you've all mentioned in passing, I doubt that's going to be the case.
* - Although I do have to admit a particularly strong fondness for the world created in Arcanum, which is certainly steampunk through and through. I "get" the appeal of steampunk, but seriously. Give me nanotechnology, towering arcologies and conspiracy over frills, goggles and steam-power any day of the week.
The overuse of imagery, the real "fuck you" vibe that carries through the text when describing the state of the US and its Burbclave inhabitants in this particular dystopian future, the fact that Hiro starts as a sword-toting, not to be messed with, badass motherfucking pizza delivery guy, and people go to specialist universities for four years to learn how to do this, like some twisted art form? Yum.
I am so upset that cyberpunk as a genre is practically dead. Seriously, fuck steampunk*, this is fiction I can devour whole.
Of course, the book could completely tank for me in the next several hundred pages. Based on what you've all mentioned in passing, I doubt that's going to be the case.
* - Although I do have to admit a particularly strong fondness for the world created in Arcanum, which is certainly steampunk through and through. I "get" the appeal of steampunk, but seriously. Give me nanotechnology, towering arcologies and conspiracy over frills, goggles and steam-power any day of the week.