Snow Crash

[Jeffrey of Troy]

I just finished reading this book by Neal Stephenson, even though it has been out since 1992. It is semi famous for popularizing the term "avatar" for your digital self.

I mostly read non fiction, but this is the most non fiction fiction book I've ever read. The author did a lot of research and goes on for pages at a time informing the reader what he discovered by placing the words in his characters mouths (he even embeds references in the dialogue).

Set in the near future, the governments have mostly collapsed, and the world is run by corporations. The hero - named Hiro Protagonist - is a hacker who links to "the Metaverse", and has an adventure in which he can only resolve the dilemmas by switching back and forth between the virtual and real worlds.

The book is all about the past, and how it affects the future - or if we humans will even have one. From wikipedia:

The book presents the Sumerian language as the firmware programming language for the brainstem, which is supposedly functioning as the BIOS for the human brain. According to characters in the book, the goddess Asherah is the personification of a linguistic virus, similar to a computer virus. The god Enki created a counter-program which he called a nam-shub that caused all of humanity to speak different languages as a protection against Asherah (a re-interpretation of the ancient Near Eastern story of the Tower of Babel).

As I read it, I was thinking this book was probably a major inspiration for the Matrix movies. Looks like someone else thought so too.

WARNING: much violence throughout, and a sex scene with a man and a fifteen year old girl (maybe, if we wanted to be charitable, a moral message like "this is the world that will result if we let the corps take control of society"? Anyway, I was surprised he included that, especially considering he's definitely a liberal, but it is a plot point.


I read his more recent book Anathem first, which I liked better.

 

[Thor]

Jeffrey of Troy,

Reading your post takes me on a pleasant stroll down memory lane. I remember loving Neal Stephensons books. I agree with you that Anathem is probably his best and most mature book. However, as I recall it, The Diamond age was almost as seminal with regards to nanot technology as Snow Crash.

Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle are just downright mindblowing in there scope and masterfully told, although more of a roller coaster through history.

Another of Stephensons early books, written under the pseudonym Stephen Bury is called Interface, that I also recall really liking. From Wikipedia:

"It is a thriller, set in the then-future year of 1996 when a shadowy coalition bent on controlling the world economy attempts to manipulate a candidate for president of the United States through the use of a computer biochip brain implant. It was described by writer Cory Doctorow in 2007 as an "underappreciated masterpiece""

Although Stephenson seems to be a very nuts and bolts tech guy, many of his book cover themes that describe a lot of the topics covered on the forum.

His last couple of books, however, have not been that much to my liking. Nonetheless, he will always have a prominent place in my literary heart

 

[omara]

Thank you Jeffrey for starting this topic.

I'm very late to this party but I just wanted to add to it my admiration for Neal Stephenson. I started with the Baroque Cycle and it was mindblowing, like you said, Thor, easily in my top ten.

Reading Cryptonomicon was therefore a bit different experience for me from most, I think. Snow Crash and the Diamond Age were brilliant as well, totally different, if I recall correctly.

I was slightly disappointed with Seveneves, although the ideas are unique. His latest is Fall; or Dodge in Hell, was a major disappointment, my first and hopefully the last with this otherwise great author. I've still got many books of his to read, but I will return to the Baroque Cycle in the very near future, amongst other things to refresh my memory on his take on the Leibnitz-Newton controversy.

 

[United Gnosis]

I've yet to read the Baroque Cycle, I first discovered him through the Diamond Age, which is quite insightful in a post-cyberpunk way that didn't stray too far into soft fiction. Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash were both unique, but I just couldn't drop Anathem. I don't think Neal was far from the truth when he imagined the millenial monks encoding knowledge in their throat-singing. And the philosophical considerations were top-tier. It was deep and haunting, analogous to A Canticle for Leibowitz, in a way.

Edit: Reading this, I realize I need to reread snow crash, I don't remember the second half, might have been too young/not finished it. I don't want to derail the conversation, and the question of the firmware language of the brain is quite interesting :)

 

[LongCloud]

Growing up in the early 80s, I had a computer at home. Mom was a scientist, she paid a LOT of money for it she couldn't afford, I didn't ask her why (I wasn't in the mindset at 14 to think about these things). She never used it (much), I did.

She sure had an idea that it was needed.

Snowcrash is one of only TWO fictional stories that I have ever read more than once (Once when it came out and then 15 years later when I was post cyber punk having worked into the deep industry, Comp. Sci., not cyber punk). Except for maybe Zodiac, Neal Stephenson kinda flamed out after that one. Sorta.

I loved to go back for his social constructs. Especially his Mom which was a Gov worker sitting on a huge floor, not in a cube with any "privacy" but wide open.

This is, in the last few years, called "Gov version 2". It was prescient on his part. Thankfully, people have fawked off and told some of these people to shove it.

Still, not an important book, just fun to read and go back to.

 

[Debra Lynn]

I read Snowcrash and Diamond Age several years ago and thoroughly enjoyed them. Good memories.