Alright alright I suck. Officially.
People have been pushing Snowcrash at me for the last 5 years and I have been turning it down again and again. Not exactly turning it down -- I mean, I'll read pretty much anything -- just shuffling it to the bottom of the pile or loaning it out to other people. I mean, it was most recently displaced for Jared Diamond's
Collapse: Why societies choose to fail or succeed. Which was fascinating...but damn near a snoozer in the excitement department. See I really like cyber (though I hesitate to add the punk now because it's become so mainstream) but here's the rub:
I'm a Gibson girl...as in William not the silly dolls...and until this moment my main line was what the hell can Stephenson do better?
Actually. A lot. No offence Mr Gibson, but damn, sometimes I have no idea where you're going till you get there. It's a good thing I love your characters (Molly Millions), plot (when it's finally revealed), writing style, worldbuilding and cinematic endings.
So this time I loaned my copy to a friend and it was destroyed during the reading. He bought me a brand new copy (mine was second hand) and I felt obligated to actually read the thing.
I have to say, having read a few shorter pieces by Stephenson and some of his commentary (which I do not entirely agree with but respect his POV) I am now triply impressed with all of the above qualities which he has in abundance, and I love being able to see out the window along the ride there. And I think Stephenson deals with race/ethnicity in the future much better than Gibson. He just handles it like he's more at home in the complexities. Not like he's trying to keep everybody happy.
Damn. Plus anybody who can get away with calling his main character Hiro Protaganist and not make me throw the book against the wall. Yeah, you are the man.
For those of you who have been living under a rock (like me) and have not read Snow Crash...DO IT. Now.
Hiro Protagonist is a half black/half Asian samurai pizza delivery guy hacker. Y.T. ("Whitey" LOL!) is a smart mouthed chick skateboarding mail courier (it's worth reading alone for a whole new definition of the word "poon") living in a corporate mesh of an almost entirely privatized US. An ancient virus has been released in the Metaverse (think Matrix meets Tron) and Hiro and Y.T may be the only ones that can stop it.
Throw in a kayaking Aleut with a hydrogen bomb attached to his head; ancient Sumerian legends; some of the best speculating on language and the human brain I've ever read; and some fucking awesome near future spec (which is actually a little bit scary considering how close it feels to what life might be like say 5-10 years from now...Maybe less) and I'm yours. I will be pushing this book on people for years to come.
Thank you, Mr Stephenson. Thank you.
That is all.
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