Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson

"Wait a minute--this snow crash thing, is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" Juanita shrugs. "What's the difference?"

Snow Crash is not a good book. It somehow made it onto the Time Top 100 novels list, it’s widely considered one of the best of the science fiction genre, but it’s so full of missteps, poorly thought out ideas, and convoluted writing that I’m at a loss to explain why.

First, the good: Snow Crash, in the early going, serves as a pretty funny satire of cyberpunk in the style of William Gibson. It follows a samurai pizza delivery guy, Hiro Protagonist (haha), who’s a slacker in the real world but a hero in the “Metaverse”, a virtual world that seems Stephenson’s answer to Gibson’s Sprawl. It’s silly, but for the first half of the book, the silliness at least seems intentional. However, when the titular “snow crash”, a drug that is chemical, physical, and digital, is introduced, the book strives for a more serious tone that fits it very poorly.

Introducing elements of linguistics, Christianity, and microbiology through reams and reams of dialog-based exposition, Stephenson lays out the science behind the ideas which is ultimately far too far-fetched (and, for anyone with a passing knowledge of the history of Christianity, factually inaccurate) for me to buy into. It reads like Stephenson had a lot of ideas, but rather than organically integrate them into the narrative, they are shared in endless dialogs between Hiro and a computerized librarian. I was also fairly skeeved by the sexualization of the 15 year old co-protagonist, Y.T., which includes a fairly explicit maybe not-quite-consensual sex scene.

On a more personal note, I was somewhat offended by Stephenson’s dismissal of Christianity. The following exchange, between Hiro and Juanita, a self-described devout Catholic, is so condescending that it makes my condescending organ ache:

"Do you believe in Jesus?"

"Definitely, but not in the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus.", said Juanita.

"How can you be a Christian without believing it?"

"I would say, how can you be a Christian with it? Anybody who takes the time to study the gospels can see that the bodily resurrection is a myth that was tacked onto a real story several years after it was written. It's so National Enquirer-esque, don't you think?"

Snow Crash climaxes with a battle between two characters that are introduced in the last 70 pages of the novel, but it somehow seemed fitting: after a book full of characters with no real humanity, it's appropriate that the ending should feel like it doesn’t mean much at all.

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Case is a ruined hacker whose skills are once again needed! Along with his ragtag band of partners, including a ninja-girl with blades in her fingernails, a psychopath who can cause hallucinations, an entire space station worth of Rastafarians, and a crazy former general, Case ventures deep into the cyberspace Sprawl to take on a rouge AI before it's too late!

Pros:

- Neuromancer is probably more famous for the accuracy of its predictions as it is its actual plot. According to the wiki, the terms “cyberspace”, “ice” (in connection with computerized safeguards), and “the matrix” were all either invented or popularized in its pages. Further, it predicted to a large extent what the web wouldn't be for another two decades. Strip away the virtual reality trappings of Gibson's cyberspace, and it's a place similar to the modern-day internet. Concepts of social networking, Second Life, hacking, and even the Wild West-style anarchy that is 4chan can be found.

- The near-future world Gibson created is compelling, much more so than the characters he creates to inhabit it (more on that later). Virtually everyone has physical enhancements, ranging from computerized hearts to hologram projectors. Things are relentlessly dark, and, although not much time is spent on it, the populace appears to spend most of its free time trying to escape the real world--in clubs, in the Sprawl, and out of their heads on all sorts of substances.

- The writing itself is good, if sometimes a bit florid. Gibson has a gift for description, and uses it well, especially when setting scenes early on in the novel.

Cons:

- For the most part, the characters are flat. Case himself is defined sparely with his hacking history and reliance of drugs. Molly is a ninja with blades in her fingers, and, although she isn't overly developed either, she's given the only really introspective scene in the novel, where, through a headset from miles away, she tells Cash about the death of her lover at the hands of the Yakuza.

- On the subject of characters, I'm still confused about what Case's function within the group was. (MILD SPOILERS) He's said to be an accomplished hacker, one of the best, but we never see him do anything particularly impressive. His greatest triumph, breaking through the “ice” surrounding Wintermute, is accomplished by a) commanding an AI construct of a dead hacker to get him to the ice (which, in the Sprawl, exists in some sort of virtually physical space), and b) running a program he purchased from some other hackers. Considering the money his employer spends to add him to the team, it seems like they could have outsourced his job to a trained monkey and gotten similar results.

- The plot is strange. I have no problem with complex plots, but while Neuromancer is positively stuffed with ideas, excising a few of the weaker ones, such as the aforementioned Rastafarian space station, would have tightened the narrative considerably. The first half , while the team is being assembled and the world is being explored, is the most involving. Once the mission gets underway, though, it begins to fragment, finally climaxing with a sort-of twist that seems to come out of the blue.

- The (SPOILER!) sex scene is kind of strangely explicit, both considering the tone of the book as a whole and the aspects the scene itself focuses on.

Ultimately, my main complaint with Neuromancer is that it never really pulled me in, or, rather, it pulled me in and then lost me as the characters and world took second place to a plot that was less interesting than they were. If the whole story had focused on Molly, I would have gotten more out of it.

Between my middling feelings toward Neuromancer and my seeming inability to finish Snow Crash, I doubt cyberpunk will ever be my favorite genre. My summary is too cursory, but on the other hand, aside from going into extreme detail about the plot, I don't know what else to say about it. I'm glad I read it, and I am going to finish Snow Crash (which, in spite of sometimes falling into cool-for-the-sake-of-it territory has stronger characters), but I don't think I'll be buying shuriken anytime soon.