SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
Group Reads Discussions 2008
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Snow Crash - Initial Reactions
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This is one of those great sf novels that gets better on re-reading. Probably the best cyberpunk novel.
I've only just begun, but I'm enjoying the humor of it. I like what it said about the 4 US strengths. It made me think of Futurama too...in that Fry was a pizza delivery guy.
Jeffrey,Since you have declared yourself a fan of this book, explain "cyberpunk" as a genre. This is not my typical sci fi read and am not sure I am getting the point.
The root idea of Cyberpunk is a near future where computer technology has progressed hugely (it is no accident that this is a child of the '80s), and has created a dysfunctional new society. Generally, things are run by unfeeling 'corporate states' with characters who are outcasts of mainstream society.Take a look at the '80s, run a classic 'if these trends continue unchecked' model, and you end up with what the original cyberpunk novels look like. As we have moved towards that future, and other trends have emerged, the cyberpunk genre has changed and diversified.
i really enjoy stephensons books, but he can be overly cheesy at times.
I am enjoying the humor of the book, I love the Kourier!
Does anyone else have to keep reminding themselves that this was published in 1992? I was reading about the pizza delivery system created and it talked about how addresses were found by your phone number and my initial reaction was "so? This is edgy?" But then I thought, when this was written, the general population didn't have caller id and cell phones were "bag" phones and the size of your head, if you were lucky to own one.
Rindis,Thanks for the clarification. I am not sure I am a fan of cyberpunk yet, but it helps to have a context in which to read the book.
Yes ... if you don't look too closely at the science, he has a lot of interesting concepts that seem remarkably prescient ... although the trends were already there in many cases; you just needed to take them to an extreme.
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I thought that part was confusing too. I am past that part now and it doesn't seem to happen again. But that part confused me!
The whole approach is a bit confusing. I now understand that the in depth descriptions of the technology and how it works is part of the cyberpunk genre, but I find that it takes me out of the story. I guess I am a bit old fashioned--wanting the story to be more character driven. I do appreciate the sardonic humor and Hiro in general.
The root idea of Cyberpunk is a near future where computer technology has progressed hugely (it is no accident that this is a child of the '80s), and has created a dysfunctional new society. Generally, things are run by unfeeling 'corporate states' with characters who are outcasts of mainstream society.---------------------------
I don't quite agree.
Cyberpunk is a genre of SF that has as its core technology, and changing your body with it. It's more about what you can do with yourself when enhanced than necessarily dystopia. Part of cyberpunk is cynicism and anarchy, and dystopia naturally can fall within that mold, since you can not very easily be a rebel in a nice well ordered society, but it doesn't allow a freedom of movement and action that cyberpunk has as a core idea. you can go anywhere and be anything you want in cyberpunk, just you want to do it as a rebel, not as a corpudrone.
Also dystopia isn't really a good label for cyberpunk worlds, because dystopias are defined as "place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror". Cyberpunks are more about alienation, possibly, definitely a world where you can lose yourself anonymously in, and you almost always need a demi-monde of black marketing, or illegal commerce such as data theft.
Corporations, rather than being overtly evil, are huge and cold, yes, but mostly exist as targets. Cyberpunk isn't really about strife of being the unwanted outsider.
It's about the GLORY of being the BETTER, maverick, better enhanced, smarter rogue agent.
Loving the humor as well. Sorry I've been a little quiet. Should be able to finish it in the next few days while in Big Bend National Park. I like the energy of the beginning of the book.
I started the book last night and I'm loving it!The humor mixes well with the story. Not overly done, not forced.
I'm really enjoying the Metaverse. I've been a fan of online RPGs (role playing games) for 20 years (starting with text based games over a 2400 baud modem called MUDs). The Metaverse is a similar idea to what MMORPGs are today (massive multiplayer online roleplaying games).
I just got the chance to pick it up last night, and so far, it's a lot of fun. Stephenson has a unique writing style that sometimes makes me go "Wait, what?" but grips me nonetheless. Adding in his brand of humor and I'm laughing half the time I'm reading it! I'm only a few chapters in, just finishing the description of how the Metaverse works, and I hope he keeps up they style all the way through!What strikes me the most is the severe commercialization of everything. From roadway construction to the military to the judicial system, everything has been broken down into a company that looks out mainly for itself. I think this would make an interesting discussion topic in and of itself.
I was going to skip this book because I have too many other bookclub books to get through (including 800+ pages of Vanity Fair), but I've caught snippets of this discussion and the book sounds really interesting. I'm going to have to read it now and maybe I'll be in time to join in!
I agree about the humor...enjoy the humor and it goes well with the story..a little like the discworld novels' humor.
Mod
I agree with everything that Rindis said. Basically multinational corporations run the world. They can even control governments in some ways. People however are independent on the web where the corporations try to control but its too vast for them to get a handle. Punk in this context is like an outcast of the society think punk rock . Typically the fight is to gain or keep your independence from the multinationals who try to bulldoze you into their society. IF you are not part of the multinational you are a loser. Society is typically portrayed as grey.
The problem with many of these books is that they were the same story. Once you read a independent web crawler fighting with a deep pocketed uncaring multinational and winning whats the point.
Stephenson's book was great because it had humor. Although the little inserts were a little problematic.
Not sure.Zodiac is a good science fiction eco adventure novel.
I was not a fan of the Diamond age couldnt get into it, but others have told me that Stephenson pulled the entire story together by the end. However, it is full of super ideas and the science is inpressive.
Cryptomicon is interesting
I have never tackled his huge trilogy but I have heard great things about it.
He also writes as Stephen Bury and has written Cobweb and another novel neither of which I have read
Funny note: I only joined this site a week ago and this group a little less than that. I also just happened to already be reading Snow Crash.Am I the only one that it took about 100 pages to get into this book? I really contemplated putting it down, but I hate doing that and trudged on. Now, I'm about 200 or so in and have a hard time putting it down.
It also took me a little while to get into the book. I have never put a book down so I made myself keep going and I am glad.
I was just the opposite. When I read just how much technology goes into Pizza delivery, I was rolling on the floor, hooked right in. Immediately he hits you with the advancement of technology, heavy commercialization, and a feeling that the government doesn't work the way it's supposed to anymore. All of these were enough for me to keep reading just to find out what happened that lead up to this point, let alone the rest of the actual story.
I absolutely love Stephenson. Snow Crash is great fun -- a bit reminiscent of William Gibson but with more of a sense of humor. Cyberpunk is emerging as a bit of a niche genre on its own with a variety of authors contributing books that could be considered at least borderline entries into this genre, but Stephenson writes with that tiny bit of tongue in cheek that redeems what otherwise can be a somewhat oppressively dark future vision.And I'd STRONGLY recommend his trilogy. It isn't cyberpunk, it is the story of the Enlightenment. The main characters of the story include Newton, Leibnitz (a major part of the plot is centered around just who DID invent the calculus), Hooke, Sir Christopher Wren. Other characters include the various kings of England and France. There is political intrigue, religious war, scientific discovery, alchemy, wootz, the making of phosphorus, piracy, syphilis, kidney stones and early surgery, the founding of MIT, and an absolutely fabulous character known as Half-Cocked Jack. I'm a physicist and I teach a lot of the discoveries of this era, and found the book mesmerizing both from the historical point of view and from the fact that it is a damn good, sardonic, funny, revealing, engaging adventure story.
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I'm with Robert. I was hooked from the start. I'm almost finished with the book now, and I must say the drifting 'island' of boats is very interesting to read about. The locale just adds to the action.My only problem so far is:
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How Y.T. succumbs to Raven's whims. I always got the feeling of Y.T. having this impenetrable shell that protected her from any adult projected fear and/or manipulations. For her to give in and in turn, want it...was just hard for me to take in. Of course, I haven't finished the book yet so I'm not sure what happens in the end!
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I'm definitely in the crowd that had a hard time getting into the book at first. Honestly, for the first little bit I wasn't sure if I even understood half of what he was saying - like reading a different language or something. But after a while I started getting absorbed and have had a hard time putting it down. Some very interesting ideas being thrown around and I'm interested in seeing how the rest of the book goes.
I agree that it takes a little bit before you can fully get into the story.Discworld books are great...great books to read at an airport, etc...can read through them fast and they are very humorous, observant.
I just started this book last night (I know, a little late in the game...) and I CAN'T PUT IT DOWN! My housework is suffering! This is great fun!
I've been plugging away on this book in my free time for the past couple weeks, carefully trying to avoid the discussions, and I've finally finished. I enjoyed it a great deal from start to finish. I was hooked from the beginning--it's like any sf or fantasy, you have to jack up your ability to infer what strange terms mean or just put them into abeyance--"they'll make sense eventually." Travis, re: Y.T. & Raven, I didn't find it all that unbelievable. She may have a hard candy shell, but she's also a 15-year-old girl. When she first meets Hiro, we see her getting gooey over him too. Given her character as portrayed, it didn't seem like a stretch that she would fall for the baddest mf in the world. Anyway, it's shown as an entirely momentary thing--by the end he's more smitten with her than she is with him.
I'm past the 200 page mark now and I, too, struggled to get into it at first. It's not as bad as Neuromancer, which I couldn't get into at all - it was worse than reading Judith Butler on crack - but I don't care for minute descriptions of the technology. They really clog up the novel, especially when we first visit the Metaverse with Hiro.I like the characters, though. The bit at the beginning with the two different timelines going simultaneously was confusing at first, but non-linear timelines can be fun.
Other than those first impressions, I'm holding off on further thoughts until I finish the book.
I find it interesting that so many of you didn't like Neuromancer. While I'm enjoying this story, this book seems less cyberpunk to me than the other novels I've read. I wonder if that's why so many of you are enjoying this one more?
Shannon - I agree that the technical descriptions seem over-the-top at times. I have to keep reminding myself that this was written before all this was available to the general population. So if you read this when it was published, the descriptions were probably necessary and seemingly ahead of its time. Now it has a computers 101 feel.
Gibson has a much harsher edge and lacks much of a sense of humor -- more "Johnny Mnemonic". However, one near-essential element of cyberpunk is the cyber; the projected cyber-universe that spontaneously forms out of order 10^8 powerful computers when they are interconnected by an equally powerful net and infected with code sequences derived from today's marketing viruses (and maybe helped over the top with a bit of engineering), centered around one or more superservers with a sort of "life" of their own.I can enjoy e.g. Neuromancer and Count Zero and so on, but I'm a pretty hard core technerd. EVEN I find the techno overwhelming from time to time. Usually it is redeemed by a halfway decent plot line running through the technobabble -- eventually one gets to where disbelief is appropriately suspended, the rules of the world are clear enough that the plot-parts that depend on them make sense, and the words disappear as they should for a really good book.
I wouldn't blame anyone for not liking them, however -- I think of cyberpunk as a fairly narrow genre that appeals primarily to people with significant overlap with both, geeks with attitude, rebels with electronic cause, MMRPG and horror fans with a techno base of knowledge. I've got a new Gibson upstairs for two months now, and haven't even TRIED to start it more than once, because I know that it will be a bit tedious to get into it.
Stephenson, OTOH, I buy the instant I see something I don't already have in paperback in a store (and even have one or two hardbacks, in desperation to finish the trilogy) and start the minute I get home. Others who write in the genre, e.g. Vernor Vinge or Bruce Sterling, I look over on a case by case basis, although Head Crash and several other one-offs were a lot of fun recently.
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Finding it confusing so far. Can't imagine how confused I would have been if I'd read this back in 1992 when it came out.
Ellen wrote: "Finding it confusing so far. Can't imagine how confused I would have been if I'd read this back in 1992 when it came out."It was pretty mind-blowing at the time. Or mind-expanding, anyway. I don't remember how the plot played out anymore but I remember the basics: Hiro delivering pizza, Yours Truly, weird code, and especially I think the zeitgeist of that life. Not two weeks ago over a meal I used it in conversation "... like in Snow Crash" meaning how corporations control parts of society.
But it would be good to read it again now and see!
Want to post Final Impressions too? Thoughts on the Metaverse?!
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/20813-snow-crash---final-reactions
Ed