- Title
- Snow Crash
- Author
- Neal Stephenson
- Format
I’m not sure why I had never read this book. It had been in the back of my mind for years as something I should read. I heard Stephenson in an interview discussing the 30th anniversary of its publication and decided it was time. I’m so glad I did.
If there’s one thing I love in a book, it is an authentic voice. Something the author is wholly committed to, and is not quite like anything else. If you’d like to know if this novel’s voice will appeal to you, just read the first chapter. It’s only a dozen pages, and it’s a whirlwind.
I really enjoyed the premise of this fictional universe. It was imaginative, slightly deranged, and steeped in history, linguistics, and computer programming—all things I love. If you want to pick on the book, it is definitely “tell-y”. You’ll find long chapters where the protagonist (who’s name, delightfully, is “Hiro Protagonist”) and an artificial intelligence discuss the plot to drive it forward. But this kind of thing doesn’t bother me at all. And the book more than makes up for it with imagination and fast pacing.