My next review is a book called Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson.
Snow Crash is an impressive display of the possibilities of science fiction. Stephenson’s literary ability isn’t exactly overwhelming, but there is a considerable amount of attention to literary craft. The resulting book is enjoyable to read.
The details of this science fiction are what is most fun about it, and Stephenson plays them up grandly, with a deadpan sense of humor that keeps it all rolling along at a nice pace.
In the near future the world has become a very different place. The worlds, actually. There’s the real world, then there is the Metaverse, the Internet as it might very well look in our future, a world that can be accessed through any computer, in which one can move about as an avatar, looking as one wishes.
The main characters are trendy and likable enough. Stephenson actually names one of them Hiro Protagonist which in my opinion is obcenely hysterical. A pizza delivery guy and well-known hacker, of mixed parentage, Hiro was one of the creators of the Metaverse. He wrote some of the initial coding in the early development stages, which means he knows many of the ins and outs and tricks of being in the metaverse..
The other leading character is 15 year old skateboarding Kourier, Y.T. who hates being mistakenly called “Whitey”. She spends her days navigating the streets, (har)pooning rides to tow her on her skateboard from delivery to delivery. She knows the ins and outs of the city like Hiro knows the metaverse.
Hiro, starts out the tale as a pizza delivery man working for the mob. Uncle Enzo runs the CosaNostra Pizza company. All his deliveries are guaranteed to be there within 30 minutes. If the pizza comes late, it is a major, major deal and Hiro gets himself in a bad position when he is not able to make a delivery on time. Y.T. bails him out of this problem, which means the Mafia now owe her a big favor.
So begins this engrossing tale. Hiro, hacker and would-be sword-fighter extraordinaire, also earns extra cash selling intelligence/ data/ information of any sort to the newest version of the CIA. Hiro soon finds himself with another threatening problem in the other world, the Metaverse. Someone is spreading an ill nasty virus (being peddled as a designer drug) called Snow Crash throughout the Metaverse.
Hiro avoids temptation, but a former colleague and co-founder of the Metaverse, does not and gets his brain fried. From here, the book turns into to a race to avoid the spread of Snow Crash, which is in fact both a computer virus and a real virus of a very unusualy and clever sort.
Many colorful characters populate this world of Hiro’s and Y.T’s. Paths cross, and everyone is involved on some level although it is not clear whose interests and/or loyalties are where, or why certain people do certain things. Certainly, though, a novel of this length has to keep up the suspense, and for the most part , Stephenson does that admirably.
Stephenson’s explanation for the virus, what it is, how it came about, what danger it poses, is downright ingenious, however, he seems to get bogged down in explanation, and, for me, cannot quite make the virus come alive which is too bad because it was a damn good idea.
What Stephenson is very good at is the Metaverse, all the scenes there are a success. The other aspect of the novel that is exceptional is his description of what the world has come to, everyday life in the disorganized remnants of America. Not all of it is completely convincing, but he balances between writing for laughs and writing social commentary very well.
The technology is cool throughout, though some aspects are extremely unlikely, especially the high-speed skateboarding across pretty much all surfaces. But it is all the gadget scenes, regardless of how realistic or not, that are certainly the most fun. In the end, the novel collapses into a race against the clock — a little too simple, a little too predictable — but it is still a fairly good read.
Snow Crash is an entertaining read, and I certainly recommend it it — strongly to those interested in science fiction, but also to those curious about where our world could be headed.
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