Snow Crash

Paladin Christoff “Anvil” Magnússon and Reverend Mother Jen “Pool Noodle” Kumiko are vectors of transmission, looking to infect all sentient creatures of the wasteland with a meta-viral-load known as the collected works of Neal Stephenson (a.k.a. “The Goddamn Word”). Sartorially ejaculated into the tight crevices of their T-69 power suits, with their integrated heavy exterior composite armor and steel encased depleted uranium bilayer, and armed to the nucleotide with technology designed to produce sudden and vertiginous negative externalities within the respective portfolios of the heretical - they are the vanguard of The Brotherhood of The Goddamn Word’s evangelical designs.

Brother Christoff removes his giant power-hammer from the magnetic holster on his back, its shaft telescoping to full length in his gauntleted fist. He grips the holy sledge (Homeostasis Fucker) and admires the warm light emanating from its massive head as radioactive isotopes engage in holy fission. Actuators within his suit hum as he hefts the instrument aloft.

“Knight Vision on.” He says. Both pressing their fingers to their necks as if detecting a pulse, causing visors of gunmetal gray to shroud their faces. Dual slits open and glow with a cold blue light as associated visual tech augments their paltry biological capacities. “For as it is written in Snow Crash; Brother Ng, in his impenetrable chariot of repurposed runway fire truck, did use thermals to detect snipers most hidden and thus protect Holy Mother Y.T. from elements of vile industriousness.”

“As it is written.” Noodle intones. Withdrawing her somewhat diminutive, ordinary tack hammer and rapping it across her palm. “Uncle Enzo did attend to details most assiduously. Like unto when he removed his socks and slit his trousers to proceed stealthily against a foe most worthy. He of the Fu Manchu and the molecule blades. And Lady Jaunita did condense fact from the nuance of vapor.”

“So mote it be.” Anvil agrees, pointing to a cluster of makeshift housing rising from the garbage-scape. An incongruous boil of life on a mummified ass. “Two warm bodies inside. Both unarmed. A sentinel of arachnid origins, equipped with primitive slug thrower, patrolling outside.”

“Radscorp?” Noodle asks.

“A big one.”

“On your command.”

“Proceed with your original composition of The Goddamn Word.”

“Ahh..” Noodle clears her throat and begins her rhetorical assault as the two forge ahead. Anvil with Homeostasis Fucker high over head, leading the way.

Tongue punching aural geometries with her amplified voice; “Citizens of the wastes! Have you ever, while nurturing a bolus of combat stimulants deep within the nested hierarchy of your experiential existence, found yourself stricken with an incredible need for Cyberpunk in the vein of Brother Gibson?”

Radioactive hoboscorpion with shotgun chitters into view. Fluorescent chemicals glowing in the ultraviolet spectrum across its exoskeleton. Pincers working the lever of the slug thrower. Tail poised to strike and deposit venom. Brother anvil, with servos screaming, crests embankment of detritus with titanic speed, leaping high into the air with spring loaded grace, rocket packs deploying calculated thrust to maximize parabolic grandeur.

“I ask you again! Citizens of the wastes! Have you ever, while carpet-bombing your nervous systems with vast quantities of psychoactive drugs, felt a deep spiritual need for dystopian science fiction in which the world has been balkanized into corporate fiefdoms where anarcho-capitalist ideologies reflect their morphological absurdities in the funhouse mirrors of Emperor Stephenson’s inexhaustible imagination?”

Anvil crashes back to the earth, his hammer flattening the chitinous offender with such violence that all eight legs rocket from its central body, each carrying enough force to knock a bison crossed eyed. It’s pincers, still clutching the gun, are jettisoned into the atmosphere where they discharge both barrels as if in impotent rage. The rapid expansion of superheated air around the buried maul creates a peel of thunder, sending out a spray of errant scrap as the shockwave expands, flattening nearby double-headed oxen and ripping the siding off several proximate tenements, revealing a man squatting above a hole and a woman rising from her agitated half sleep now in mortal fear.

“A technological thriller alloyed with explorations of mythology...” Noodle continues, taking a moment to deflect, with her claw hammer, a rusty muffler borne aloft by concussive forces. “In which linguistics are examined in a manner that is most intriguing. In which pitbull terriers, cloaked in the vestments of cybernetic enhancement, locomote in fashions super sonic. Where the bestest good boy, verily, I say unto you; Fido! Doth well and truly shine most stellarly at denouements commencing. Inside these pages, you may escape the squalor of your lives, like unto Father Protagonist, who, jacking into the metaverse, transcends the ignominy of dwelling within the bowels of U-Store-It and fulfills his namesake.”

Anvil, with Homeostasis Fucker resting comfortable across his shoulders, gestures for Noodle to take the lead.

“Brother. Sister.” She says, producing two copies of Snow Crash and placing them inside the skeletal remains of their exploded domicile. “Enjoy The Goddamn Word.”

Delightfully dorky, this raucously riotous romp through the freaky futuristic fads of yesteryear's imagined tomorrows really appealed to the 13-year-old Edgelord in me.

2.5 stars. Hits the gas real hard early on but runs out of fuel too soon and sputters to a standstill before the finish line. Then it just sort of blows up.

Snow Crash: So much more than just “cyberpunk,” and funny as hell
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (1992) is probably my favorite SF/cyberpunk novel of all time. It runs the gamut of the Metaverse and avatars, skate punks, an anarcho-capitalist Balkanized United States, super-cool technology, neurolinguistic viruses, hacker communities, burbclaves, ancient Sumerian mythology, Aleutian harpoonist super assassins, the Church of Happyology, and last but not least, Uncle Enzo’s Cosa Nostra Pizza, where your pizza is delivered in less than 30 minutes or Uncle Enzo, a Mafia boss, will fly by helicopter to apologize to you in person. And the driver’s life is forfeit.

The opening chapters feature Hiro Protagonist, Last of the Freelance Hackers and Greatest Swordfighter in the World, as he strives to deliver a Pizza with 20 min already on the clock, in his black, kick-ass Deliverator vehicle, which sounds like Batman’s car. That’s because America can only do four things well in the 21st century: music, movies, software, and high-speed pizza delivery.

I challenge anyone to name a better, more hilarious, cooler opening to a SF novel than Snow Crash. Every quip, every description, and the narrator’s cool, ironic delivery is so perfect that I want to stand up and give a fist-pump. It was great in 1992, and it still holds up well in 2015. I also chose Snow Crash for my first Audiobook, and it’s great to hear it read aloud.

The plot of Snow Crash is complicated and wide-ranging, featuring ironic descriptions of American cultural decline, info-dumps, lessons in linguistics, religion, ancient Sumerian mythology, hacker culture, a brilliant description of the utter futility of a government job, a ridiculous religious cult that encourages speaking in tongues, and a giant floating group of refugees on rafts intending to invade the US in search of a better life.

Is there a plot, you say? Well of course there is. Just don’t ask me to describe it! It does involve a virus targeting hackers called Snow Crash, which is also being spread by the Church of Happyology, which is owned by fiber-optic mogul L. Bob Rife, and attempts to use the nam-shub of Enki to counteract the ancient Metavirus spawned by the Sumerian goddess Asherash. Does that clear it up any? Didn’t think so.

It doesn’t really matter, because the joy of this book is in the telling and the characters. Hiro Protagonist the hacker and swordfighter, Y.T. the young skate punk and courier, Raven the Aleutian super-assassin, Uncle Enzo the kindly mob-boss. What more could you ask for? And the snarkiest, geekiest, and most interesting character is Neal Stephenson, the author. All his crazy ideas are wonderfully embedded in every chapter, every sentence. You always know when you are reading a Stephenson novel, because his narrative voice is unique. And unlike William Gibson’s Neuromancer, he has a great sense of humor and doesn’t take himself so seriously. I doubt any of you reading this haven’t already read this essential work of 1990s cyberpunk, but if you are (seriously?!?!), then get cracking.

The last time I read this novel, it was brand new. And the last time I read this, it must have embedded itself a bit too permanently in my head, NLP'ing its way deeper than any kind of sleeper proto-language ever could.

Why do I say that?

Because I've forgotten more about this novel than I have the guts to admit, and what's more, it firmly ensconced my love of studying ancient Sumeria, the gods, mythology, the history, the literature surrounding it -- and that little fact completely escaped me until now, upon this belated re-read.

I feel like such a fool. And what's more, even though I had read Neuromancer before Snow Crash, I have been chasing THIS PARTICULAR HIGH ever since reading THIS PARTICULAR NOVEL.

Yeah, it's that good. Fun all the way through, with fantastic characters, a brilliant hybrid virtual/real adventure in an anarchistic capitalist hellscape in California, where everything is run by thuggish mobs of all flavors (including the remnants of the US government) and where pizza delivery really does go hand-in-hand with a samurai blade.

It's wild. Vibrant. Clever. And it is just a cool as an adventure as it is a philosophical treatise, a NLP dissertation, a Sumerian mytho-history guide, and a cautionary tale of rampant predatory capitalism.

Oh, yeah, and don't forget creating a slave-race of religious followers on a floating city-state or glass-knife villains with nukes.

Does this novel keep up with modern readers? I should say so! It's one of the wildest movies-in-my-mind I've read in absolute ages and if it ever gets made as a tv series, it better get a huge-budget HBO or Showtime treatment so that it gets the treatment it ABSOLUTELY deserves.

I had high expectations for this one. While I didn't find it boring, I also didn't find it gripping. In typical Stephenson fashion, the story crawls to a halt to discuss religion and ideology to nauseum. The Metaverse was a lot to take in and I think on a re-read I will find it less overwhelming and more enjoyable. Hiro, Y.T., Uncle Enzo, and Raven were really fun characters, who surprised me often with the complexity of their personalities. I think what really holds it back is the storyline never gets crazy enough to entice the reader to keep going. I did not get any sense of urgency even though I feel like I should have. Even the ending was anticlimactic. I will have to revisit this book in the future and hope for better results.

n  Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a future setting, noted for its focus on "high tech and low life". It features advanced technology and science, such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.n

I don't know why I do it! I'm not a fan of hardcore SF and my previous experience of cyberpunk ( Neuromancer) ended in tears. But I'd already picked this one up cheap, so I guess that's my mitigation.

Anyway, you can guess by my rating that this wasn't a marriage made in heaven. I did get through about a quarter of it before I realised I'd made a big mistake in starting it in the first place. But given my toe in the water approach to absorbing this cult classic you’ll need to judge my ramblings accordingly.

Actually, I have to say that I found this a lot better (well, keep this comment in context) than the aforementioned Neuromancer: for a start I could actually understand what was going on and secondly is was really quite funny in parts. And the story was shaping up into something that might actually hold my attention. So what was the problem? The issue for me is that I just don't have the imagination to fully immerse myself in a world that is just so different from the one in which I live; a world in which when unexplainable things happen a new gizmo is invented to explain it away; a world in which sub-human creatures (or robots or whatever else you want to call them) roam the planet. I wish I could enjoy this stuff, but I can't.

My only other observation is that although I did appreciate Stephenson’s most recent novel  Seveneves, this had more to do with the big picture he painted of ‘the end of the world’ – a concept even my limited imagination can deal with.

So that’s me done with cyberpunk, but I'm sure I’ll find a few more ‘soft’ SF novels along the way that will press my buttons.

Disliking this book seemed quite impossible. After all, it had all the necessary ingredients: the pervasive air of nerdy geekiness (or, perhaps, geeky nerdiness), an unexpected take on linguistics, a kick-ass female character, a parallel (virtual) reality, a hefty helping of (admittedly, overexaggerated) satire, and just enough wacky improbable worldbuilding to satisfy my book loving soul. Or so it seemed.

But awesome ingredients do not always add up to a satisfying dish¹ (as my horrible cook self knows much too well).

¹Remember 'Friends' episode where Rachel tries to make English trifle for Thanksgiving desert, but because of a couple pages unfortunately sticking together ends up making half English trifle and half the shepherd's pie? Joey was baffled that the rest of the gang found the dish unpalatable:

'I mean, what's not to like? Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, good!'

n

I did NOT come to this book with an open mind. I came to it infinitely biased in its favor, ready to love it to pieces, prepared to find in it the same irresistible allure that so many of my Goodreads friends appreciated. Alas, after the first few pages my good-natured amusement gave way to irritated frustration, then to impatience, and eventually, as the book was nearing its final pages, my feelings changed to dreaded passionless indifference - akin to the emotions stirred by a disclaimer on the back of a pill packet.

It is very disappointing when a book leaves you indifferent after hundreds of pages spent with the characters and the plotlines - especially when it is a book with such immense potential as 'Snow Crash' had based on all the reviews and snippets I have seen, with all the ingredients for an amazing sci-fi adventure I listed above.

n  “We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information.” n

Here's a glimpse of the plot, as much as I can listlessly muster. Hiro Protagonist, our hero and protagonist (cleverly annoying or annoyingly clever, I'm not quite sure) is a hacker in a future completely corporatized and fractured by consumerism America. He delivers pizza for the Mafia franchise by day and in his spare time hangs around Metaverse, a computer-based simulated reality where he is a sword-fighting badass with a juicy piece of expensive (virtual) real estate and important friends. To those having trouble picturing this, think of ‘The Matrix’ as compared to the gloomy existence outside of it. Y. T. is his sidekick, a Kourier with a healthy dose of vital spunk and kindness to animals that just may result in the most spectacular payback at the most crucial moment. Uncle Enzo is the head of the Mafia franchise, and does not like late pizza deliveries - he has his reasons.

As for the antagonists, we have L. Ron Hubbard L. Bob Rife, a computer magnate and a leader of a questionable religion; the Feds that have lost their power but retained their bureaucracy; and enigmatic Raven, equipped with a motorcycle, a few deadly spears and another weapon that earns him more respect from the authorities that that a few small nations get.

And then there's the titular Snow Crash:

n  “This Snow Crash thing--is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?”
Juanita shrugs. “What's the difference?” n

Sounds awesome, doesn't it? To me, the concept of Snow Crash initially evoked the memories of Delany's Babel-17, a book that I loved for all it's strangeness and far-fetchedness and irresistible pull into the blend of linguistics and sci-fi.

n  n

But then 'Snow Crash', having barely taken off, disappointingly crashed. Pun very much intended.

Maybe this had something to do with the clumsily thrown in heaps of infodump, painfully interrupting already shaky and unsteady narrative, adding tons of poorly placed and far-fetched exposition which it mistakes for layers of complexity, basking in self-importance while being needlessly silly (and, frankly, needless).

Maybe it was the sheer number of complex plot threads that weaves complexity but ended up going nowhere, with few (admittedly, memorable) exceptions.

Maybe it was what I can only perceive as casual racism so pervasive in descriptions of most 'ethnic' characters and entire groups featured in this novel, so present in every casually thrown stereotype. Intentional or not, it was unpleasantly grating.

Maybe it was the lack of dimension in Stephenson's characters. Hiro appears to be created as an embodiment of a teenage computer whiz's dreams, not developing in the slightest throughout the novel, only acquiring more and more badassery in the throwaway 'why not?' sloppy manner. Y.T., despite her awesomeness², behaving in a strangely robotic fashion. Raven and Uncle Enzo, frustratingly underdeveloped. Juanita, whose character could have been interesting, appears to exist solely as potential mate for Hiro. The only times I felt any connection to the characters were the appearances of the robotic dog, and I am not even a dog person.

² Y.T., while being far from an excellent character, was at least a ray of (grumpy) sunshine in the otherwise grey landscape of this novel. She has spunk and heart and confidence that is engaging and does not strike fakes notes that often. She made me almost care, and for this I appreciate her character. If only the rest if the book had the same spirit...

Maybe it was the inability to interweave the plot threads into a coherent storyline, to create a bigger whole out of separate parts. The ideas are there, the concepts are there; what's missing is cohesiveness able to pull them together, untangle them and weave a net captivating the readers' brains and imagination. Without this cohesiveness, even the wildest and most daring ideas - like Stephenson's unconventional approach to viruses, for instance - remain disjointed, underdeveloped, unfinished, unpolished, like the refugee Raft in his novel, made of heaps of refuse clumped together trying to make a whole but failing at it.

Honestly, I can't help but see how this book would have worked so much better in a graphic format, being it a comic book (like, apparently, it was initially envisioned) or a film; the action scenes would have looked splendid while the awkwardness of language with overused frequently clumsy metaphors and the jarring present tense (which really doesn't work for this story) would have been cast aside.

-----------
Yes, I am very disappointed at my disappointment with this book. I wish I had the ability to overlook its flaws, but the indifference I felt when reading it precluded me from caring enough to let its good moments overshadow the bad. 2 stars, one for the robot-doggy and another for Y.T. who occasionally made me almost care.

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Also posted on my blog.

A visionary Cyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson (author of the wonderful Baroque Cycle) which not just popularised the term Avatar to mean online virtual bodies - but also invented the term Metaverse.

The book is set in the near-future, America as a nation state has mainly broken down in hyperinflation and economic collapse (apart from Federal agency). World is a world of franchises – including a patchwork quilt of franchise quasi-states (not least Greater Hong Kong) as well as various franchises of competing suburban estates (kind of like gated communities).

The sword carrying wannabe Samurai Hiro Protagonist starts as a pizza deliverer for the mafia but after wrecking his car (and meeting YT – Yours Truly - who saved the delivery and hence started a partnership with Hiro and attracts the friendly care of Uncle Enzo the mafia chief) his main job becomes to download information to the central intelligence computer (he then gets paid if anyone reads it). YT is a skateboarding courier who often gets round by harpooning passing cars.

Hiro was one of the architects of the MetaVerse – a kind of virtual reality world where the global elite carry out much of their lives and interactions – as the architect he has certain powers but he sold his stock in the idea and so unlike many of the other architects is rich and powerful only in the MetaVerse not in reality.

He finds – partly through his ex girlfriend and a library she downloads for him of the threat of a drug called Snow Crash which seems to function in both MetaVerse and reality. Eventually he concludes that the drug is heavily related to the ancient world of Sumer and the cult of Asherah.

Hiro discovers that before Sumer the world was (since the events depicted in the fall) infected not just with disease viruses but also with viruses of belief and behaviour– the most powerful of which was the cult of Asherah (also passed on as a literal virus by temple prostitutes).

These viruses accessed the primeval language part of the brain and reached their height in the highly ordered world of Sumer where all beliefs and knowledge was encoded in laws passed on by priesthood. The “God” Enki realised this and unleashed a counter virus, which prevented people understanding these primeval language, and led to the explosion in and divergence of advanced languages (the Tower of Babel) as well as the beginning of rationality and consciousness, an understanding of world/spirit dualism and rational religions.

Judaism (as well as the codified Babylonian law and Islam – another law of the book) is explained as a way of keeping free from viral contamination by the strict reproduction of written law – but the Pharisees started to reproduce the old ways. Jesus opposed these – but Pentecost was an infection of old ways (speaking in tongues is effectively this primeval language) and Jewish cabbalism was related and this came back in early 20th century revival.

There are lots of comparisons of this virus and the ideas to computer viruses (e.g. the primeval language is like machine code, dualism is like binary).

Now the communications monopolist L Bob Rife has discovered the virus (from astronomical monitoring of radio waves as well as archaeological excavation) and is using it in a number of ways to build his control over people: in biological form transmitted to the inhabitants of a huge raft of refugee boat people by vaccination and blood transfusions; by religion (he backs a Pentecostal style cult) and by a computer virus to which hackers are extremely susceptible. He is supported in this by Raven, an Aleutian psychopath with razor thin glass knives and a Nuclear Weapon strapped to his motorcycle, whose ambition is to destroy America in revenge for nuclear testing in his homeland. Raven is in league with some Russian religious fanatics.

Hiro and YT – together with the Mafia and Lee oppose this plan (it is not entirely clear why they all get involved).

After the above is summarised in a large explanation the final scenes of the book become increasingly hard to follow and the ending is abrupt.

The booker is much weaker than Stephenson’s later writing but does contain the combination of rip-roaring action and historical discussion (like an encyclopaedia crossed with a thriller) as well as his attempts to embed the Internet in history.

The most compelling parts of the book is his portrayal of the franchise society – reading a few pages in advance the action seems almost incomprehensible with the weird society and associated jargon and yet the book flows freely, compellingly and as comprehensively (in this respect like David Mitchell’s futuristic writing in “Cloud Atlas” but not in “Ghostwritten”).

Even the MetaVerse description is mostly coherent and non-contradictory especially when explaining the link with reality.