Моє знайомство з кіберпанком почалося з одночасного читання  Нейроманта, Снігопаду та  Спалити Хром. Першою я завершив збірку оповідань Ґібсона Спалити Хром, але далі вольовим зусиллям вирішив дочитати спершу Стівенсона, щоб зосередитися на трилогії Ґібсона.

І отримав дуже змішані враження. З одного боку, чітко видно кіберпанковість "Снігопаду". Неолібералізм настільки розійшовся, що й держав не існує, а те, що залишилося від США - це ще одна корпорація. Бо світом керують франшизи, які активно ворогують. І, ясна річ, є сумішшю легального та нелегального. Взагалі, тканина соціального дуже розірвалася - і нема не те, що держав, навіть міст: вони розпалися на окремі квартали - з власною охороною та громадянством. Стівенсон називає їх міськлавами. І, звісно ж, всі ці франшизи міцно переплетені з криміналом, а тому - наркотиками. І до цього треба додати кіберпростір, тобто інтернет.

З іншого боку, Стівенсон пише пародію на кіберпанк. Всі наведені вище деталі в нього перебільшені, доведені ледь не до абсурду. І деколи вони просто не тримаються цілісності. Якщо нема держав, то хто випускає валюту? Хто забезпечує її купівельну спроможність? Як взагалі можливий вільний інтернет, де франшизи відсутні? Адже якраз тут вони і мали б розгулятися. Власне, ця пародійність проривається і в тому, що Стівенсон раптом ототожнює людський мозок та процесор комп'ютера. Як можна хакнути комп'ютер, так само можна хакнути і людську нервову систему.

Власне, цим роман Стівенсона гарно ілюструє показує злет і падіння / велич і злидні самого жанру кіберпанку. Якщо  Нейромант позначає його початок, то виданий через 8 років Снігопад - це вже вичерпання. Для Стівенсона кіберпанк - це просто декорації. Декорації, в яких можна розповісти свою історію. І головне, що ця історія жодним чином не стосується реальності. Натомість Ґібсонівський кіберпанк - дуже реальний / футурологічний. В його центрі питання: як людина має вживатися з новими технологіями, якщо вони є підсилювачами того, чим ми є - як окремі індивіди, так і суспільство? Тому його текст як засторога щодо того, куди може рушити світ. Стівенсон ж сприймає кіберпанк як інтелектуальну гру. Мовляв, що можна розповісти, використовуючи такий жанр? Що в межах цієї літературної традиції можна написати цікавенького?

Тому його роман з одного боку захоплює, затягує, його цікаво читати і неможливо відірватися. З іншого боку, відчувається його певна штучність, награність, пародійність. Якщо коротко, то роман - це іронія і кепкування з кліше, тропів і стереотипів. І захоплююче закручений сюжет.

П.С. Що цікаво, попри динамічність, тут немає кліше з бійками героїв з антигероями. Взагалі, всі екнш-сцени написано скупо. Динамічно, але автор їх не смакує, не додає їм нереальної тривалості, не нагнітає напруги- як в голівудських фільмах. За це можна тільки зняти капелюха.

П.П.С. А от що сталося з атомною бомбою, так і не відомо :)

Like all good speculative fiction novels, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is brimming with big ideas—ideas on epistemology, memetics, the nature of myth, and the difference (if there is one) between ideology and virulence. It’ll make you think, if you haven’t already, about things like Chomskyan linguistic theory. It’s also one hell of a ride, pin-balling back and forth between a near-future L.A. filled with holographic corporate “loglos” and the distortion-heavy music of nuclear fuzz-grunge, a slick virtual-reality world called the “Metaverse,” and the ancient, ziggurat-filled capitals of Babylon and Sumer. Needless to say, it’s a novel full of head-spinning twists and turns, narrative peaks and loops and a wildly accelerating plot-line—all delivered in Stephenson’s unique and indelible style, which is by turns acidly satirical, outrageously funny, and introspectively philosophical.

Set mostly in a trippy, frabjously futuristic vision of L.A.—a kind of fun-house-mirror reflection of a possible tomorrow dominated by corporate franchises and their endlessly expanding chains of “franchulates,” which both cater to and ruthlessly exploit a fractured, sprawling patchwork of gated “burbclaves”—it’s a vision that is at once surreal and terrifying.

The burbclaves (a portmanteau of “suburban” and “enclave”) operate as de facto neighborhoods-cum-nation-states, independent of any overarching laws or societal norms, in the wake of an unexplained governmental collapse. Infrastructure is still somewhat intact, kept (mostly) operational through the sheer force of the materialistic needs of the populace and the capitalistic instincts of the corporate bosses.

Some of these bosses are, well, “bosses”—like Mafia don Uncle Enzo, a political powerbroker and head of the Nova Sicilia pizza franchise where our hero and protagonist, cheekily and aptly named Hiro Protagonist (yes, for real), works delivering pizzas at the outset of the story. Happily, Hiro is not our only hero, or our only protagonist. Our other hero/protagonist is a young girl named Y.T., who works as a “Kourier” (a skateboarder who carries out freelance deliveries), and teams up with Hiro toward the beginning of the novel.

There is a long, variegated and incredibly colorful cast of characters, but the adventures (and misadventures) of Hiro and Y.T., as they get pulled ever deeper into an existential fight against unknown and sinister forces, are what keep the action both sky-high-trippy and fast-paced, surrealist and hyper-realist, dramatic and funny. Stephenson takes his characters seriously, but that doesn’t mean they take themselves seriously, and this keeps both the internal monologues and inter-character dialogue leavened with an earnestness-free irreverence that’s missing from a lot of sci-fi of this era (the early 90s).

What makes the story continually fascinating, though, is Stephenson’s creative masterstroke: the dazzlingly unique mixture of dystopian setting, early hacker culture, and ancient, mystic Sumerian/Babylonian mythos. To say much more on that front would spoil the fun that first-time readers will have in discovering for themselves how it all ties together. Suffice to say, it’s pretty mind-blowing.

Upon reflection, one of the most surprising aspects of Snow Crash is that it is, technically, a “dystopian novel,” although it absolutely doesn’t read like one at all. Because despite the grim backdrop of perpetually battling tribes (in Snow Crash, this means franchulates and burbclaves), cynical corporate exploitation, a total lack of law and order, and the requisite dog-eat-dog survivalism inherent in all pessimistically/realistically imagined futures (in short, all the standard tropes of dystopian science fiction), Snow Crash is a FUN book! I mean this both in the sense that it is fun to read, and in the sense that it is genuinely funny, even laugh-out-loud hilarious at times.

I put this down to Stephenson’s utterly sui generis style, both as a prose stylist and and as a storyteller. He thrusts the reader into a world of chaos and suffering, no doubt, but its characters are so bonkers, its setting so wildly surreal, the fight scenes such over-the-top Grand Guignol spectacles of bloodletting, catharsis, and (yes!) hilarity—that it somehow manages to pull off the nearly impossible: a dystopian novel that is all at once sneeringly serious, compulsively funny, and batshit insane. The only other book I can think of that fits this bill is Walter M. Miller’s brilliantly satirical nuclear holocaust masterpiece (have those words ever been put together in the same sentence before?), A Canticle for Leibowitz. And that’s some truly legendary company to keep. Real rarefied air, as they say.

Still, Snow Crash most frequently draws comparisons to William Gibson’s (earlier) magnum opus of early-hacker-culture, the brilliantly conceived Neuromancer. And rightly so. Stephenson is both the heir and inheritor of the cyberpunk genre pioneered by Gibson in the early 80s. With this novel, though, Stephenson was not merely paying homage to Gibsonian cyberpunk, but expanding on its larger themes and ideas to create something altogether new and bracingly fresh.

Книга Стівенсона - це як наслідок втоми від одноманітності продукту, який виростав на дріжджах кіберпанку. Звідси і відсутність наскрізної бентеги жорстокого майбутнього, яка пронизує весь жанр та присутність яскравих барв, які скоріше притаманні сучасним тайтлам, серед яких найочевидніший Ready Player One.
Я б сказав, що Стівенсону вдалось створити настільки круту пародію на жанр, що його книга виходить за межі концепції і стає невразливою (принаймні поки)
Особливо сподобалось те, як майстерно автор поєднує фановий стьоб із теологічно-філософськими ідеями, в яких вірування та міфологія переплітаються з програмування та ШІ. Кайф!

Μου βίασε τον εγκέφαλο.
"Ο Χίρο Προτάγκονιστ είναι ένας ιδιοφυής χάκερ, δεξιοτέχνης ξιφομάχος και άνεργος ντελιβεράς πίτσας...".
Αυτό από μόνο του ήταν αρκετό για να το αγοράσω! Περίμενα να διαβάσω μία χαβαλετζίδικη περιπέτεια ΕΦ. Αλλά έκανα μεγάλο λάθος. Το βιβλίο περιέχει πολλή πληροφορία. Θρησκείες, μυθολογία(;), τεχνολογία. Και χαβαλέ. Δεν είναι από τα βιβλία που θα διαβάσεις απλά για να περάσει η ώρα. Γενικά η σχέση μου με την ΕΦ και την τεχνολογία δεν είναι και η καλύτερη, αλλά στο δίνει με τέτοιο τρόπο που απλά χάνεσαι μέσα στις πληροφορίες του(με την καλή έννοια). Πολύ δυνατό βιβλίο, που συνιστάται σε όλους τους οπαδούς οποιασδήποτε μορφής Φαντασίας και όχι μόνο.

This book created the term metaverse and for that, it deserves lots of credit. As for the writing, sort of Hunter S Thompson on speed, I'd say. Its character development is thin, but the dim picture of this particular mafioso dystopia was relatively unique (think of Biff's paradise in 2015 in Back to the Future) and frankly pretty fun to read. There is some humor here, but the most enjoyment is just some of the ideas around virtual reality and then reflecting on how he sort of nailed it from a technology point of view: this book was written in 1992 and predicted the metaverse, facebook, mobile phones, instagram, facetime, apple watch, hoverboards, etc. As for the corporate ownership of America, I guess it depends where you fall on the political spectrum, but from my point of view, he isn't all that far off, another 4 years of dump and we would probably be even closer.

A typical quote:
The old central neighborhoods are packed in tight below an
eternal, organic haze. In other cities, you breathe industrial
contaminants, but in L.A., you breathe amino acids. The hazy
sprawl is ringed and netted with glowing lines, like hot wires in
a toaster. At the outlet of the canyon, it comes close enough
that the light sharpens and breaks up into stars, arches, glow-
ing letters. Streams of red and white corpuscles throb down
highways to the fuzzy logic of intelligent traffic lights. Farther
away, spreading across the basin, a million sprightly logos
smear into solid arcs, like geometric points merging into curves.
To either side of the franchise ghettos, the loglo dwindles
across a few shallow layers of development and into a sur-
rounding dimness that is burst here and there by the blaze of a
security spotlight in someone's backyard.

I thought this one was also great:
"He wants to be Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look, it's simple: Once he converts you to his religion, he can control you with me. And he can convert millions of people to his religion
because it spreads like a fucking virus--people have no resistance to it because no one is used to thinking about religion,people aren't rational enough to argue about this kind of thing, Basically, anyone who reads the National Enquirer or watches pro wrestling on TV is easy to convert. And with Snow Crash as a promoter, it's even easier to get converts.

A good and entertaining read!

Fino's Neal Stephenson Reviews
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The Reviewerator (A review of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson)

The Reviewerator doesn't deal in "likes". Likes were a currency of a pre-hypernet economy that had critically undervalued reviews of cyberpunk novels, pizza delivery, and a US president who could argue tax policy with eight golf balls in his mouth. (The candidate who tried nine died swiftly during the debate. His death was one of honor in this new hypernet world.)

No, the Reviewerator does not need your "likes", your "comments", nor your approval. He does, however, need the small aerosol pistol taped to the bottom of his laptop. It sprays potpourri, which for some strange reason, those who are not hip to the hypernet economy are fatally allergic to.

The Reviewerator types this review faster than the top speed of the new Mercedes sonic cars. It's said that one of these new sonic cars can make from New York to Seatle in three "seconds". A "second" as a measurement is also a relic of the pre-hypernet economy. The Reviewerator knows that this review can travel back in time, to a time when the "internet" was still considered revolutionary and that virus that was (anti)social media, i.e. pre-hyper tribalism, was still trying to be understood by small pre-genetically enhanced human brains.

The Reviewerator DGAF what the consequences of this breach of the Non-Time Travel Through Book Review Accords (the NTTTBRA for short) does to his credit score. What he GAF about is that his review rocks like the clone of Tim Curry singing "Sweet Tranvestite" with background music from the hybridized clones of Megadeth and Black Sabbath, sonic waves so rad that the President's head explodes throwing eight golf balls at the various ambassadors to the Hyper-Supertribalized United Nations of the world.

The Reviewerator speeds toward the end of this review without stopping ask "how" are "why" questions -- the illogical stop signs of a pre-hyperdigitized age.

The Reviewerator reviews books. Period.

Thanks, Neal Stephenson.

I found this book to be highly original in its ideas and it is frequently very humorous. I enjoyed the story and the main characters especially Hiro and Y.T. However I was totally lost by the endless chapters of information about linguistics and religion. The idea of presenting these info dumps as a conversation between Hiro and the librarian helped especially when there were occasional moments of humour. In fact the librarian is a great character! However there was far, far too much for me and I had to do some skimming. Quite a lot of skimming actually. So only three stars for me although I will certainly try another of this author's books.

Juvenile nerd power fantasy in a nutshell

I'm a big fanboy of the cyberpunk genre. I should have liked this book. Instead, I can honestly say that hate this book-- and I also feel bad saying that about someone's work, because it's almost like saying you hate someone's baby.

Maybe it was all the hype I was exposed to before reading it,but I just could not shake a deep feeling of annoyance throughout 90% of this book. I found myself rolling my eyes a lot. And when I wasn't doing that, I was asking myself things like: "Do people really think this is the Cyberpunk cream of the crop? How many pages to go?"

The first obvious problem was the prose. Apparently some people's funny bones get tickled by similes comparing military bases to boils on someone's ass, metaphors about valleys and geological cunnilingus, and clever wordplay like calling refugees "Refus" (Refuse, har har har, get it?). To an elitist douchebag like me it just sounds juvenile and unimaginative. Combine all that with clunky, corny writing, and it's just downright lame. I could have also done without the "Unix In A Nutshell"-like explanations of EVERYTHING that drag down the flow of the book even more.

The other big problem was that I did not care about any of the characters. Hiro was annoying as hell because it's obvious that he's just a nerd's fantasy of what he wishes he could do. Y.T. also got on my nerves. She could have disappeared in the middle of the book and I would not have missed her. There was nothing likeable or interesting about either of them. Ironically, among all the cartoony, shallow characters, the only ones that had some sense of deeper humanity were Ng and Raven.

Another letdown was that the book's ideas were not that great, which did not help the plot. I just did not buy the whole "neurolinguistic hacking" angle as it was used. People becoming brainless zombies from watching some binary code on a screen, or listening to some Sumerian "namshub"? That is so far removed from the fields of NeuroLinguistic Programming and memetics, that this might as well have been a Dungeons & Dragons novel. I get it. Brains are just like computers, so they can get viruses, binary code, 0's and 1's, blah blah blah. Seriously, I can suspend disbelief, but you can only take a metaphor so far before it starts to look stupid.

Finally, for a book that's supposed to be a belly busting satire, the humor in this book is rather lame and nerdy. I read people talking about how this book made them howl with laughter, but almost everything fell pretty flat for me. The only section that got a half-assed 'heh' from me was the government policy on the use of toilet paper, but by the second page the joke had already become stale.

All in all, I doubt that I will buy another book from this author. Judging from what little I've read in Cryptonomicon and Diamond Age, there is little that has changed for me to warrant another look.

قبل از خوندن بعضی کتابها برای خودم یه سری تصورات دارم و در مورد این یکی هم داشتم ولی تبدیل شد به یکی از خر تو خرترین چیزهایی که خوندم و فرسنگ‌ها با چیزی که فکر می‌کردم باشه، فاصله داشت
واقعا عجیب بود. بعضی جاها آبکی‌ترین کتاب ممکن رو می‌خوندی و بعضی جاهای دیگه داری به شکل خیلی عمیقی اسطوره‌شناسی و فلسفه و زبان‌شناسی می‌خونی. ولی چیزی که برام قطعیه اینه که از لحاظ دنیاسازی یکی از بهترین‌ کتابایی بود که تا حالا خوندم
بعضاً دیدم به کسایی که از بازیکن شماره یک خوششون اومده این کتاب رو پیشنهاد می‌دن. من فقط فیلم اون کتاب رو دیدم و راحت می‌گم به جز ایده‌ی دنیای مجازی هیچ شباهتی بهم ندارن و اگه با اون تصور برید سراغش احتمال 99 درصد پشیمون می‌شید
به کسایی که دنبال یه داستان سرراست هم هستن پیشنهادش نمی‌دم. با اینکه کلیت داستان قابل فهمه، ولی تمرکز روی مسیر داستان برام سخت بود که به خاطر تمرکز روی دنیاسازیشه
هرجور حساب می‌کنم این کتاب رو فقط به یه عده‌ی محدودی می‌تونم پیشنهاد بدم که کامپیوتر، برنامه‌نویسی، واقعیت مجازی، زبانشناسی و اسطوره‌شناسی علاقه دارن و با مقدار قابل توجهی طنز ابلهانه هم مشکلی ندارن :))
-------------
سر ترجمه غر دارم بزنم
موقع خوندن می‌فهمیدم که ترجمه‌ی این کتاب باید خیلی کار سختی بوده باشه ولی به صورت کلی مترجم از پسش براومده بود
مشکلم بیشتر با انتخاب‌های آگاهانه‌ی مترجم سر بعضی کلمات و عباراته که به شخصه درک نمی‌کنم. مثلاً مترجم پاشنه‌ی آشیل رو چشم اسفندیار ترجمه کرده که وقتی چشمم بهش خورد یهو زدم زیر خنده و حواسم کلا از کتاب پرت شد
یه مشکل دیگه‌م هم سر ترجمه‌/عدم ترجمه‌ی اسم شخصیت‌هاست. یکی از شخصیت‌های اصلی داستان یه دختر پونزده ساله‌س به اسم اصلی وای. تی
y.t. مخفف yours truly هست
مترجم یورز ترولی رو "ارادتمند شما" ترجمه کرده و مخففش "ارشا" شده اسم این شخصیت توی نسخه‌ی فارسی
به شخصه با این مشکلی ندارم به شرطی که باقی اسامی هم ترجمه می‌شد که نشده
مخصوصا شخصیت اصلی داستان که اسمش هیرو پروتاگونیسته و نویسنده هم از این انتخاب اسمش منظور داشته
یا ریون که یکی از شخصیت‌های منفی داستانه که بازم ترجمه نشده.
اصرار به معادل‌سازی برای بعضی کلماتی که سالهاست همه از کلمه‌ی انگلیسیشون استفاده می‌کنن هم برای من حداقل جالب نیست اصلا. این حس بهم دست می‌ده که انگار مترجم دنبال خودنماییه بیشتر تا اینکه یه ترجمه‌ی تر و تمیز تحویل بده
همین دیگه
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این کتاب هدیه بود و مرسی از هدیه‌دهنده‌ش که یکی از کارهای خیلی مهم علمی‌تخیلی رو هدیه داد بهم ♥

I've been dying to read this book for years, but due to my terrible inability to read books not in audio format lately, this one's been on the backlog ... until I recently got Audible and find out Snow Crash is an "only from Audible" exclusive.

This book has so much going for it and that's why it's been something at the top of my list.

Ninja swords, check.
hackers, check.
Future dystopia, check.
pizza delivery, weird, but check.
Virtual reality, check.
Ninja fighting, check.

This also screams 80's, which is when it was written, but I was fully on board with all of the above. I also recently watched Kung Fury and Hasselhoff's accompanying music video, True Survivor, so I was extra pumped for this read.

The beginning pulls you right in. Grabbed me right away and that was so exciting. I was fully engaged at this point. Pizza delivery, 30 minutes or less or the mob boss destroys you. Then Hiro (Hiro Protagonist, which is still a bit too on the nose for what even I know is satire), picks up a pizza that's already 20 minutes into the time period. He meets Y.T. who's also a very cool character and of course, hot as hell.

Wow, so exciting. And that's not the only time. There are a number of great, exciting scenes. If only they could have held any kind of decent pacing, but sadly they started to become the rare gems amid a lot of meh.

I enjoyed the point Stephenson is trying to make that people can essentially be coded by their own languages. I'm not sure I fully agree with it outside the novel, but it absolutely works here. The problem in this books is that the characters are 80's cool, but lack any kind of substance. They're essentially placeholders for an 80's wetdream, but they have no development and definitely no growth throughout the novel.

Then there are the info dumps. First, I guarantee there are a million different ways this information could have been peppered throughout the narrative to keep the flow moving (and cut down as well!), but they are so halting and long and, honestly, largely useless for understanding the concepts, that it really makes this a torture at times ... even on audio.

Speaking of audio, since this is literally the only audio version available (with exceptions I'm sure), it's also very 80's, but this time in the worst possible way. The narrator himself, Jonathan Davis, does a good job. I'm not commenting on him. It's the quality of the sound and the production added in that killed me. They use that 80's, I don't know how else to call it, swipe that attempts to make everything sound futuristic, but only takes you out of the story and reminds you you're listening to some very dated technology.

Not only do they have the futuristic swipe, but they added some mumbling, speaking in tongues, to enhance the story I'm sure, which sounds vaguely racist and ... pulls you out of the story.

I am pretty disappointed overall. This had so much going for it and it's considered a classic, but it's so uneven and the characters are so poorly drawn that I can't say I cared all that much for them. I did worry it might sound a bit dated, but overall I don't think it was too dated for me (other than the actual technology used to produce it).

2.5 out of 5 Stars (meh)

Don´t do drugs, cyborg metaverse cyberpunk ghetto kids

High VR AR and finally only reality.
What would VR and AR be without being hooked on a potentially fatal wonderdrug, as the only chance to escape bleak reality, in an anarcho neoliberal nightmare controlled by corporations, organized crime, and the rest of government mutated into a bizarre self satire of bureaucracy without any real power.

Not like his second milestone, Diamond Age.
In contrast to the somewhat Dickensian Diamond Age, this one is pure cyberpunk without biopunk elements, accelerating the badass dystopian transhumanist ideals to degenerated turbo capitalistic free market terror.

Humor as black as the world
I had some of the best laughs with the hidden easter egg black comedy. Be careful not to miss them! Kool Aid, lol. This is by far Stephensons`funniest novel, I don´t know why he didn´t continue to expand this element.

Remember the mutating memes
One of the most famous, best, important, and mind boggling ideas of this work is that any ideology, memes, manifestations of epigenetic and cultural evolution in progress, sadly often faith and sick ideologies, are parasitic, viral information, infecting the minds of humans as a first, single, abnormal mutation in the brain of just one, possibly a bit incestuous, ape with full borderline bipolar schizophrenic potential. I don´t want to discriminate against incest proponents, I´m already insulting enough other favorite target audiences, it´s just that one of the many, negative side effects is mental illness.

Action, philosophy, linguistic theories mixed with faith origin ideas, and quick cuts between pure fun and sophisticated mind penetration that will leave one blown away.
Mix this all with the cool, quick writing style, extreme high complexity and density of ideas, philosophy, switching between action scenes and deep, linguistic introspections, inner monologues, dialogues, and social criticism, and one has a milestone of sci-fi and literature in general.

Who combined humanities, tech, and economics first?
I wonder how many sci-fi movies have been influenced by literature, someone should consider making a list, because I watch close to no TV and will thereby never be able to compare it. In this case, I am not even sure if Gibson, Stephenson, or a forgotten, unknown author was the first one to mix economic criticism with VR and humanities.

Cherry pick wisely
I´ve said this before, don´t read all of Stephenson´s work if you aren´t really into sci-fi or like to skim and scan lengthy passages, because Diamond Age and Snow Crash aren´t like many of his other novels. These are often more something like hard-science fiction, space opera, philosophical theory hybrids that are really exhausting to read, don´t care about writing conventions, and could have been much better, if just reduced to an acceptable length and included in a normal, suspenseful plot. Instead of just egomaniacally letting the author drivel about whatever comes to his mind in the form he thinks is cool, that is what sadly made his brick books like Anathem and Cryptonomicon unreadable for many people.

In a parallel universe, Stephenson could have evolved into a readable sci fi superhero
Instead, Stephenson sabotages himself and his legacy, by being too much focused on the high brow, deep, art aspect and forgetting that he once was one of the prodigies of cyberpunk and sci-fi itself before becoming unreadable for a vast majority of the bibliophiles, even sci fi holics like myself. I´ve read many of his works and enjoyed them, but won´t reread them, because the best genre of them all is my lifeblood, but I couldn´t find another author who got so hypercomplex, interwoven, and difficult or impossible to understand as Stephenson with his close to 1k page behemoths of books. Yes, they offer unique and intelligent insights and revelations, but this would taste much less bitter without the knowledge that most readers, for completely understandable, logical, and appropriate reasons, won´t ever become comfortable with it.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

Kitaplığımda, yıllardır okunmayı bekleyen kitaplardandı. Günümüzde çok popüler olan "metaverse" kelimesinin ilk olarak bu kitapta geçtiğini bildiğimden, artık okuma zamanının geldiğine karar verdim. Açıkçası daha önce okumamış olduğuma pişman oldum. William Gibson'ın Neuromancer ile çizdiği çizgilere hayli sadık kalan, cyberpunk kavramının hakkını tam olarak veren bir roman. Mükemmel olduğunu söyleyemem, okurun bazı noktaları çocukça bulması çok olası, üstelik anlatı boyunca ortaya konan bazı alt öykülerin hiçbir şeye bağlanmadan bırakılması da rahatsız edici. Hatta belki de en rahatsız edici olan, yazarın sanki artık yazmaktan sıkılarak anlatıyı 4-5 sayfada toparlayıp bitirmiş olması. Önemli karakterler ve öykü araçları finalde hiçbir sonuca bağlanmayarak öylece bırakılıyor. Bu telaşlı, acil bitiriş bana oldukça garip geldi açıkçası.

Sonuçta, hem okurken keyif aldım, hem de bir şeyler öğrendim. Yazarın bir diğer kitabı olan Diamond Age'i okumak için sabırsızlanıyorum.