Snow Crash

Snow Crash:

Stephenson's World of the Future

Snow Crash, how do you describe this novel? How do you categorize such an incredible ride into a genre of books? Some may describe it as cartoonish or a futuristic fairy tale but most call it cyberpunk. Neal Stephenson has a pizza delivery boy who doubles as a samurai swords expert in the Metaverse as the hero for this internet based story. Hiro Protagonist (isn't that cute) runs into his future sidekick of Y.T. She is a fifteen year old thrasher who has one hell of an attitude toward life and is seen as the traditional sidekick. One can notice as they read through this book that these two characters are quite different from any other character that is encountered throughout their adventures and boy are there a lot of different characters. I think that a major purpose of the wide gap between the ages of Hiro and Y.T., (fifteen year difference) is Stephenson's way of attracting a wide range of audiences. Y.T. works for those teen-age readers as Hiro does for the twenty and thirty year old crowd. Y.T. is fast paced and action loving which is probably how younger readers would approach the book. She introduces much of the culture of Stephenson's world as she skates through different franchises. She skates through F.B.I. buildings and Mafia headquarters and the Raft. Hiro, on the other hand is older and sometimes feels his age, especially in the presence of twenty-one year old programmers which may be what the older readers identify with. Hiro also understands the construction of The Street and is one who explains what is and isn't possible. He introduces the virus and what it is and how it works so that readers not too familiar with computers will understand what is happening as the story progresses.

In my opinion, the book does not have any true literal value or worth but instead mostly involved with showing how a society built around virtual reality and its technology would exist for us. It is quite phenomenal how he describes the Metaverse and how the city is built up with different companies and departments that grow more and more everyday. Although, the problem in this cyberpunk based novel is the lack of a strong plot. Most of the time the story line is disguised behind multiple characters and humor that seems very situational. But maybe this is Stephenson's real point and instead of following the norm of a good plot for his story, he has shown readers a new form of literature. In a way, Stephenson is trying to show us just how hip and cool he is by making reference to rock and roll with Hiro's roommate's band and his prediction on the future of rock music. Another way that he shows us things is through his vision of artifical intelligence and how computers will one day be able to think for themselves. The example he uses is through the Librarian and how it can move through the infinite loads of information in the library with a amazing quickness. It could even be seen as more valuable than Earth, the other piece of computer intelligence used in the novel which only presents large amounts of information without organizing it to more specific detail. Stephenson definitely shows us a side of society that we do and do not want to one day see. The idea of artificial intelligence truly frightens me because of the risk of that technology taking control and freeing itself to do anything it pleases.

Another problem I found as I read through the mutiple chapters of Snow Crash, was the constant use of deep linguistics and how at first I found to be very impressive but later became quite repetitive and took a lot away from the plot. Stephenson also referred back to ancient Babylonian city-states to help compare to his virtual city of the future. But looking back at the story, these things greatly hepled improve the satirical level of the novel and made it flow a little easier for the reader. All in all, I truly believe that Stephenson out did himself with this book. He makes the reader think deeply about the future for us. Computers evolve more and more each day and to think of one day having computers that can create an artifical world for us that seems so real we will want to live in them is a very exciting and also frightening thing. I strongly recommend this book to lovers of the internet and to those who don't even know what the internet is about. Stephenson truly makes a golden name for himself as one of the top "cyberpunk" authors of today and sets a new standard for the literature of the future.

Links to Related Sites:
Snow Crash Research Page
Interview with Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash: Book or Virus?

Snow Crash Webs

aardalan@vt.edu