Subject: Review of Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash"

From: [email-masked] (David M. Chess)
Date: 30 Sep 93 03:26:25 GMT

Note : Except for possibly a clue as to whether or not the heroes
       survive, I don't think there are any serious spoilers here.

Executive summary : A delicious first 150 pages, followed by another
   300 that aren't bad either.  Lots of new concepts and funny
   extrapolations, a new world-conspiracy theory, and attractive tech
   in a light-cyberpunk setting.  Recommended for Neophiles of all
   stripes, especially metalinguistic and Eristic hacker-types.  Not
   recommended for those who insist on Serious Literature or Meaningful
   Character Development.

Setting : North America and contiguous seas, primarily around Los Angeles,
   sometime after the breakup of the U.S. Government (well, it's still
   around, but in liddle privatized pieces).  The urban landscape is
   dominated by rich enclaves ("burbclaves") with their own (generally
   vendored-out) police forces, and by "franchulates" ("franchise
   consulates"?), including Metazanias, New South Africas, Mr. Lee's
   Greater Hong Kongs, Snooze 'n' Cruises, Hoosegows, CosaNostra Pizza,
   Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates, and so on.  Kouriers on skateboards
   zoom down the (private) highways, their MagnaPoons firmly attached to
   bimbo boxes and speeding pizza-delivery cars.  In other words, just
   like now, only more so.  Cyberspace is here, too; it's called the
   Metaverse or the Street, and it's developing nicely.

Premise : Our heroes, a hacker who was involved with the early development
   of the Metaverse but is now down on his luck, and a 15-year-old
   Kourier who tries to conceal her job from her mom, get involved with
   all sorts of the Major Players in the world when someone finds
   something very very interesting in ancient Sumeria.

Story : I lost track several times, but it doesn't really matter!  The
   good guys eventually figure out who the worst of the bad guys are,
   and that some of the apparent bad guys are really not so bad, there's
   lots of confusion and shooting and things blowing up, and a tense
   chase scene on the Street as one of the somewhat-bad guys tries to
   deliver a (virtual) bomb that will burn out the (real) brains of
   most of the skilled hackers in the world.  Something like that.
   The fun part is the setting, though, and rooting for the good guys,
   even if you're not sure exactly what's going on.

   There's also an interesting new world history / conspiracy theory
   here that might make a good Discordian heresy; episkopoi take note!

Characterization : Stephenson has a hard time drawing unsympathetic
   characters.  Everyone that we really get to know turns out to be
   more or less good-hearted and sympathetic.  The one or two people
   who are the Real Bad Guys remain pretty much part of the scenery:
   both distant and somewhat flat.  There's no character *development*
   to speak of, or at least I didn't notice any; the characters are
   finally doing something rad and worthwhile with all these skills
   they've picked up before the book opens, but the experiences don't
   seem to change them any.  That's OK: this is a Read, not a
   Bildungsroman.

Storytelling : This is the best part.  Buy this book just for the
   prose and storytelling in the first 150 pages, and if your buttons
   are anything like my buttons, you won't be disappointed.  Stephenson
   is on a roll, and he takes us with him, 'pooned along and riding in
   his wake, somewhat breathless (from the speed and from laughing so hard).
   In the midst of juggling a stream of undefined new words (don't worry;
   the referents will show up eventually!), you're knocked over by an
   offhand comment that's simultaneously utterly true and screamingly funny.
   Don't read it late at night if there's anyone in the next room
   trying to sleep.

   After the first 150 pages or so, the effect dies down.  Either I just
   got used to it (I don't think so), or the author got tired, or he
   came out of whatever altered state he started out in.  The rest of
   the book contains the occasional gem, but the mechanics of the
   action start to feel, well, mechanical.  I could picture Stephenson
   making little flow-charts of who had to be where when, and how to
   get them all there in time.  The characters apparently had access to
   these charts as well; the actual motivation for some of the movement
   and action (beyond that it was necessary for the plot) wasn't always
   clear to me.  But maybe I just wasn't paying attention!

   Also, the bad guys seem to be rather stupid, and terrible shots.  I
   cannot imagine *any* way our hero could have survived his final assault
   into Bad Guy territory.  If this bothers you, this may bother you.
   On the other hand, if you enjoy hooting at the quality of training in
   Imperial Storm Trooper school, you may enjoy this as well.

Science : The tech is mostly quite believable and well done, especially the
   background tech.  The explanation of the Metaverse interface falls a
   little short; he goes to considerable lengths to explain how the output
   systems work (tuned lasers projecting on special goggles, etc), but
   gives no consistent clues as to how *input* works (at one point our
   hero ends up waving a sword around in real life while fighting in the
   Metaverse, but in another place he is walking around in the Metaverse
   while riding in a car in reality; so how does it work?).  The various
   things involving viruses (biological, mental, and computer) are not
   badly done: I work with these things for a living, and I only winced
   a couple of times.  Some of the tech in the world-history/conspiracy
   thread isn't explained well enough to convince me, but the grab of
   the idea itself pretty much makes up for that.

Title : Stephenson says that "snow crash" is a hacker's term for when a
   system crashes so hard that the display turns to "snow" (like a TV
   between channels).  Have any other hackers seen/used this term?
   I don't think I buy it: computer displays aren't RF driven, and
   aren't capable of displaying that kind of snow unless the hardware
   is broken in a very unlikely way; even the similar "random garbage
   on the screen" situation is pretty rare, and not all that related
   to the severity of the crash.  If the CPU were in charge of the
   display sweep, I can see it, but I don't know of any systems like that.

Recommendation: Yep!

%A Stephenson, Neal
%T Snow Crash
%I Bantam Books; Spectra
%C New York
%D May 1993 (hardcover June 1992)
%G ISBN 0-553-56261-4
%P 468 pp.
%O paperback, US$5.99

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David M. Chess                     /    Invest for the Nanotech Era:
High Integrity Computing Lab      /             Buy Atoms!
IBM Watson Research