Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Reviewed by Lauren Schmidt, 1/6/06

I'm sure this book was far more exciting when cyberpunk was new and the Net-world described was still a fabulous new idea. so I guess I came to this book already jaded and blase about some of those ideas. Nonetheless, I got sucked right into this book at the beginning. Stephenson has some great ideas about all sorts of things, not limited to the cyberpunk realm, and I was fascinated and amused by the structure of the futuristic society he laid out. I also liked the two main characters - they didn't have too much depth, but they were fun to follow. The book was certainly intriguing and fun, and quite a page-turner.

However, I have two big complaints about Stephenson. One, he doesn't seem to know a thing about linguistics. If you haven't read the book already, you won't know what I'm talking about. and not only do I not want to spoil it, but I found much of the linguistics material to be an impenetrable mass of gobbledygook with little basis in reality, so I'm not sure I could explain. My second complaint is that this author can't seem to bring the makings of a climactic moment together to create even a mildly exciting event. Especially at the end of the book, there was all this build up, and then when there should have been a climax - nothing happened. Or else it all zipped by so fast that I blinked and it was gone. That was it? C'mon, anyone could have written a better climactic scene than that!

Despite the problems, I have to admit that I enjoyed myself almost the whole time that I was reading it. But the overall experience was soured by my disgust at the linguistic problems, and much more so by the lack of anything satisfying enough to be called an ending. I could have gotten over my linguistic snobbery, but the other problem is a major story flaw.