Snow Crash

Title: Snow Crash
Author: Neal Stephenson

What it's about: Hacker and main character Hiro Protagonist lives in a futuristic America where by this point, there's only four things the country does best: "music, movies, microcode (software), and high-speed pizza delivery." Basically, he delivers pizza for the Mafia. On his last delivery, he gets a hand from a girl named Y.T., a Kourier who finishes his delivery for him. Hiro and Y.T. end up becoming partners of a sort, and they end up both working towards the goal of stopping a new computer virus that snow crashes people's minds.

What I thought: Any book that manages to combine cyberpunk with Sumerian mythology and does it well, that book has to be awesome. And Snow Crash, by that definition is awesome. It's an odd choice of a read for me, seeing as how it lacks the happily ever afters and true love that I usually like in stories, but, man, this book doesn't need 'em. It gets by just fine on face-paced present tense narration peppered with, erm, salty dialogue. There's also some sexual stuff. It goes with the story, so I could deal with it, but it's not something for immature readers. But, like, the mythology here is really deep, man, and it's pretty sweet how it all comes together. Plus, the America that Stephenson sets this story in is really interesting, with all its franchulates and Metaverse and stuff. This took me, like three days to read, and I was reading it constantly, too. It's definitely engrossing, and all the thinking you'll do will tire you out.

Overall: An interesting read, worth giving it a shot.

Also, sorry for totally failing at updating this. Snow Crash took me a fair while, and then I just sort of got a block when it came to reviewing it. I've actually already finished another book over these last two days, Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City, so look for that in the next day or so.