Snow crash by Neal Stephenson

I’d been meaning to read this for a while, and in fact started it over a year ago, but a slow and quiet embarrassing start never got me in the mood to voluntarily pick it up. The book seems to be going for parody, as is clear from naming the main character Hiro Protagonist, but parody is hard, and it never felt that it was quite nailed.

Anyway, i kept hearing people i respected talking about it, and after the first third or so, the pace picks up and the world feels more authentic to itself, rather than just making fun of other cyberpunk novels. The two main characters have distinct personalities, although both of them sometimes feel a bit underwritten. But i found them interesting, and that’s enough.

Quite a lot of the book is the author going off on tangents related to their own niche interests. Luckily, i happen to have similar interests, but even so, sometimes i wished there would be less rambling and more doing. I think that Stephenson felt it was necessary because the concept of the novel was quite convoluted, and without all the background knowledge, nothing would make sense. Unfortunately even with the background knowledge, a lot of stuff didn’t seem to make sense. This isn’t a problem in itself—it’s a science fiction novel after all—but the fact that so much effort was spent on explanations that didn’t make everything click was a bit frustrating.

The final uncomfortable thing was the repeated sexualisation of one of the protagonists, a fifteen year old girl. It felt unnecessary, and culminated in a sex scene with an older man, in circumstances that did not seem entirely like free will. I’m not sure what the purpose of the scene was, but it mainly made me think that the author as a bit of a pervert, rather than developing my feelings about the motivations of any characters in the world.

It’s not a long book, and the fact that everyone in silicon valley seems obsessed with it is probably a good reason to read it, to get an idea of what they consider to be a utopia; but don’t expect it to be the best thing you’ve ever read.