Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

             A lot of people have recommended Neal Stephenson to me in the past, but I've always been a little turned off of it - he does have a bit of a reputation for being really, really dense. However, a friend finally insisted that I give one of his books a try, and in emphasis of this bought me Snow Crash which we found at the local bookstore for $4. I should note here that my local bookstore is pretty amazing - it carries used and remainder books that big chains can't sell so if you aren't looking for anything particularly new, it's a good place to get a book for less than half the usual price.

            Snow Crash hit me at first as being a little bit naughty, in a good way. In a very Neil Gaiman way. The main character's name is Hiro Protagonist, which is awesome. By day, he delivers pizza and is called the Deliverator. By night, he's a warrior hacker prince in the Metaverse. When a virus goes through the Metaverse and begins infecting and shutting down everyone's brains, it's Hiro Protagonist to the rescue! Sort of, anyway. A little naughty and I mean that in the best way possible.

            Plotwise, this book is a total head-spinning, mind-melting extravaganza. It can be hard sometimes to keep up with all the characters and so on, but in general, this book is well crafted. What I appreciated most about this book, however, was Stephenson's sheer mastery of language; never before have I read a paragraph so well-written that I stopped and thought "Wow." And then I went back and read it again. For example,

"The people of America, who live in the world's most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hiphop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree killers, space walks, buffalo jumps, drive-bys, cruise missiles, Sherman's March, gridlock, motorcycle gangs, and bungee jumping. They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture."

            Maybe I'm nuts, but the level of care and cleverness in that paragraph was amazing.

            As a whole, I found the book really, really well done. I'm not sure if I'd want to read another Neal Stephenson book; Snow Crash certainly didn't dispel the idea that his books are typically dense and difficult to get through. At times I definitely had to flip back thinking "Who is that character again?" and the structure of the book, split between two main characters to whom different things are happening sometimes made it difficult to follow along. However, it made up for it in sheer amazing writing and mind-melt quality.