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Comment by singlow | Hacker News Reader

I read snowcrash as a teen but Cryptonomicon was my reintroduction to Neal Stevenson as an adult and it got me hooked.

Is it worth the effort? I've picked up snow crash a few times in the past 20 years and found it a hard read. I really want to enjoy it but I find it hard to swallow. I suppose it has been hard because it doesn't take itself seriously. My sci-fi reading history has been:

- several William Gibson novels between 1995-2008 - Most of the ender's game series and home coming from 80's to 2008. - Between 2008 and 2018 I read only 1 novel, which was Ready Player One. - From 2019 to today I've ready 40+ novels: The Expanse, Red Rising, Bobiverse, Planetside, Magic 2.0, Singularity Trap, Vicarious, NPC, Childeren of Time, Project Hail Mary, Fuzzy Nation, Space Between Worlds, The Salvage Crew.

I feel like I've exhausted sci-fi and have been checking out fantasy novels like Riyria. I've been having a hard time finding something new to sink my teeth into. Piranesi was weird but good.

the first chapter of snowcrash is one of my favorite chapters in any book i’ve ever read. the rest of the book is great and goes into some really bizarre territory on how to manipulate humans, as well as looking at the effects of a truly decentralized economy + metaverse. it’s really forward looking and prescient for a book that was written in 1988-91.

The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory....

I'm so glad I didn't read that book before being a pizza delivery driver.

Couldn't agree more! That first chapter hooked me harder than anything I have ever read. It would hav been amazing had the entire book held to that pace, but I personally felt it got too bogged down at times in the more philosophical bits. Still a great book on balance, and deserves great credit for its exploration of the metaverse.

I couldn't get over the fact that "Hiro Protagonist" is the actual _hero_ (and of course) _protagonist_ in the first few chapters. The writing style is good though. AFAIK the first chapter is when the virus takes over a rich and famous friend of Hiro and he has to take part on a sparing battle which ends up quickly. Afterwards the other party finds out Hiro is the stronger character in the metaverse.

Give the Three Body Problem series a try, I think you’ll enjoy it immensely.

I don't think this is in the same league as Snow Crash, or any other Stephenson novel. Learning about parts of 20th century China political history? Cool! The Sci-fi? Makes distractingly little sense. The wire-slicer weapon was pretty cool though!

I always forget how little actually happens in the first book of the trilogy, and how…earthy(?) it is?

It’s just so small in scope compared to the following books that I forget that its entire appeal is just how unknown the unknowns are and how much potential it sets up for the rest of the story.

I found the next two books in the trilogy (The Dark Forest, Death's End) to go much more in depth on the sci-fi aspect; if you're willing to suspend a little disbelief the story is constantly engaging and quite thought-provoking. While the style is different from Stephenson's I think anyone who enjoys Stephenson's books would enjoy the journey and perspective this series offers too!

Now I want to read the second!

Snow Crash is (I think?) his most digestible one! Shortest, at least.

Zodiac is really fun(?!) and quick.

Try Reamde!

A protip for Snow Crash is that you can just skip ahead 5-10 pages whenever there's an info dump about Babylonian grammar or the history of herpes simplex. You'll miss a bit, but not much. However if the first chapter doesn't get your interest at least a little piqued you probably won't enjoy the rest of the book any more.

Funny — I've been recently re-leafing through it to find _just_ the Babylonian infodumps. (though I failed at "skip ahead 5–10 pages whenever there is an action scene", because they're too good :-)

For me the blurring of religion/biology/code boundaries was brilliantly interesting (even if factually unconvincing). If you skip these infodumps, consider going back later.

-> for those who like that meta-liguistic angle, Laundry Files series by Charles Stross may be fun. It has some similar "Enochian" language used for programming zombies / magic / etc. (the tone is quite different though, more of a horror comedy, and varies between books as he's parodying different material.)

-> on the "collapse of government" angle, Diamond Age by Stephenson is almost a direct continuation. plus very cool nano-tech. (2nd half has few scenes using humans bodies in a gross way.)

-> if you like a large Quest crossing both physical and intellectual world, well, almost any Stephenson book :)

You missed Iain M Banks' Culture novels completely, they are hugely entertaining. Just skip the first for now.

Player Of Games is amazing

Read Revelation Space by Reynolds and Pandora's Star by Hamilton if you feel like you exhausted SciFi. Also check out The Diamond Age by Stephenson and Altered Carbon by Morgan if Snow Crash isn't for you. Stranger in a Strange Land, Fahrenheit 451, and The Martian Chronicles are great golden age SciFi

I have reread snow crash since my first read of it as a teen and did not enjoy it as much. I like his newer stuff much more. But at the time, and my state of mind, it was very influential to my view of technology, the internet and society so it has a very special place in my scifi cannon.

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