03 November 2007

Archival Review: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson


When taking a class on digital narrative in Fall 2006, I came across a reference to Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, which sounding rather intriguing.  But apparently it was set in the same universe as another book, Snow Crash, which occurred earlier, and of course I had to do the whole thing in order.  I acquired Snow Crash as a Christmas present in 2006. 

I enjoyed it.  It has a lot of fascinating concepts (the professor of said course would do well to incorporate it) and good writing to boot, though, I'm not exactly sure why events came to head at the end when they did, but that may have been more my fault than the book's-- I was trying to finish it quickly before it got dark out (I was on a car ride).  The idea I found most fascinating was the whole Sumerian original virus thing-- it reminded me of some of the stuff about "performative speech" I learned about in a course that I took on 'Oscar Wilde' and theatricality, not to mention Paul Auster's City of Glass.  I need to get The Diamond Age now.

1 comment: