snow crash

I started writing a big long post about Snow Crash, and then I totally forgot about it and closed Safari without saving it... and I forgot about the "Recover Post" option until after it started saving my new post... I'm not going to re-write the whole thing (even if I could remember half of what I wrote), but here's the short(er) two a.m. version, with a quick morning revision:

It's just as good as everyone says, if not better, to me, because it managed to hit upon a number of my interests. Plus, it takes place in L.A., and the main character is half-Japanese, so there are a lot of references to things I know or am learning about while getting ready to move. Neal Stephenson is a really good writer. I read his Diamond Age while fulfilling my natural science requirement in Science Fiction, Science Fact (yes, our textbooks were basically all science fiction novels, and no, they don't still offer it. I think I took the class the last time it was offered. I think it morphed into a nanotech class, which was what the prof's specialty was, anyway...). Reading about nanobots made my airways feel a bit fuzzy, and I don't remember much else about the book, other than that it was good, and that the 400+ pages went by really fast. I may go back and re-read it now, though.

In fact, I may go back and re-read Snow Crash, just to go over the bits I know I missed. (I'm a notoriously sloppy reader when it comes to things like details. Especially the first time through, I tend to skim. A lot.) He has a lot of interesting theories about religion, technology, and language, and he wraps all of this in a tight plot set just about now (or about 30 years from the seventies). Of course, he wrote this 15 years ago, but although technology has evolved since then, surprisingly, his descriptions of the future technology don't seem outdated. Where you can feel its age is mainly in the slang used, but maybe because Stephenson seems careful to change most things enough to be a little familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and maybe because I grew up in the 80s and 90s, I didn't notice enough for it to be distracting. Somehow, these instances (and references to WWII and Vietnam) seem to place the book in time without inhibiting the story.

It's sad, but I think what drew me to start reading this book over the others that I've been meaning to read or re-read was its small size. My copy of Diamond Age is a paperback the size of a hardcover, and other books I've been thinking about reading are hardcover, too. But my copy of Snow Crash was bought in practically new condition last summer at a used bookstore in Madison, WI. And it's the size of a standard paperback. Made it easy to carry around in a largeish bag, or throw in my car. I guess it wouldn't be too bad to bring around Diamond Age now, though, because Jo made me a tote in her sewing class that would fit it perfectly. Either that, or I can go back to Ivanhoe, which is a little Barnes and Noble classic hardcover...