Reply To: Redshirt Book Club – Snow Crash
I had very similar views to both of you @mtgordon and @robgonzo ! See below (which I wrote while at work):
This a new one for me, as I’ve never really delved into cyberpunky science fiction. Honestly, the first 2 chapters were a little hard for me to listen to (I prefer audiobook format for fiction books), even though the narrator does a great job. I couldn’t stop thinking about how the subject matter and intensity of the writing really did not match each other. Pizza delivery could never have a mafia type badassery, no matter how you think about it. In no sane or even insane world would you go tot such lengths as to send a helicopter out to punish a delivery driver who delivered a pizza at over 30 minutes. Talk about wasting money! I can’t believably convince myself that even in this fucked up of a world could pizza be that damn important.
There are redeeming qualities about this story. I do believe that city-states could exist and that people would want to escape this type of world into a virtual reality. Shit, I wish I could escape our CURRENT world into a virtual reality, and our world isn’t even that bad right now. Though, the virtual reality doesn’t seem that great of a world either, full of advertisements and people that all look the same. The poverty that has stricken the world seems on par with what will happen if our world does not change.
Even though I am technically around 1/5 into this book, I still don’t get the point. Where is this leading? The building up oif this story is a little slow for me. Also, at times, the way that past events are described is much too blunt (I can’t give good examples as I was listening to the book, not following along on paper).
All that being said, it is certainly refreshing to have both Hiro and YT’s stories being told. If it was just one or the other, I think I would become even more bored with the story. Variation and plot twists are important, both of which this story has very little of.
I’m hoping it becomes more interesting! From what I’ve heard, it should get a lot better. But who knows. 😛