Book Review: Snow Crash

Snow Crash has been on my list for a long time. It's the third Neal Stephenson novel I've read after The Diamond Age and Seveneves and is considered his breakout novel. Published in 1992, it's actually somewhat unbelievable how forward looking this book is. I actually found myself a little bored when Stephenson was describing the technology for the virtual world, the "Metaverse", of Snow Crash since I just read Ready Player One a few months ago, and many of the concepts that ended up in that novel's conception of virtual reality, published in 2011, were already present in Snow Crash, 19 years prior.

Besides virtual reality, which Snow Crash explores extensively, the novel also entertains the idea of anarcho-capitalism or post-national capitalism, where nation states have regressed, and the world is made up of a autonomous corporate states, seemingly inspired by David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom or Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty. Interestingly, The Machinery of Freedom saw its second edition published in 1989, right before Snow Crash came out. Several of Stephenson's novels explore this idea of decentralized post-state economic systems, including his other 90s books The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon. Concepts covered include the decentralized implementation of a legal system, private roads, quasi-state citizenship and security, and the ineffectiveness of government. The Federal government does still exist in this bizarre Los Angeles, but it seems to do nothing useful except spend lots of resources ensuring the loyalty of its own employees. There is a memo about toilet paper usage in the federal offices that goes on for pages.

I don't know what an anarcho-hyper-capitalist world would really look like, but Snow Crash's world feels vibrant and real. From a political perspective, I think its obvious Stephenson is intrigued by these ideas, as he's written about them several times. It's also undeniable that technologies like the decentralized anonymity, networked virtual realities simulations, and especially cryptography, although it wasn't in the book, automatically contribute to a world where power is subverted by individuals who can hide from authority. The "hacker" mindset is that today's technology can be used to coordinate against power, while keeping people anonymous. The technology itself is inherently punk-rock.

Nonetheless, Snow Crash isn't necessarily a world you want to live in. Libertarian utopia, maybe, but we are following interesting characters who can navigate this world. In the background, millions of desperate people are part of the story too, and they are not doing too well. It's a bad idea to reason from a work of fiction, but at least from the author's political views, I thought this was a fair representation of interesting wonders and harsh horrors of a possible libertarian wonderland.

The story itself was actually fairly unexpected for me. I knew this was a cyberpunk novel going in, and so I expected the vast discussion of the hacker world and the gray legality the characters occupy. Because this novel was so early, some of the technology I expected, especially cryptography, didn't play a big role, even though a rewrite of the story today would most certainly include the importance of encryption to anonymity and privacy in this decentralized virtual world. However, there was a significant reliance on Sumerian mythology which I had no idea about, and despite the incongruity, it was actually a really compelling part of the novel. The skills it takes to interweave 8000 year old myths the reader has never heard of into a modern sci-fi cyberpunk story should not be understated. It wasn't all perfect of course; I had to suspend disbelief anytime the novel discussed the particular way in which it stated "hacker" minds were wired to make them susceptible to the Snow Crash virus, because that was pretty absurd. Nonetheless, it's a minor issue in an otherwise highly creative work.

The characters were solid too. The reader ends up meeting the heads of several of the quasi-state corporations in the book, and their nature and juxtaposition creates a particularly American cyberpunk setting. I won't go into more details to avoid spoiling large parts of the book. The best character is probably one of the villains, and every scene with him is properly terrifying. Y.T., the main character's associate is also fun to follow. However, I'm still not sure I understand why the main character, Hiro, chose his last name to be "Protagonist" to make the absurdly ridiculous name Hiro Protagonist.  Despite being the character you follow the most, he's not particularly dynamic. At the beginning he's a smart hacker who helped build the Metaverse although things haven't gone great for him and he's not leveraged his important role to fame and fortune. But he uses his skills to uncover the main plot that drives the novel and works with others to end the threat. He's centrally important to the story, so he's the main character by definition, but his personality feels a bit like a video game protagonist (I guess that's the reason for the name) as he's more of a vessel for the audience to see the world through. Even his relationship with Juanita doesn't really change that much over the course of the book.

Nonetheless, Snow Crash is an easy read and amazing sci-fi premise. I really enjoyed the book, although I think Stephenson has continued to improve as a writer, especially of compelling characters. The unique ideas in this book make it a classic of the cyberpunk genre and I'm glad I finally got around to it.