Snow Crash

By: Neal Stephenson

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Only once in a great while does a writer come along who defies comparison - a writer so original he redefines the way we look at the world. Neal Stephenson is such a writer and Snow Crash is such a novel, weaving virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility to bring us the gigathriller of the information age.

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about Infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous...you'll recognize it immediately.

©1992 Neal Stephenson (P)2001 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Brilliantly realized...Stephenson turns out to be an engaging guide to an onrushing tomorrow." (The New York Times Book Review)
"Fast-forward free-style mall mythology for the 21st century." (William Gibson)

great audiobook!

I have both the book and the audiobook - however the audio performance was so great I rarely ever opened the book. one of the best audio performances I've heard.

Gr8 book beautifully narrated

This is one of rhe best narrated books I have listened to. A classics tory that is added to significantly by the choice of narrator

Bad degraded sound quality, goofy sound effects

The story still holds up after 30 years. It’s a good read for any cyberpunk fan. However the ancient history can get tedious.

GRIPE: this recording must be transferred from old cassette tapes. Definitely not a master. Honestly it sounds like it was recorded mix d and edited on a GATEWAY2000. There’s agoofy 90’s sound effects and laughable babbling between the 72 chapters. Great book that deserves a fresh recording

Sometimes hard to follow

I enjoyed the story and the narrator, but without knowing the time line of the book it was hard to follow some of the action. I wasn't sure what year the story was to be taking place and some of the time between the scenes is hard to grasp. but it was a good listen and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys cyber sci-fi

Mix of Brilliant and Boring

Anyone familiar with Neal Stephenson will be unsurprised by this, but the book is great and brilliant, and also bogged down with long stultifying info dumps. I'd say the book is well characterized by two distinct sections involving the Hiro, Protagonist. Mild spoilers. The first chapter describes Hiro's job as a deliverator, an elite and heavily armed pizza delivery man for the Mafia, which manages to set the bizzare and interesting American franchise dystopia and at the same time is extremely hilarious.

Later in the book Hiro is speaking to a Librarian program and proceeds to have an hour long highly contrived labyrinthian info dump that is both boring (kills the pace of the book) and simultaneously so wandering and rambly that it's not even very clear. An hour of improbable explanation with no action laying out the central theory of the book delivered by an AI that speaks just like a human, except that whenever a sentient intelligence would make the plot too clear or explain the crazy theory effectively, the AI (in)conveniently reminds us that it can't understand even simple, common metaphors.

That's the book. On the one hand you have great, hilarious writing and some really interesting characters, on the other you have weirdly confusing time skips and huge, contrived info dumps that do a poor job explaining some wild and fascinating ideas. If you've got a bit of patience, it's well worth it. If it sounds hard to get through, maybe not for you. But definitely listen to the whole sample in any case, it's hilarious.

Certain Parts are Dense overall a great story

I had trouble getting through the Librarian parts as they were a bit dense at times however, it did serve a functional part in the story and the rest of the story was fantastic

Mafia pizzas

I was immediately hooked in by the brilliantly hilarious pizza delivery sequence and the sci-fi description of hero's loadout.
The entire story is well contained, with great mystery and one of the best reveal I've read. (yup that meeting in the metaverse was my favorite part.
Overall i would recommend this book to anyone who loves scifi and mystery.

Surprisingly Accurate Futuristic Tech Predictions

This was my first Neal Stephenson novel, and wasn't sure what to expect, but it does not disappoint. Being written in 1992, I'm surprised (and impressed) at the accuracy of some of the technical innovations it predicts (widespread use of mobile phones, 2nd life style gathering places, etc). Like parts of story and plot premises , some of the technology (the Loogie Gun) seems tongue in cheek and campy, but in the Snow Crash world, it works. Some of the descriptions seem a bit drawn out, but not overly so - could be a turnoff for those wanting a faster read. But again, I think it helped when trying to get a feel for what I will call an alternative history and future world (not hugely different, but certainly not our social and political landscape). Overall a good story, I will read other of Stephenson's works.

Interesting foul-mouthed, philosophical, action st

Pretty much sums it up. Really good narration-only muffed voice changes a couple of times.

audio quality is really bad

This book has a really good plot twists but its so difficult to get through. The side details just distracted to much from the story.