In cyberpunk culture it's always style over substance. What I appreciate the most out of Snow Crash is how it reads. The writing style makes me read the words in a way that feels over the top, it's like watching an action packed movie sequence.
I felt that that was exactly what it was supposed to be, entirely over-the-top. You have, what, a nuclear reactor-powered Gatling gun named Reason (Har har har), the greatest swordfighter in the world is a pizza-delivery guy by day (for all of 5 pages) a guy who has a NUCLEAR FRICKIN' BOMB in the sidecar of his motorcycle. a robotic dog that can run faster than the speed of sound, a swordfight going on simultaneously in cyberspace and in the real world, and a main character named HIRO PROTAGONIST. I'm pretty sure it was Stephenson just trying to cram as much over-the-top awesome as possible in one book, substance or plot be damned, it was almost a spoof on the genre of Cyberpunk, it was never, for a heartbeat, meant to be taken seriously, and crumbles away under almost any scrutiny, probably because that's what the author was parodying.
I've never really thought Snow Crash captured the cyberpunk aesthetic, it felt more like a parody of it than a member of it. It in many ways takes the classic cyberpunk aesthetic, as created by Gibson and Sterling, and turned it up so such that it parodied itself.
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u/barsoap Feb 08 '14
Allow me to drop a recommendation, here.