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Snow Crash cover art

Snow Crash

Written by: Neal Stephenson
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
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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.

What the critics say

"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)

What listeners say about Snow Crash

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Rambling and incoherent

The author wanders through a random collection of thoughts with no real connection to each other. These may tie together later, but the mix of excruciating detail of a pizza delivery car, the musings of a robot dog and some bad k-pop lyrics don't draw me in enough that I want to find out.

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11 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Sci-Fi Done Right

Enter the world of Snow Crash, set in a futuristic, corporate controlled America, complete with the metaverse, robotic guard dogs, and one hell of a pizza delivery service.

Snow Crash was a great read, very interesting plot and original setting and continually provides both absurd and insightful ideas. If you like Sci-fi, I highly recommend it.

P.S. #Audible1 for those sweet prizes, but legit, read this.

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10 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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A scary and not-so-impossible future

The world and setup is amazing, I could listen to a whole book just describing this bizarre but totally believable alternate universe. At times the story can be a bit dense for an audiobook, could probably get a lot out of reading a hardcopy version now. The extra sound effects were unnecessary and didn't make any sense until almost half way through. Narration was good, character voices were consistent and entertaining, but not really necessary.

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A cyberpunk tale for the ages.

Only drawback is the varying sound quality, it will swap between high, low, and medium abruptly throughout most chapters.

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4 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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still holds up

Read this way back when it came out. the narrator did a really good night job with different characters voices.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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One of the books that got me into Audiobooks

This book is an example of what makes Neal Stephenson great.

I like the setting and world this takes place in, it's jaded & harsh but also grounded in its own fictional way.

There are some truly badass characters in this book. Hero, YT and Raven are just too cool to ignore.
Just listen to Reason & enjoy the aftermath!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Highly engaging and entertaining.

Well done. Written a while ago but still relevant. Highly recommended if you enjoy scifi tech novels with a nice blend of "hacker" or Cyber punk, subtle humour and commentary on religion, government and society.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Amazing and weird funny story

A little hard to follow on place but otherwise awesome! I highly recommend giving it a read/listen of you have the time

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Painful listening

Trying to describe action scenes in painful details does not work. Leave it to the movie screen Mr Stephenson.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A Wild Ride of Presient Satire

I went into this novel knowing only the elevator pitch: it was a cyberpunk satire novel from the 90s.

I took my time with it and I don't regret it. There are a handful of lore dumps where Stephenson clearly wanted to show his work that dragged a bit, but the bits and pieces from them are used well and come together for an explosive, white-knuckle final third.

I think the satire angle might be missed if you go in without knowing it. The writing is *very* straight, and all of the humor is in the subtext, like in how the Italian mafia just operates openly as a private corporation because 'crime' doesn't exist when the entire country breaks up into privately owned micronations, or how teenaged protagonist YT is constantly sexualized by older strangers because of how morally bankrupt society has become, or how our other protagonist (named Hiro Protagonist) is an unapologetic weirdo who thinks a leather kimono and a pair of swords is the peak of chic. If you go in realizing how absurd it's all going to be, you will enjoy it far more.

Fair warning for some readers: there are a number of instances (though no more than you can count on both hands) where, as you might expect in a novel about a world with extremely loose moral fabric, some very uncomfortable slurs are used in mostly casual fashion. It's not egregious enough to ruin the story, but brace yourself accordingly for some colorful language that might hit your ears in unpleasant fashion.

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1 person found this helpful