Snow Crash

This is one of the most-recommended cyberpunk novels I know of. Five or so different friends of mine, all with good taste, recommended this highly. Which is why I regret saying I thought it was pretty disappointing. Most of the novel is pretty silly and needs merciless editing to remove about 200 pages of fluff and to tighten the rest, fix the continuity gaps. It's an ok light read, but not much more.

The thing that makes this book cool, though, is his description of virtual reality ("Metaverse"). It comes the closest to the social environment I really hope will come about as our communication technologies improve. Metaverse stuff is dribbled through the book, but chapters 3, 5, 7, and 9 contain most of it. Those are worth reading, if nothing else than because he has the ideas right.

Update I should note I wrote this review in, oh, 1993. Since then it's been enshrined as one of the best of the cyberpunk novels and heralded for its creativity in describing cyberspace. And I think that's right and fair. The narrative itself is still a little silly but there's just so much creativity in the book it's a must-read.