Review: "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson

I know, I know. I'm late to the party. But it's a really awesome party! So slip those goggles on and let's chat in the Metaverse!

**This review is spoiler free, except for the bits you need to highlight in order to read. So feel free to read without worry of spoilers.**

Summary: Set in a dystopian cyber-punk future, Hiro Protagonist and Y.T. are partners in the freelance information business. Hiro is a hacker, a prince of the Metaverse and general slacker. Y.T. is a 15 year-old Kourier, a skateboarder and general smart-ass. They uncover what might be the biggest information bomb of all time, a drug called Snow Crash. Sumerian myth, a computerized alternate reality and a man desperate to be the new Ozymandias, combine to make a surprisingly thoughtful techo-thriller.

The Good: This was a really interesting and a really fun ride. The mix of fast chase scenes, cool tech and deep philosophical thought were well balanced. Do not be fooled by the back of the book! It will lie and tell you this is a popcorn and explosions sort of sci-fi, but there is way more linguistic theory than you might imagine. Fans of dystopian futures will dig the franchise-owned America, where nations are literally companies where you can buy citizenship. This is one that both fans of Ender's Game and Foundation will enjoy, with both complexity and action in droves.

The protagonist, Hiro Protagonist (that makes me giggle every time), was fun and while I won't say I related to him very much, I enjoyed his story greatly. He is a little too cool to speak exclusively to the socially awkward nerd, but he is a rather positive spin on the male power fantasy, so I'm down with him. He doesn't have a lot of flaws, and most of them seem to relate to his ability to understand women, but there was enough Y.T., who I talk about later on, that I didn't notice his lack much. 

The tongue-in-cheek humor is one of the best things about this book, and I loved every minute of it. If you're the type of person to name your Tauren in WoW  "Nancy Moo" then you need to read this book. The word play and puns are just fantastic.

The Bad: At times the book felt a little dated. Mostly in the focus on skateboarding, which is just shy of gratuitous. Mostly this is nit-picking, but unlike Ready Player One which references a time in the past but takes place in the future, this is mostly referencing/taking place in the 90's with some callback to ancient Mesopotamia. It dates the story a little, but mostly in a fun way and not in an overly distracting way. (For the record I think Snow Crash is "better" in that is a lot more complex, but I think Ready Player One plays more to the thrills and the nostalgia of gamer culture.)

A lot of the descriptions floating around about this book are misleading, and in a sort of bad way. The descriptions I saw play up it's playful, fast paced parts and don't even hint at the fact that a lot of the book is just two characters conversing. I think because of this, especially early on, those slower sections dragged a bit for me.  Not because of the pacing or the writing, but because I was thrown for such a loop when it happened. It would be like if someone told you Ender's Game was a book about kids playing games in a Zero-G environment and saving the world. Which it is, but that is so incomplete as to be silly, and you'd be pretty upset that the "kids playing games" was actually "kids killing each other". We see half the book from the perspective of a character (Y.T.) who is not even mentioned in most synopses. So for her first few chapters I was also thrown and distracted by her rather than enjoying it. I was into her and the deep conversations enough that I kept going, but I wish I hadn't been so distracted by it.

The Awesome/The Ugly: I really, really dig the female characters. Juanita and Y.T. are forces to be reckoned with in the narrative, and while they were different they were both very strong. I'm sad that they are left out of the blurb on the back of the book, but I talked about that already. Y.T. is a very believable, smart, tough and has the BEST one liners. Juanita is a brilliant, talented hacker who has and inspires some great lines about sexism that I found really provocative. They are three dimensional and fully fleshed out characters that I could get behind, which is a huge bonus. I'm not sure what I think about the sex(?) scene with Raven and Y.T., but I'll add something when I've digested it more. 

I have this thought floating around that since Y.T.'s name means "Yours Truly", we the readers are really supposed be identifying with her rather than Hiro, who is...well, the hero. Especially because so much of this is allegorical, and Hiro is literally supposed to stand in for a mythological figure. He's sort of like Odysseus or Achilles, recognizably human but rather out of reach. Y.T. is much more human, and is often in much more vulnerable positions. This allows for some interesting thoughts about the difficulties with identifying with larger-than-life heroes, and the need for a more human perspective. Plus she is younger, and I found myself wondering at times if this book was written for teenagers. They save each other pretty consistently, which gives rise to even more thoughts about how people give their heroes life and visa versa. 

Overall I really enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys science fiction, and even a few who don't.

PS I'm testing out this style of reviews, let me know what you think in the comments!

Geeks in the Mirror

I would love to say that the inspiration for this piece is not an article written by a more famous person in a more comprehensible manner than I ever could. Sadly, this post is brought to you in part* by Max Barry and his post on Smurfs and Dogs. I swear that it's relevant, and you should probably read it before reading this post. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Right, so we are probably all familiar with the concepts he is talking about in the article. Female protagonists are theoretically not as universally identifiable as male protagonists. This is more or less a fact of life for the early 21st century. While there is a lot of progress being made, you still cannot convince a large part of the American viewing/ reading public to take a female protagonist seriously. I say "American public" not "men" because women go to movies and read books too, and if a large percent of women decided that they are going to do something, they would make it huge. *cough*Twilight*cough* So, it tends to be that if there is a woman in the book or movie, it is usually a side character whose main selling point is that she is female. I don't want to get bogged down in going over this, so watch Nostalgia Chick's video on it, if you really don't believe/ get what I'm saying.

The downsides to this phenomenon are pretty self evident. Not only does it de-value women and their life experience as something that could never be interesting enough to be the main plot, but it also expects that men can't and shouldn't identify with these life experiences. It also means that these characters have to stand for ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE. Which, lets face it, is impossible. Any character who tries to stand for all of anything is going to fail, because the range of female/human experience is infinite. So they generally go for lowest common denominator, which means that these characters are going to have qualities that most people associate with the word female.

The trouble is, this is not just a problem for teh ladies. This is a problem for every sub-set of mainstream culture who gets "token-ized". I'm not going to talk about ethnic minorities much because well, I'm not super qualified, but if I see one more film where there is only the one non-white character who is EITHER cool or evil, I might go crazy. Again, I shouldn't have to expound on why this is a bad thing. Hollywood has this perception that audiences won't "get it" if they don't present us with these stereotypes. That we would be completely flabbergasted and uncomprehending when presented with anything that isn't a straight white male to identify with as our main protagonist. Again, a lot of progress is being made, but these are exceptions that prove the rule.

My biggest problem with all of this? The fact that geek culture does not seem to be trying to pull itself out of this bias. If we want to talk about straight white males as main characters, think of all the comic book movies that have come out recently. Think about all the video games, with the exception of Portal, where you play a guy as the default. Bioware has been working on the "not-straight" part, and you certainly can play as a girl, but neither of those options have gotten much press in the past. It's like, if we can have a nerdy protagonist we still prefer him to be straight and white.

What I don't understand is why this is still going on. As geeks, shouldn't being counter culture come as second nature? There are women on the Avengers, why did none of them get an origins movie? (Ok, only one in the coming movie, but still) Women are a minority among geeks, but becoming less so all the time. I know I said I wasn't going to talk too much about it, but seriously with no non-white main protagonists. I'll give you that maybe in an urban fantasy or perhaps even a comic book reality, which is still set during our own time,  it may be "problematic" to write from the point of view of someone who is not you, i.e. white or male. I qualify this because there are people who are not white or male working in these industries, so I'm not sure it's really all that hard to find a voice for it. However, giving the benefit of the doubt, it is somewhat understandable to not want to offend by "telling it wrong", especially when writing a book rather than working with an actor of color to tell a story honestly.

So what's your excuse, high fantasy? Theoretically, you should have the same freedoms of science fiction, since racial tensions are a thing of the present and not necessarily of the Ages Ago or Future. And don't give me the whole, "But we're in England past!" argument, because ELVES. I'm pretty sure it won't strain anybody's disbelief, especially if handled with the same aplomb Star Trek has always handled it, i.e."This character is not white. It does not in any way effect the story or his ability to tell it, so we are MOVING ON." Also with the no women! I mean, when was the last time since Xena that we saw some ancient fantasy past woman as the actual main character? Shouldn't magic be the great equalizer? Science Fiction has more, but still not a lot. I'm starting to feel like even the kick-ass girl side-characters aren't enough, because despite being better role models it still creates the illusion that there is only one Girl, and she is only THIS WAY. Being weak or kick-ass is not inherent to a gender, and sometimes being strong doesn't mean you aren't objectified needlessly.

What I love about being a geek is that on the internet, your visual self matters far less that your actual self. The whole "it's what's on the inside that counts" means a whole lot more when the people you are interacting with literally cannot see you. It's more important that you like David Tennant when you get on a chat about Dr. Who, because no one can tell and therefore can't care. You could literally be that dinosaur from Toy Story Three for all anyone would know. I enjoy that and I enjoy the message that it sends. That we don't care about all of that bullshit that keeps us apart IRL, but we can come together around the things we enjoy. So...wtf? Why in our biggest contributions to culture are we confined by the same nonsense that keeps Hollywood from hiring Asian actors for Akira? Why do geek girls constantly feel like they have something to prove, and why can't Green Lantern be African-American in the movies too?

I know what all of the easy answers are, but I want the answer that explains how the people who routinely reject reality continue to accept it. If you don't have that answer, then maybe you should start asking the question yourself, and finding ways to help change things.






* Max Barry does not actually endorse this post. Nor do any of the other thousands of things I've linked to in this post. At least...I don't think so *peers into internet*.

Your Weekly: D'AWWWW Moment

I decided that this blog was quite ranty, and while I am a firm believer in ranting when it is appropriate, I am also a big believer in teh cute.

This week's moment of cute is brought to you by The New York Times in this article about children's books. Besides just being a well written post about the beautiful whimsy in those particular children's books, there was this quote:

The book is a bit Hayao Miyazaki-esque in the way magical fancy interrupts an otherwise naturalistic setting; one picture even shows the bear and Emma side by side under umbrellas, in patent homage to “My Neighbor Totoro.” But who among us wouldn’t want a Totoro-like companion to call her own? (Emphasis mine) 


Who indeed? I'm sort of in love with this writer now for her nonchalant reference to an incredibly geeky childhood cute thing. Thank you Pamela Paul, for giving me hope that working at the behemoth of NYT does in fact allow you to enjoy whimsy and cute. Go read the article and support a geeky girl!