So I picked up a copy of Snow Crash today

Heh, it's a funny thing: the time I used before coming onboard Second Life was largely used to read up on cyberpunk and related futurist and humanist literature. Now that I'm so busy with SL, tho, I'm hard-pressed for time. Kim, BBC mentioned Vernor Vinge to me also as a recommended read, I believe: the cover of the book might be "cheesy" to some but there is something ineffably wonderful about the magic that it conveys to me. I'll have to read more Vinge in... the future.

Great! Thanks I'll read it when I get a chance

The illustrations do look a bit "cheesy" but hey it was the 80s. Plus theres few books even today that don't have cheesy illustrations, hehe.

Actually, the thing that struck me most about the technology in Snow Crash is that, while technology has focused on different priorities, it is /not/ all that fantastic (Well. I'm refering specificly to the technology used in regards to the Metaverse, which was really the focus of the book. The skateboards and motorcycles and so forth were a bit more crazy). Re-read the section where Hiro is reflecting on the difficulty of getting the sword fighting game to work. One of the problems was that the technology really wasn't designed to be capable of what he was trying to do, so he had to make do. As it is, most direct physical interaction seems to be through a system similar to visual motion capture, which is a technology that hasn't been developed much, but does exist right now. We already have very good head mounted displays such as what Hiro uses, and they get better all the time. Etc, etc. The rest of it... the world of the Metaverse itself... is just a question of storage and processor power, which is growing at a fantastic rate as it is. Compare where we are now to just five years ago, for example. Worlds apart.

Torley, you should find the time. If besides cyperpunk you like a good Space Opera too, start with "I Fire Upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky" (in that order. If not, start with the "Collected Stories of VV". Won't regret it. If you regret it, I'll invite you to a glass of red (or white, or champagne, or beer, or ..) in the location of your choice in SL, LOL.

Vinge is one those rare storyteller who can "paint the world behind the story" - without telling/explaining it. Gibson can too. Stephenson a little too, but not as good.

You are right Reitsuki, of course. Moore's Law and all. I still find it fascinating, that SL even works without such equipment, just with a current PC, a mouse and a screen. And thats what Vinge describes: the ability of the brain, to rebuild a believeable world with little bandwidth and a strong feeling of being involved ...

I finished True Names, what a great book! Thanks Kim

I like how he takes a totaly different look at the whole cyberspace idea and it makes sense too!

Also even though it was written in the 80's it still can be applied to today without any issues, simular to Neuromancer, the books don't become dated really. Except those pictures, those kinda ruined it, lol, novels like that with pictures, always kind change your own perspective, I don't really like that so much.

Excellent book though! Very interisting theories presented in it as well. The afterword is great as well.

I agree with Oz on this one. The first time through Snow Crash, I was just following the story and the author's very creative use of language and imagery (IMO).

On the second read I was much more aware of the structure and the comic-book like humor behind it all.

Thanks for the thanks, Oz. My pleasure. Vinge IS a great thinker (hasn't to be 'right') and a great storyteller. He only puts out a new book every few years. But when ... o my ... His work is dominated by a few ideas with which i see more and more relevance to SL and other 'open' MMORPGs. I think he groks the soul, the emotions behind those aspects of the technology (not only the science) like no other.

Interesting, that most of this really dates from before Neuromancer.

A I am happy that my version did not come with pictures. LOL.

Metaverse

Serious Business.

(I stopped reading the book half-way through, the writing was horrible. Thank god I picked up neuromancer after that to restore my faith in cyberpunk books.)

Only it's not supposed to be cyberpunk.

Have you tried reading it without the label?

Hiro, labels are a very ambigious thing. How often was I angry myself, when someone dismissed some great piece of literature, because 'but it's only SF' of fantasy or a detective story or ... I think, that was the reasom, Kurt Vonnegut always insisted that he did NOT write SF.

Labels aren't bad per se, as they give the reader some orientation, though. And if you look at all the different authors who are labeled Cyberpunk and their works, Stephenson definitely shares a lot of similarities.

But a label doesn't make a good read. And their styles (Stephenson's and Gibson's) differ a lot. I like both. No one has to. Tastes differ. But taste has nothing to do, with 'quality', Ryen ...

BTW: nice piece of code (Super Vendor) you put into Open Source, Hiro. I understood more of Vendors and transactions in SL by perousing that code then by checking all that skimpy docs on SL and the existing vendor-'products'.

Before 2004, when was the last time a sci-fi movie won an oscar OTHER than a technical one?
Peter Jackson's LoTR RoTK tieing for most-oscars-won was certainly a groundbreaking moment for sci-fi fans around the world.


I think the majority of similarities Stephenson has with cyberpunk are done in an intentionally campy fashion. Stepheson shares as much with cyberpunk as Tom Clancy does in his high-tech spy thrillers.

I did like the term "post-cyberpunk" that I heard once about Snow Crash. It was more in tune with the trippy, postmodern society Stephenson describes both in and out of the Metaverse. Most cyberpunk approaches the whole admiration / fear of technology (Matrix, Neuromancer, Ender's Game, etc) but Stephenson reaches out and shows that, like past technologies, it will integrate with our society and we will adjust as a race. Other cyberpunk works tend to rely on a more technology vs. Luddite perspective with little middle ground.

I could go off on a tangent about how that is a manifestation of the American / Western style of storytelling vs. Eastern / Russian style, but that's one I'm not sure how many people in the forum would be interested in discussing.


Thank you! It's so flattering to hear stories like this...

I'm the same way - I learn more by looking at the code than the WIKI (sorry Eggy, though the WIKI is great for Syntax!)

Your description of Snow Crash reminds me of a Japanese author whose work was described as Cyberpunk by some members of our literature class, despite the absence of most of the features which we would generally expect from the genre of cyberpunk. In the end, we simply agreed that it was post-modern. The book is Haruki Murakami's Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World. I highly suggest it.

could discuss that for hours, but ... *grins* for what reason ...

Good description. Gets to the point, me thinks. Although i always read Gibson as fatalistic description without an explicit position between admiration/fear too.

First time I see Scott Card (Enders Game) sorted in with the Cyberpunks, though. Interesting categorisation. Maybe shows what labels are good for ... and bad at. LOL.

At least one. Me!

but maybe not here ... would bend this thread somewhat more than is fair/sensible ...

Gibson is a classic Western storyteller. Conflict - the dangers of AI becoming sentient, good guys, bad guys, climax, and an ultimate isolation of the problem and resolution.

Stepheson on the other hand appears as a Western storyteller, but it's the journey along the way that is really important. I think it's pretty obvious it's deliberate, considering our hero, Hiro, last is an entendre-named Protagonist.

Stepheson writes less about showing you the fun story, although he's good at that too. Instead, he step-by-step takes you through the complexities of society dealing with technology and beaurocracy. By the end you realize it's the gutsy innovators who get the job done, and not the masses of people who are coaxed into drug-induced servitude.

It's a statement about individuality. It's also a statement about a blending, rather than a conflict. Has society really changed much in all the technological changes? No. America still has its music, movies, microcode, and high-speed pizza delivery. Hicks are still hicks. Mafia is still the mafia. Corporations are still corporations. You'll find no idealic transformation of society like in Star Trek or Johnny Pneumonic. The technology is there, dealt with by the society, integrated, like a virus. Like his book to his readers. Genius.

This is where the point of the book resides - in the continual society-wide evolution of ideas and words like viruses in our minds, unpredictable and unshakable. Our villain, L. Bob Rife, whether driven by ambition to dominate, or by misguided social engineering, wants to end peoples' conflict, create harmony by sacrificing all that makes us human.
It's the conflict of ideas and words that keeps the human race healthy.

And so technology is treated in the same fashion, integrated, constantly changing, altering the look of our lives but not the feel.

Cyberpunk leads to a conlusion that technology totally alters the human condition. Like the way Darth Vader's loss of humanity is symbolised in his bionics he has grafted onto him. Such is cyberpunk and classic sci-fi.

Stephenson's sci-fi has technology whose effect is not a transformation, but more of an acceleration. Like our greatest inventions - the printing press, machine parts, computers, telephones, medicine - their end result is to give us more time and opportunities to interact and learn and think, not a direct change in how we do so - or our innate ability to do so. That is where Philosophy takes over - where words take over - the book, ideas. It is THOSE that change how we think and interact.

See? The power of a label to make you think about something in a whole new light

Hmmmh, might well be the best characterisation of those different styles I have read until now, Hiro. Respect!

Although I still think that the oversimplification you seem to find with Gibson isn't doing him justice. For example, the 'danger' of sentient AIs is not really a danger with his stories. (There is even sympathy with these AIs ...) It is seen by some authorities as a danger ... the way I read it.

One point of view you see with Stephenson ...I find very interesting though; as one of the big themes in Vernor Vinges work is the 'technological singularity'. And this concept is based on the assumption, that there might come a time, where this acceleration results in some fundamental changes in human nature/human intelligence, that leads to a 'singularity', a point, beyond we - from this side - cannot even comprehend what will happen with human society on the other side.

werd, sistah!


Well, true 'nuff. And nothing against classic sci-fi - I love it. It's just a different subgenre than Stephenson's writings.


Interesting. Let me contemplate on this one.

I like reading a lot of about deep philosophy and all the technocultural references nested deeply within the pages of such novels, but the things I really do enjoy include the simple moments (likely distorted ones, ha!). I'm Beanian, perhaps Gumpian in that way.

The Diamond Age by Stephenson conveyed this extremely well to me, because I liked how you have the dichotomy of a warm fuzzy fairytale vs. the backdrop of a looming nanocrisis. And heck, you got MECHANICAL HORSES! That took me for -- pardon me if ya will -- a real ride. There's that sort of juxtaposition, the delicate poise and balance not unlike a skilled circus performer, yet the heavily-weighted scenes of sex and violence that show you how heavily-rooted humans still are in their primal urges.

Another book which has metacyberpunk etchings but isn't firmly set in the style is the hyperhybrid The Dark Tower saga by Stephen King. Definitely what seems like some nods to classic golden sci-fi in there as well.

On a more nonfiction front, I'd recommend the writings of Alvin and Heidi Toffler without question like Future Shock -- there's a sly nod in there into MMORPGs coming into being several decades down the line from when the book was written -- as well as the Michio Kaku-compiled book, Visions. Just c-c-check 'em out!

Because of its technological context, "cyberpunk" as a label is much like "techno music": it has been defined, has been redefined, and will be redefined again. Shattering the classification apart to make some sort of richly evolving mosaic of artistry has always struck me as magical. Like... Second Life!

His world is an extreme transformation of society. In fact, that is one of it's core themes -- hyper-commercialization. It's "idealic" because that is only one of the many facets of society today that he chose to focus on.

The other core theme is where the book fell apart. While an interesting dichotomy; the relationship between linguistics and religion is too much of the focus in such an obvious way. When he spends chapters just explaining a series of ideas on the subject with a single character pretty much talking the whole way through... he's breaking up the pacing of the story. The book falls apart in the end because the plot was built using this idea so specifically that the characters and setting are too weak to support it fully.

He didn't let the characters take control and resolve the plot, he simply led them from point A to point B to C and so on; leaving the librarian to explain everything to the reader. Combined with his exhaggerated and clicheed burbclave world and you've got a fetishized 15-year old's fantasy world.

So while I liked his idea about linguistics and their role in the development of the human mind through religion; he made it into a poor story. Instead of reading through ultra-decked out pizza-boy ninja hackers, interstate skateboard punk girls with needles in their private bits, and lungering "lobo" type bad-guys to get to the chapters of the librarian reading almost what is essentially like an essay -- I would have rather read the essay than suffer the ending of that book.

I even read interviews of Neal to follow up after finishing the book... and he admitted to not really liking the way he ended the book Snowcrash. He also explained how he didn't like the high-brow literary writers and the division between writers such as himself and them. He doesn't like to be called a, "commercial writer." While I tend to agree with him -- hey, a book is a book and I haven't written one yet, so who am I to say what belongs in the gutter? -- I still don't foresee him winning any literary prizes. To paraphrase some of his interview responses: he constructs stories from his own interests and ideas... things he thinks are cool.

Which to me says he'd rather just throw a plot together to share his ideas in story-form rather than build a plot and story that shares ideas. The difference being that in the Stephenson world, the characters and setting can be weak because it's not about them -- it's about taking a few hundred pages to read about a cool idea he had. Whereas in the other end of the spectrum, the ideas are obfuscated and requires the reader to discover them through strong characters and an immersive reality.

As for Gibson -- yes, even in his documentary he admitted that he doesn't like Neuromancer anymore because it was written at a time when he was young and appeals more to younger people -- much like Snowcrash. Where Gibson differs as a writer to Stephenson is that he doesn't flat out explain everthing step-by-step and lead his characters around. He lets the characters drive the plot which takes the reader with them.

But when Gibson talks about what he has troubles with when writing, he talks about how he lacks in his ability to move characters from scene to scene in a believable way. Which he (and I agree with him) believes he's gotten much better at. After finishing Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties... and then reading Pattern Recognition, I was blown away.

Thing is I still think Neuromancer was a good book and when compared to Snowcrash, much better. His story is more subtle and not so focused on "here's where I think yadda yadda..." You read about these characters, the way they think and talk. The memories they have and you start to pick up on how they react to things. They tell the story and move the plot and when reading through, you can't see the carrot and by extension predict what's going to happen next. Gibson writes in the moment of his characters in their world. Whereas Stephenson always shows the carrot and explains what's going on bit by bit without leaving the reader much room to explore the world or experience it through the characters. He just tells you what happens.

Blah... so that's what I think about Snowcrash. I tend to use strong words when describing it in brief because it does irk me that people think of it as cyberpunk. And it does irk me that people think SL is the fruition of the Stephenson fantasy.

And so I simply offer my contrasting opinion, Hiro. Take it or leave it. I'm not here to shatter your perspective and try to convince you that what you believe is wrong. Lance asked for something, I gave it.

I think you oversimplify it. Yes, everything's privatised, but the transformation? The types of people in the book are pretty much the same as the types we have today. People still live pretty much the same way.

The real transformation we see is the Metaverse - it is society transformed, in its most pure, postmodern form. And yet people will be people, crowding to impress bouncers to get in with movie stars and social elite.


What Stephenson is describing is a world - our real world - coming to a Babylonian vulnerability. The Metaverse and the unified language are cause and effect - a repeat of history. Like most stories that refer to other stories, they are revealing the whole point of the story in the sub-story - like Hamlet arranging a performing troupe to put on a play resembling his uncle's treachery.

So it's here we see the big picture of the story, and we see that this desire for man to become a master of language and power is not a new theme in our history. It's through the sub-story that we get a picture of why the overall story is significant.


clichéd? care to elaborate? I've never read anything like it before.


Well, it ends, but as I've said - the story isn't about any set conclusion, but the journey to get there and understanding the context of which we as humankind are taking this journey.


Nothing wrong with either, really.

Try explaining Second Life to someone.... it's damn hard until you show them, then it's like "Oh, wow" and the point immediately becomes clear. Snow Crash is the same way... there's really no way to just tell someone about his "cool idea". He had to show it.


What you see as subtlety, I see as making it up as he went along. I liked Neuromancer, but I always had the distinct feeling that Gibson was just experimenting. Which was cool, too.


Hemmingway also wrote that way, and is considered one of the English language's greatest authors. There's something sublime with being able to paint a total picture of what a character is doing, why, and how, and watch their reactions. We learn about the characters even when they do the most common activities.


Why does the truth irk you? Have you read Philip & Cory's white papers? Have you talked to the throng of players who are vying for a Metaverse?


Absolutely. Your perspective is valued, and I think you raise some very interesting observations about the structure of the literature.

Gibson's books epitomize Cyberpunk: an obvious extrapolation of current conditions, replete with all the cliches which the genre demands, but completely lacking in entertainment and insight. Gibson's work is generally nothing more than a superficial treatment of a subject. He treads meekly where a dozen authors have trod before. As I said, his books are interesting, but they never inspire deeper reflection, nor do they ethrall one so deeply as Stephenson's novels do.

As for arguments that Hiro Protagonist is nothing more than a pubescent male masturbatory fantasy: I remit Gibson's Case as the ultimate PMMF.

(Let's kick this holy war up another notch! Bam!)

In my opinion, it was mildly entertaining, but not particularly well written. I found the Otherland books far more in-depth, with much more substancial characters and an immersive world.