Just started....
I've wanted to read some Neal Stephenson for years now. But I've never really known where to start. I finally ran across someone who has read his books, and she pointed me towards "Snow Crash".
I'm only about 50 pages in, but I think I like it already.
The first 5 pages are one of the best opening hooks I've read in a bit.
I'll write a bit more about it later, but I'll have to put up some heavy "spoiler" barricades first.
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Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson
This one is going to be a little longer.
Not necessarily any better, and most assuredly not with more useful content. Just longer.
But let's cut to the chase here....
I loved this book. I loved it a lot. I loved it enough that my wife should probably be jealous of my relationship with this book. I love this book enough that I want to have it's babies.... okay.... that's probably a bit too much...
I like cyberpunk when it's done right. I'm not even sure what the parameters of correctly done cyberpunk are. But I know it when I read it. William Gibson does it well. Phillip K Dick has a feel for it. And a few others have managed one-hit cyber punk wonders. I've got a very small collection of these books. It doesn't even take up half a shelf. But they are some of my favorites, and Snow Crash is going on that shelf along with them.
And I nearly missed this book entirely. I had another Neil Stephenson book that I read the opening few pages for, and just didn't really get in to. He's an author that I've wanted to try for some time now, but I didn't have any first hand recommendations, so i jsut grabbed a random book at half priced books. I wasn't impressed, and probably wouldn't have ever come back to him. But someone on myspace reccommended Snow Crash. And I thought, what the heck, I'll give him one more try.
Have I gone off on my theory of threads yet?
no?
I won't get in to all of it, I'll try to keep it to a nutshell version. And keep in mind that even though it's my theory (not mine exclusively, other people have probably thought the same thing and stated it better) I still think 90% of it's probably crap.
Urban Thread Theory does not neccesitate a belief in judeo-christian god, or any other god for that matter. But a belief in a higher power, or a greater design for the universe is a prerequisite. And since it's easier to just say God rather than type out "a higher power, or a greater design for the universe" I usually think in those terms.
...of course i haven't really explored the acronym options. Acronyms are still all the rage, right?
Does A.H.P.O.A.G.D.F.T.U. roll off the tongue?
Not so much. I dont' really need the "for the universe part"
How about A.H.P.O.A.G.D.?
Universal Design?
A.H.P.O.A.U.D? Perfect.
So A.H.P.O.A.U.D has laid out these rules that reality runs by. Like a great big operating system for the universe. It's huge, it's vast, and it's far more complex than anything we can comprehend, you kennit?
It is, to be frank, a little bit impersonal. So it's only one side of this vast, balanced, web we call reality. In order to keep things balance, A.H.P.O.A.U.D has woven very personal threads through out our reality as well. They are connections. They are the little coincidences and relations that tie us all together.
They are the nebulous center of that universal cliche "everything is connected."
We live in a very self centered world. We are taught that strangers are all evil, that opening up and sharing ourselves with anyone else is a sign of weakness, and that we should ust mind our own business and leave other people alone. So most of the time we ignore those threads.
I think that we stroll past tens, if not hundreds every day. And every thread is a possibility. A coincidence that we can shrug off, or a connection that we can pursue. Sometimes they go nowhere, or someplace so trivial that it feels like nowhere. And sometimes they lead to great things. Friendships and relatioships that change us forever. And sometimes they lead us to expereinces that change the way we see the world. Even in little ways.
One of my personal goals is to follow more of these threads, and ignore them less. I'm not a social person by nature, so it's a challenge for me. But I've found that every time I'm able to pursue these connections, they lead somewhere amazing.
Anyway, a list of movies, music and books that came pretty close to matching mine perfectly, and a reference to Joseph Campbell was one of those seeming small threads that I ran across a few months ago. So I followed it a bit (it's easy to do online, so I can't really claim it as a victory or my antisocial tendancies). And it lead to the book Snow Crash.
And I can say without exaggeration that Snow Crash has not noly changed the direction of my reading habits from here on out, but honest to A.H.P.O.A.U.D this book has changed the way that I look at the the reality I exist in as well.
(that was one hell of a nutshell)
Here is a rough text timeline of my experience with this book.
The first couple of pages are spent outlining this character of true anime proportions. Larger than life, fast slick, with sharp blades and a cool car. You start buying in to him. You're ready for an electronic samurai novel like the Matrix in a paperback.
and then *BAM* the author completely deflates the character. Deflates him to the point where I almsot put the book down.
I remember thinking "what the eff? Did he really just say that he's an effin' p---- d------- g--? That's eff'd up" (I don't want to ruin the surprise for those of you that will be swayed by my glowing review and go out and read the book) I honestly didn't know how to read the book after that. Was it a Terry Pratchet hyperbole where suspension of disbelief is a must? Or is it a Phillip K Dick novel where you drink you're dark dystopia straight from the jug, chunky pulp and all?
Or maybe... just maybe... He's doing with cyberpunk what Neil Gaiman does with fantasy. Where the strange and the bizzare can and do happen side by side with the mundane and the terrestial. Only in cyberpunk land? Could it be? Dare I dream?
I picked the book back up and tried again.
Little by little, much more slowly, and much more solidly, Neil Stephenson began to build his character (Hiro Protagonist. Yup, that's his name. Seriously, go find the book and check if you don't believe me. Hiro Protagonist) And before long he's built up to that point where the story can be told again.
And we are almost back to where we started. Only with a feeling of "firmness" now. Hiro Protagonist might not be an invincible anime character, but he's close to earning his name back, and he's capable of playing his part in a little action and adventure. The plot develops.
And in very general terms it goes like this.
Hiro is a hacker (it says so on his business card). But he's the last freelance hacker in the world. because there's no money in it anymore. Every other hacker, even Hiro's friends, have joined up with corporations. There is just no way to make money as a freelance hacker anymore. So Hiro lives in a 10x15 [?] storage unit... with a roommate. He makes a little money doing research for the library of congress - which, since the collapes of the united states has become a private company and a datawarehouse for vast and mostly useless oceans of information. He uploads his little tidbits, and if anyone accesses them he gets a commission. It doesn't pay very well.
Hiro's other life is in the metaverse.
Crap... I've got to go off on the metaverse. From a cyberpunk perspective it's the best part of this book.
...no, I don't want to quite yet. I'll come back to the "metaverse".
...if I forget, remind me.
He is pulled into much larger story. In Stephenson's version of the metaverse, you can't have your real life affected. Things that hurt you there don't hurt you in the real world. (very un-matrix like). But Hiro is the witness to an incident that essentially scrambles the brain of one of his fellow ex-hackers, now corporate sell-out. This is bad for Hiro, he's susceptible to whatever happened as well. And this sort of information could bring Hiro a lot of money on top of it.
The story becomes an action mystery leading Hiro through the metaverse and the real world.
He picks up a side-kick along the way. A Skater-courier punk-chic named Y.T. Sidekick might be a little misleading since she's just as, if not more, kick-ass than Hiro himself.
I was loving the book. Totally in to the fast pace and the cyber-punk-e-ness of it.
...but i was feeling just a little nagging prick of dissapointment. Not a lot, just a little. It was feeling like a good mystery, in cyberland. And that's fine. But something about the way the author had written up to that point. His careful character placement and the force of intent behind ever word had me thinking that this was going to be a little something more.
Little passages like this led me to believe that the author had some larger ideas rolling around in his head.
"There's not much more for Hiro to do. Besides, interesting things happen along the borders - transitions - not in the middle where everything is the same. There may be something happening along the border of the crowd, back where the lights fade into the shade of the overpass" -pg 202
That's a silly, almost trivial seeming, concept that I've been obsessing over since 2001. Maybe even back a little further to my first lick of chaos theory. Healthy systems are not completely stable systems. You need that turbulence along the borders.
It was a throw-away passage, but it hinted at larger things in the authors mind. But he wasn't exploring them much further than little passages like that.
And then *BAM* there is mention of the tower of babel, and an ancient Sumerian Goddess named Inanna (She's loosely connected to Ashera, the consort of El, and I've got a bit of an obsession with Ashera legends). There is talk about language as a virus, organic and electronic. And all of these elements become an integral part of the plot.
In a weaving of biblical (centered around the tower of Babel legends) and scientific (mostly dealing with viruses and vectors) into an addicting plot that makes Dan Brown look like an 11 year old girl with her first crush scribbling in her journal.... and drawing cats with heart shaped eyes.... (hey... she left it out in plain site, it's not my fault)
And it just gets bigger as you're swept in to the plot.
There's this part on page 257..
oh wait....
SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
I'll try not to give away anything big, but I might let a bit slip.
back to page 257
"In one myth, the goddess Inanna goes to Eridu and tricks Enkiinto giving her ninety-four 'me' and brings them back to her home town of Uruk, where they are greeted with much commotion and rejoicing."
"Inanna is the person that Juanita's obsessed with."
"Yes sir. She is hailed as a savior because she brought the perfect execution of the 'me'."
"Execution? Like executing a computer program?"
"yes. Appearantlly, they are like algorithms for carrying out certain activities essential to the society. Some of them have to do with the workings of priesthood and kingship. Some explain how to carry out religious ceremonies. Some relate to the arts of war and diplomacy. Many of them are about the arts and crafts: music, carpentry, smithing, tanning, building, farming, even such simple tasks as lighting fires."
"The operating system of society."
That is frakkin' beautiful. The term "me" is new. (wiki has a bit on it, but i'm going to look up more now http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_(mythology) )
From the little bit I've read so far they are like social mores (note the eel, that's moray, rather The accepted traditional customs and usages of a particular social group), only larger. And to think of those rules for living as an operating system for society... That bridges a gap for me. And without exaggeration changes the way that I look at the world around me.
The book rides that wave of the super-tech juxtaposed against the legends of biblical times right to the ending. Which was superbly done.
I hate pretty bow endings. But I hate abrupt endings without any lack of closure even more.
This one... it's just right.
what?
huh?
the metaverse?
crap.
I've written too much already.
I"ll make that a separate post.
My theory... someone else has probably already had it, is that the metaverse, or a version of it, is essential to the cyber-punk genre. It's defining trait even. And I think I've read or seen enough of it that I'm starting to put together a few guidelines that the cyber-punk metaverse follows.
Another day.
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