Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

  Let's jump right in, shall we?

Snow Crash is a modern classic.  It parodies cyberpunk tropes but then brilliantly transcends them to create its own story before completely morphing into the best kind of 90's action movie through the climax.

Hiro Protagonist is a world-class hacker and world's greatest swordsman but he exists on the fringes of society, refusing to be commodified by a corporate-controlled world, until his old flame Juanita approaches him about a dangerous new drug called Snow Crash that has the ability to affect a user through a computer and in real life.  Initially skeptical, Hiro digs into the origins of the drug and uncovers cults, neurolinguistic programming viruses, Sumerian myths, and one seriously deranged mutant Aleutian.

This was written in 1992, which means that a lot of the technology is seriously outdated at this point. It's interesting to see how much Stephenson got right, but the info dumps explaining what an avatar is or how virtual reality isn't real are a little annoying.  There's one huge piece of exposition near the end of the novel, just before the final battle, that lays out the entire main plot.  If you weren't following along this might be super helpful, but if you've pieced it together on your own as its revealed in the story, it could be an unnecessary application of brakes at a time when it should be full steam ahead.

Tonally, this book is hysterically funny and the narration is delivered at a breakneck pace.  The main characters are not as fully realized as they could be but this is a very action-forward book.  Too much characterization would bog it down.  So you get broad strokes, heavy stereotyping, and a massive dose of 90's slang.

Ladies, there's not a lot here for you in terms of representation.  You have Y.T., the fifteen-year-old skateboard courier, who is hilarious and yet almost overshadowed by her daddy issues, and Juanita, the "one who got away" who provides the impetus for our straight male protagonist to get off his ass, but not much else.  As long as you're willing to accept this, you can still have fun reading the book.  Just try to channel your inner adolescent boy watching a Rambo movie for the first time.

I had never read anything by Stephenson before and technically I didn't choose to read this one.  It was an assignment for one of my classes.  However, it turned out to be my favorite book of college so far.  It definitely made me interested in reading Stephenson's other works.  You should definitely give it a try.