WEEK 11: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (6)

    My experience with his book was pretty strange. Similar to last week, I found this book to be more interesting in its world building than its actual plot. In fact, I found the ending to be a little underwhelming, as it pretty much ended with their problem being solved, thus saving anyone, and the character being left, well happy, without that much development.


On the other hand, what I did find interesting about the nature of the conflict is the notion that you aren’t safe anywhere. In fact, nowadays, when we play video games or enter new worlds through entertainment, we just try to escape our world and have that notion that we’re safe. In this world however, you can be hurt wherever you go, even in the metaverse, which actually reminds me of Sword Art Online. 


What’s more, I liked that the worldbuilding illustrated current world issues, such as wealth disparity, showing that, even in this futuristic world, not everyone would have access to technology and thus not everyone would actually be hurt by it. Although, drugs would be able to hit the lower wealth classes. Furthermore, they show the danger of language through over the top advertisements, where even the police force has to advertise themselves. As a matter of fact, Stephenson went to the extremes in order to show the dangers of an overload of information and population.


    In short, I enjoyed once again reading up and entering a new dystopian world as I was able to make connections to today’s world and similarities in consumerism, overpopulation, advertising, news, ect. However, the plot was again a bit boring compared to its world.

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