Posts Tagged ‘linguistics’

Snow Crash

Wednesday, August 12th, 2015 | Books

Snow Crash is a science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson. The description announced Stephenson had “burst onto the scene” or something similar, which immediately put me off because who uses language like that. However, he does have a cool beard, so I decided to push on anyway.

It tells the story of the central character, aptly named Hiro Protagonist, who works as a pizza deliverer for the Mafia. As you do.

All set in a world where the government has crumbled and everything has been privatised. The police, the libraries, the roads, the whole lot. It’s GabrielÄ—’s liberation paradise come true.

Indeed it’s very similar to Jennifer Government, though pre-dates it by 11 years.

The plot is interesting enough. It explores themes of viruses, memes, religion, virtual reality and linguistics, on top of the political backdrop. Some of it felt a little like a formulaic essay of explanations, which I tuned out a little, but fore the most part it presented engaging ideas.

Snow Crash