Gibson likes to keep you guessing in this book. The plot is not one that instantly reveals itself in the beginning. You actually have to wait till the end to figure out the direction that all the characters have been moving toward. This allows Gibson ample time to work on characterization, or, at least, you would think so. I am not saying that the characters are not well developed, but there is just something missing, something keeping the reader from seeing the characters as human.

As usual, Gibson paints America in a bleak future. Poverty is rampant, government is invisible, and anarchy rules the day. Unlike some of his other works, this book is not about hackers ruling the world. The assassins in this book are just that. The world is excellently created, partly explained, and somewhat feasible. The setting is the books strongest point.

The plot was very vague. Gibson gives enough clues to keep the reader interested and develops the characters enough to make you want to find out more, but seriously lets the reader down in the end. The book almost feels rushed in a way. I would have liked to understand the Idoru’s motives, but for that maybe I should have read Idoru first. I had read that this book is stand alone and you need not read one to get the other. I hope that is not true. All Tomorrow’s Parties fails as a stand alone. If it skips over the ending because it has already been hashed out in the other book it is excusable. Again, I should have read Idoru first. So that is my recommendation.

I recommend this book to people who have read Idoru. I am not saying to read Idoru instead, but read both. This was a decent book that was on par with some of his other stuff. It does seem that he recycles ideas from other books sometimes, but he has never said that they all take place in separate universes. On the contrary, he has reverenced characters and plots from previous stories in follow ups. I digress, read Idoru before you pick up this book.

Published by Ace in the US and UK
Mass Market Paperback, 326 pages
August 2004
Retail Price: $6.99
ISBN: 0441011888

Review by John C. Snider © 2004

In the mid-23rd century the earth is in quite a pickle. The environment has been overwhelmed by global warming and pollution: the air and oceans are considered poisonous; the populations huddle together in enclosed cities in the far north and south. Society itself is overwhelmed by nearly omnipotent corporations, and the vast majority of humanity live as "protes" - protected employees who eke out a living under the boot heels of the ".Coms".
Dominic Jedes is a scion of the ruling elite, the cloned son of Richter Jedes, president of ZahlenBank. The elder Jedes has extended his lifespan to nearly three centuries, using genetic treatments and repeated organ transplants. But no amount of money can prevent the inevitable, and when Richter dies he cheats death by having his consciousness transferred into a Neural Profile (NP for short), "a new kind of bank for storing a person's mind."

Like his father, Dominic is insensitive to the plight of the working class. When a decrepit mining submarine called the Benthica threatens to lose money for ZahlenBank, Dominic offhandedly decides to "set free" the protes who live and work on the Benthica. After all, liberating protes (thus eliminating their access to the .Coms' live-sustaining infrastructure) is tantamount to a death sentence. The protes die; the books get balanced; problem solved.

Except the protes don't die; in fact, from a secret undersea location they start broadcasting an invitation to protes from all over the world to leave their .Coms and join them! Now, a minor inconvenience has become a global crisis - with the protes agitating, markets stalling and the other .Coms screaming, Dominic must find the Benthica as soon as possible and shut down that transmission!

As if Dominic's job isn't hard enough, he discovers en route that the NP has infected him with a "nanoquan" version of itself. Now he has the voice of his recently-deceased father riding piggyback inside his own head!

Neuromancer is a fitting commemoration of the tenth anniversary of publication of Gibson's Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel. The text is abridged, read by the author, and enhanced with music, sound effects, and other audio engineering. The plot contains sex, drugs, black market body parts, virtual reality, electronic relationships, pleasure palaces, murder, mayhem, cloned assassins, and intrigue in cyberspace, with nary a virtual nice guy in the mix. Wow! There's just enough time to take a deep breath between cassettes, as the listener is bombarded with strong language, tumultuous violence, and compelling imagery. Terrific stuff. Gibson's horrifying vision of our terrible headlong rush to nowhere is a must for science fiction and adult fiction collections.-Cliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., Ohio

Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson
Bantam Books, 1992
Reviewed by William Black

Hiro Protagonist is not a normal guy. He delivers pizzas for the mob, and if they are late, so too will be Hiro. They give Hiro a gun to protect himself, but he prefers the precision of his samurai swords. Hiro is a hacker as well, one who works better freelance. He is half-Korean half-black and he is a citizen of Mr. Lee’s Hong Kong franchise, but he lives in a U Store it. The world he lives in is not the United States of present, but one were the United States is one of many franchises struggling to survive. Hiro’s world is technologically advanced and ethnically diverse. This world is a very dangerous place.
We meet Hiro as he is delivering a pizza, a pizza that looks as though it is going to be late. Although Hiro wrecks his car, the pizza is delivered thanks to a skateboard currier name YT. This act saves Hiro’s life and indebts the Mob to YT. This book only gets more interesting as it goes. The central plot line of this novel is that of a virus called snow crash. Snow crash not only infects computers but also hackers who’s brains understand binary code. There is a physical form of the virus that affects normal people as well. Hiro’s friend is infected with the snow crash virus so Hiro sets out to discover who is responsible. YT’s newly formed relationship with the mob gets her involved also. The virus turns out to be a program that affects the bios of the brain. It resets the brains of the people infected back to pre tower of Babel days. Everyone infected is able to communicate in this early language. The virus is being spread in order to control the people infected, because like a computer they can have commands written directly into their brains.
Stephenson meticulously researches Syrian history and mythology. He crafts a virus as unique as his world and then pumps in enough history and fact to make it all seem almost plausible. His writing is so descriptive and detailed that it forces the reader to research the facts themselves. Stephenson takes something as seemingly boring as linguistic theory and draws an intriguing novel out of it. This excellent research is not limited only to Snow Crash. Stephenson repeats this with most of his works. Diamond Age goes deep into the theories of nanotechnology and Cryptonomicon is so bogged down with math and code breaking that it turns off many readers. That said, the mythology presented in Snow Crash is somewhat overwhelming.
Stephenson is known as a cyberpunk author and this book definitely falls into the cyberpunk category. Hiro becomes a gargoyle, someone always patched into the net, and owns a house right off of main street in the Metaverse (a representation of the world wide web). Hiro himself is half-Asian and lives by the samurai code. The franchises are ruling the world and society is being divided into the haves and have-nots. Orwell’s 1984 is a reality, except that it is not just three nations controlling the world but three hundred. This book brought cyberpunk back from its presumed death. If William Gibson is the god of cyberpunk, Snow Crash makes Neal Stephenson Jesus.
The story flows along following the perspectives of different characters. Hiro Protagonist, as his name would imply, is the main character, but we also see Stephenson’s creation through YT and other minor characters. A well-placed view from Spot the dog is refreshing if not a little sentimental, and the misadventure of a Mob flunky adds humor to the story at just the right time. The use of different character perspectives maximizes Stephenson’s ability to cast different moods and tones in a way that would be impossible just following Hiro. It also gives the reader a different worldview. Stephenson is able to show how the rest of the world operates outside of Hiro’s limited view.
Stephenson does have a weakness in his endings though. He writes such a colorful and lively story and then it just suddenly stops. The story hits its climax and ends there. There is no resolution. This is a common theme with other works of his as well. Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and Interface (written as Stephen Bury) all have a tendency to end at the climax. The upside to this style is that it allows the readers to finish the story themselves.
I would highly recommend this excellent book. You do not have to like cyberpunk to enjoy the fast-paced action of this novel. In fact, this novel could be the launching pad to a love of cyberpunk. It is a quick and enjoyable, high octane joy ride into an alternate present. Some may be sensitive to the religious themes explored in this book, but this book does not take a theological stand in any regard. I would not recommend this book for children due to some sex and violence, but the book is not graphic in either aspect.