Snow Crash is my favorite Sci-Fi book, and Neal Stephenson is my favorite Sci-Fi author. I've read this book 3-4 times, more than any other book in my life. As someone in the tech world, it's a constant source of inspiration and creativity. I can't wait for the Hollywood version, although I'm afraid it'll get the Ready Player 1 treatment. In some strange ways, I found this book particularly prescient of the world we live in at the moment.
Key Takeaways
Memorable Quotes
Rating 10/10
If there was only one fiction book I could read for the rest of my life, this would be it. It's funny. It inspires creative thinking. Its characters have depth. It has action. It has technology. There's nothing not to like. I can't wait to see what Amazon does with it.
Key Takeaways
- Follow your intuition.
- The ability to sift through multitudes of data and information is a superpower.
- AR/VR has tremendous potential. Even though the hype cycle has peaked right now, soon the tech will catch up to the promises.
- Where is wikipedia's AI assistant?!
Memorable Quotes
- To condense fact from the vapor of nuance.
- It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.
- This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them.
- "This Snow Crash thing--is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?” Juanita shrugs. “What's the difference?
- We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information
- “It’s, like, one of them drug dealer boats,” Vic says, looking through his magic sight. “Five guys on it. Headed our way.” He fires another round. “Correction. Four guys on it.” Boom. “Correction, they’re not headed our way anymore.” Boom. A fireball erupts from the ocean two hundred feet away. “Correction. No boat.”
- Shit, if I took time out to have an opinion about everything, I wouldn't get any work done.
- The franchise and the virus work on the same principle, what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder ― its DNA ― Xerox it, and embed it in the fertile line of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a left turn lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines.
- The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He's got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books.
Rating 10/10
If there was only one fiction book I could read for the rest of my life, this would be it. It's funny. It inspires creative thinking. Its characters have depth. It has action. It has technology. There's nothing not to like. I can't wait to see what Amazon does with it.
