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Re:The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk by jvanderbot on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @05:00PM (#30924957)
I just don't like snow crash. Does that make me an outlier? The whole thing was silly and far too jrpg for my taste.

I mean, stealing the whole "skitchn" thing and slapping "Smooth move, ex lax" on a car when they try to shake you is just campy.

"Poor impulse control" -- just slapstick comedy at that point.

Re:The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk by throwanem on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @05:22PM (#30925218)
It is campy and frequently cheesy, and I think probably influenced somewhat by anime which was in the 80s and early 90s both very different from what it is now, and still in the US a very niche sort of taste in that you had to be somewhat "plugged in" even to have heard about it - it wouldn't hit more widely until the mid- to late-90s Web boom made awareness and access much more broadly available.

That's part of the fun in my view, but it's equally fair just not to like it - de gustibus etc. Or maybe it's just a timing thing; I first read it when I was young and it was new, and maybe that has as much to do as anything with why I liked it so well and still regard it fondly.

Re:The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk by nimithryn on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @06:09PM (#30925715)
Snow Crash was apparently originally envisioned as a graphic novel, hence the tone
Re:The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk by TranquilMarmot on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @06:55PM (#30926188)
I always read Snow Crash as a bit of a parody. Over the top, but in a fun way. It's definitely not a serious novel like Neuromancer is.
Re:The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk by grapeskin on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @06:55PM (#30926190)
It felt like a hyperactive 14 year old’s anime fanfiction.

Fun for five pages, but when that tone keeps going, my brain just ends up feeling burnt out.

Re:The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk by pmoriarty on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @07:25PM (#30926456)
My feeling exactly. I don't get why adults would like this book.
Re:The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk by sleepybrett on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @06:58PM (#30926216)
it does not, it's a shit book. Diamond Age is better though.
Re:The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk by AlanYx on Wednesday April 06, 2022 @11:52AM (#30933594)
I don't think you're an outlier really. IMHO the problem with Snow Crash is that it hasn't aged well. I enjoyed it in the mid-90s, but I recently re-read it, and found it hard to get through (until the very end, anyway). It feels like a frozen-in-time product of the early 90s in a lot of ways, not just in terms of the technological outlook but also with respect to some of the social aspects addressed in the book. There's also very little character development; at one point, for example, a character kills another character in a bar over a threat, and at no point later on does he experience any kind of mental or moral anguish over his first experience of killing.)

Neuromancer on the other hand has aged incredibly well. The ICE tech doesn't make much sense, but the characters feel honest and real, and so many actual contemporary issues (AI ethics, transhumanism, transgender issues, mass surveillance, anonymous coordinated activism, economic oligarchs heading into space, even a tank war in Europe!) resonate throughout the book in ways that don't feel dated.

Re:The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk by novok on Wednesday April 06, 2022 @11:10PM (#30940227)
Neuromancer was never really about technology according to the author, and that is probably why it feels the same.

Ironically although, I had a hard time reading Neuromancer while snow crash was a breezy fun read in high school