Snow Crash...

This novel is somewhat of an odd one to me. The plot is quite strange and has some unusual layers of depth from what I've read. The whole idea of the virtual reality-esque metaverse is, while interesting, a bit flat to me. While this is definitely a very cool premise and world, I can't help but feel it's a little generic at this point. This perhaps is not the novel's fault though, as it was released in 1992- long before many movies, games, and other series adopted the virtual reality premise. This arguement is actually very similar to my opinion on The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit being somewhat generic to me at this point. While those are generic fantasy, Snow Crash falls into generic sci-fi to me. Movies like the Matrix have delved into this subject matter before. So many games I've played deal with stories of vitual reality and simulators, such as Perfect Dark and Mass Effect. Especially games like World of Warcraft, which I've never played, have practically brought the term 'avatar' into the mainstream... James Cameron's new movie, entitled Avatar, just goes to show you show mainstream and overexposed the whole virtual reality concept is at this point. So I can't help but feel a little burnt out or put off by Snow Crash, because it shares its premise with something so overdone to me.

The one more interesting aspect of the novel was the idea of the drug itself, snow crash. More specifically, the idea that the 'drug', so to speak, has some kind of paranormal ability to affect users both in the metaverse and in reality. This reminds me of the game novel I read not to long ago, Mass Effect Ascension. In that novel there was a drug called red sand, which gave its users temporary biotic abilities, such as telekenesis. The idea of drugs granting these abilities or affecting the user in a more uncommon way such as these two novels is an interesting notion. It gave Snow Crash a bit more flare for reading to counter the somewhat blandness of virtual reality for me.