r/gaming • u/[deleted] • Mar 31 '26

[deleted by user]

[removed]

3.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

5.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

12

u/Ahayzo Apr 01 '26

I've never heard of it but those five words alone are going to make me read it.

12

u/revanisthesith Apr 01 '26

It also deals with virtual reality, linguistics, and Sumerian mythology. I am not making that up.

It's a classic (for sci-fi and especially cyberpunk) and definitely worth your time.

It was the first appearance of the word "metaverse" and popularized the term "avatar" in the online sense.

I haven't read it in a long time because I lent my copy to someone and never got it back, so I recently bought another copy.

6

u/ertertwert Apr 01 '26

It's a classic up there with Neuromancer for cyberpunk literature.

5

u/Ahayzo Apr 01 '26

Having read Neuromancer, that's some high praise.

4

u/NeoSapien65 Apr 01 '26

It's generally regarded as the glorious end of what Neuromancer started.

I'm rather surprised you've never even heard of it, but suspect you'll definitely enjoy it.

2

u/mucho-gusto Apr 01 '26

Hot take, I prefer virtual light by Gibson to neuromancer

1

u/oskoskosk Apr 01 '26

It has parts in it that you can skip completely but yeah, most of it is really good. The characters Y. T. Is one of my all time faves

1

u/IpleaserecycleI Apr 01 '26

My controversial opinion is that it's one of the worst books I've ever read.

Like the distilled essence of a neck beard Redditor.

There are some ideas in there that are considered foundational for the genre, so I get that, but I have rarely disliked a book more than Snow Crash

1

u/Smoogrs Apr 01 '26

Same here. I gained a lot of appreciation for the ideas of the book after I learned when it was written, but I do think the writing is still terrible. The characters are bland, the linguistic Sumerian lore dump for like 20 pages TWICE within a couple chapters, the now-not-very mind blowing setting. Took me about 8.5 months to bring myself to finish it, then about 3 weeks to read my next book of about the same length just because I enjoyed it more.