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SoylentNews Book Club - Discuss: Snow Crash, Start Reading: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

posted by martyb on Saturday January 05 2019, @11:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the discuss! dept.

takyon writes:

February: Fiasco by Stanisław Lem
March: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse #1) by Dennis Taylor

Discuss Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson in the comments below.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein was published in 1966:

The book popularized the acronym TANSTAAFL ("There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"), and helped popularize the constructed language Loglan, which is used in the story for precise human-computer interaction. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations credits this novel with the first printed appearance of the phrase "There's no free lunch", although the phrase and its abbreviation considerably predate the novel.

The virtual assistant Mycroft is named after a computer system from the novel.

Previously: Announcement post • Mars, Ho! • Foundation • The Three-Body Problem

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday January 07 2019, @01:27AM (3 children)

    by Mykl (1112) on Monday January 07 2019, @01:27AM (#782957)

    I got on to Snow Crash after Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (which I absolutely loved). I enjoyed Snow Crash, but not quite as much as Cryptonomicon.

    It's always entertaining seeing different authors' takes on the ubiquitous VR world that we will all live in sometime in the future. Some good ideas in the book, and an intriguing plot.

    My main problem with the plot, however, was:


    From memory, Hiro's ex-girlfriend, Juanita, deliberately exposed herself to the virus and mind control program in order to infiltrate the organisation planning to carry out its agenda. Somehow she managed to train herself to break out of the control, but I don't think it's ever explained how she managed to actually do that. Sorta seems like an unacceptably high risk, somewhat akin to agreeing to become an actual crystal meth addict in order to infiltrate a gang on the hope that you'll be able to kick the habit later.

    Happy to be proven wrong by anyone who has read the novel more recently!

    Interested to hear what others think.

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  • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Monday January 07 2019, @07:38AM

    by coolgopher (1157) on Monday January 07 2019, @07:38AM (#783078)

    Wasn't that after they'd decoded it and thus could neuter it to some degree?

    Now it's been many years since I read Snow Crash, so I could be off base here...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07 2019, @04:04PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07 2019, @04:04PM (#783221)

    She already knew the language from her Babylonian studies, and so could control the neurolinguistic virus.

    • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday January 07 2019, @11:38PM

      by Mykl (1112) on Monday January 07 2019, @11:38PM (#783464)

      Thanks - that rings a bell.

      I'm still not buying it though. Just because you know how a virus works, that doesn't mean you can't be infected.