When comparing Snow Crash vs Neuromancer, the Slant community recommends Neuromancer for most people. In the question“What are the best cyberpunk books?” Neuromancer is ranked 2nd while Snow Crash is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Neuromancer is:
Neuromancer lays much of the foundation of Cyberpunk as a genre in terms of language, themes and setting. The term "cyberspace" gained enough significance through this book that it is still being used to describe Internet. Cyberpunk staples such as megacorporations, anti-heroes as protagonists, artificial intelligence and high-tech, low-life neon-filled cities that never sleep take their iconic shape here. Its significance was acknowledged by it becoming the first novel to win the Nebula, the Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award science fiction awards.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro More fun than traditional cyberpunk novels
The greatest success of Snow Crash, however, is that it's fun... for a certain type of reader, at least. In defiance of all the rules and protocols of science fiction writing, Snow Crash is like crack for geeks precisely because it doesn't do things the way they're supposed to be done. The break-neck opening chapters, those massive infodumps on Sumerian religion, information theory and everything else were -- from my perspective at least -- a vertiginous rush the first time through, and I still get a kick out of them now after maybe six re-reads.
Pro A seminal work in the cyberpunk genre
Neuromancer lays much of the foundation of Cyberpunk as a genre in terms of language, themes and setting. The term "cyberspace" gained enough significance through this book that it is still being used to describe Internet. Cyberpunk staples such as megacorporations, anti-heroes as protagonists, artificial intelligence and high-tech, low-life neon-filled cities that never sleep take their iconic shape here.
Its significance was acknowledged by it becoming the first novel to win the Nebula, the Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award science fiction awards.
Cons
Con Sumerian history infodumps might not be for everyone
The book includes a lot of information about Sumerian history that simply might feel like a history lesson to some.
Con The way technology is described is somewhat dated
To describe technology Gibson uses language that might have been considered futuristic back in the day, but seems out of place in today's technological world and vision of the future.