Virtual Reality Books

Not only did I save money from buying from Amazon, it also arrived in time for my first class. Excellenct service.

For non-programmers who want to learn an object oriented language, Alice is a nice choice. At least as a pedagogic vehicle. As far as I know, there are no actual [or few] actual jobs for Alice programmers. But at the primary or secondary school level, Alice gets the main concepts common to many commercial OO languages across to students.

Herbert introduces these concepts at a deliberately slow pace. Suitable for most of the targeted audience. The screen captures of the user interface are quite pretty, and help to hold the reader's attention. As compared with learning C++, say, where there is no intrinsic GUI. Plus, the mapping of conceptual objects to graphical objects in Alice is its main attraction. Very intuitive.

For those of you who like psychological children's books, this brings up some excellent points about reality and manipulation, as well as ethics and friendship. It is well-written, though not the best I've read, and I would recommend Margaret Haddix (Shadow Children series) or William Sleator (House of Stairs). The end does get slightly confusing, but it won't be a problem for a careful reader.

Two 14 year olds take on the job of trying out a virtual reality game that hasn't hit the market. Little do they know that another person on the other side is trying to defeat them! Filled with suspense, this book is a must read. I just finished reading it today and I really liked it.

Previously, I'd thought augmented reality was the same as virtual reality. But Bimber corrects this oversight. Augmented reality has to do with physical devices that contribute to the perception of a real world scene. Whereas virtual reality discussions can, and often do, revolve entirely around purely geometric constructs implemented entirely in software.

So much of this book centres on display hardware. What types of displays are currently available that can augment your vision. Some are handheld, some are worn [i.e. heads up display], and some are for the tabletop. The HUDs are a disappointment, though this is a critique of the current technology and not of the text. The biggest hinderances to wider HUD usage are the weight and the power supply. Of course, the latter also restricts so much of other mobile devices.

There is also a light discussion about the maths involved in geometrical optics, so that you can make sense of some of the later passages in the book. Optics is also covered, but not at the level of Maxwell's Equations. Instead, it suffices to keep to the simpler level about Snell's Law and the like.

As expected in a book of this nature, there are colour plates showing typical output of various displays. Nice add-on that contributes to the relevance.

Augmented Reality is different from Virtual Reality in that part of the scene is "real" and part of the scene is computer generated. In Virtual Reality, the entire experience is computer generated. This is one of the very few helpful books on augmented reality that is not so academic and terse that it can only be understood by an optics specialist or a designer of specialized hardware.
Chapter one is simply an overview of the entire book. Chapter two is a brief overview of geometric optics that is intertwined with an explanation of how light and optics are used to form pixel images. It would help if the reader already had a knowledge of geometric optics along the lines of what is generally offered in college freshman physics. Chapter three then examines what is state-of-the-art in display technology for augmented reality systems. This is followed with geometric modeling concepts that show equations for stereo vision, interactive rendering, camera calibration, etc. that are necessary for placing the computer generated image in the realistic scene. Equations and instructive diagrams are shown throughout the book so that the reader can write his own code to produce the necessary computer graphics. The notation is clear and easy to follow. Also, snippets of OpenGL code are shown for quite a few of the algorithms. The reader should already be familiar with computer graphics algorithms and with OpenGL, as little time is spent in basic instruction on these subjects. The best and most unique parts of the book are the sections on holograms and on the simulation of motion.
In summary, I would highly recommend this book especially for those interested in the programming, algorithms,and geometric optics involved in augmented reality system design. I also suggest "Real-Time Rendering" by Tomas Moller for further reading, since that book contains algorithms that are essential to augmented reality systems.

I found this book to be an excellent aid for a MBA assignment I had to do in regards to the virtual workplace.

The book covers everything you need to know about the virtual organisation from defining what a virtual organisation is, through to preparing for the future.

The book explains how and why the virtual organisation has come about along with it's advantages and disadvantages and of course the all important question of managing the virtual employee.

The authors are very concise and there is excellent use of bullet points, checklists and summaries. This is an excellent starting point to gaining a good understanding of the virtual organisation and thoroughly recommended.

Here is the description the authors provide for the book: "This book aims to introduce managers to the trends leading to the creation of the virtual organization, as well as to concentrate on the better-known aspects of the concept, such a telecommuting, outsourcing, and strategic partnerships, which are in use today."

The definitional analysis of virtual organizations find little commonality beyond new structures that are faciliatated by improved telecommunications technologies, harnessing various forms of greater organizational flexibility, and requiring a higher level of trust to operate effectively. That's another way of saying that no two virtual organizations are the same. Nor should they be, because everyone company's situation is different.

The authors point out that the concept is not new. Companies like Nike have been employing this approach for many years.

The book goes on to explore the stalls that delay progress toward and in a virtual organization (such as problems in setting up successful alliances), dangers of having a virtual organization (especially the uncertainty and stress that it creates for employees and contract workers), and the irresistible forces at work that create demand for such an organization (globalization, technological trends, and volatile markets).

The book has a number of case histories that are effective in elucidating the authors' points.

The book also provides a useful personal developmental planning summary for your consideration while working in or with a virtual organization.

The book ends with a checklist to help you prepare for the future in this area. You will not need such an organization when there is no strategic fit with potential partners, you have all of the core competencies you need inside already, trust-sharing would be very difficult to create, there is a high probability of losing strategic knowledge, or the project is ill-defined.

Due to its brevity, the book can do little more than provide an overview of where the structure has been and why it has evolved that way. I graded the book down one star for having an overly narrow focus to be a fully useful introduction to the subject.

The perspective on the future evolution of virtual organizations is too limited to be of much value. That is a subject that Carol Coles and I address in The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, if you are interested in more.

The book is certainly a good overview of the subject if you have never seen a virtual organization. On the other hand, you could learn more in an hour by visiting one and seeing how it operates from the inside out than you could by reading this book. If you are truly interested, go visit three or more such organizations. Then, you can use this book to give you a framework for thinking about which aspects of a virtual organization could make sense for your organization. At that point, you will want to review books more specifically aimed at aspects of the problem, such as creating alliances, improving communications, and so forth.

Good luck in becoming more virtual!

Virtual politics - Identity and community in cyberspace, is a collection of academic writings from American, New Zealand and predominantly Australian academics on the topic of virtual reality and it's implications in society. The book was published in 1997 by David Holmes who is a senior lecture in sociology at Griffith University on Australia's Gold Coast and is an associate at both Melbourne and Edinburgh university's.

The book itself is form a series of books called Politics and Culture which is described as `A theory, culture and society series' dealing with major paradigms in politics, philosophy, international relations and tries to gain an understanding of citizenship, rights and social justice with a particular broad focus on globalization throughout the series.

One of the key themes of the book is that `electronically and digitally stimulated environments offer an important metaphor for understanding social relations' addressing sexuality, community and many social and communication issues, and often describes the internet and virtual reality as an extension of existing social structures.
The book has varying articles which range from Cyberdemoracy dealing with The Internet and the public sphere to Disembodiment in new virtual worlds provided by virtual reality. however the book is divided into two sections Part one `The self, Identity and body in the age of the virtual' and part two `Politics and community in virtual worlds'.
I found the book quite difficult to read and quite indepth and very theoretical. Much of the book is predicting the way in which virtual reality is going to affect society. In the areas of virtual community this book very much explored options to create academic debate and did it from a social science perspective which made the book often hard going for an undergraduate such as myself, also the change in conributors every chapter made it difficult to get use to the stlye of any one contributor.

Early in this section of the book we encounter the virtual community which is said to contribute to the speedy rise of the globalisation of information the book tries here to explain the virtual or cyber community specifically on the internet in relation to the social, political and technical conditions in info communities. One definition of a virtual community is that they are `Social aggregations that emerge from the net when people interact for long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace' creating a global village in a way as described by Marshall McLuhan. Largely in the first few chapters the authors agree that there is a general social trend towards abstract communities and that human association is becoming increasingly abstract, With globalisation on the rise the likelihood in the business world for the need for more face to face meetings occurs and with migration and accessible world travel we may suppose the opposite of abstract global communities however because of the occurrence of these intercultural meetings in real life the need to stay in touch and keep up contact results in more of a abstract virtual community or relationship within which
a culture of its own develops and it becomes a real communitiy influencing society....

This book is a collection of articles, but each is essential. The main discussion in this book is that of the concept of community. It is no longer, in cyberspace, what it used to be : people meeting at the same time, in the same place with common interests. It has to be redefined and discussed : the casual meeting of people from different places at the same time (though it is not the same clock time for each one of them) with no immediate and environmentallly-imposed common interests but with common intesrests that are selected by them and having to do with the topics each one of them is interested in at that moment of meeting. But this is a real community. And many articles show how the exchanges between these casually-meeting people can mutually influence the definitions they have of the topic, clarify the understanding they have of the stakes of the topic, and even modify their points of view and hence their attitudes in society when they get out of cyberspace. Cyberspace communities are thus becoming a permanent school based on exchanges, discussions and direct influence from one cybernaut onto the other or others. This has a direct influence on the definition of the individual and therefore on the definition of politics, because debates and information become the basis of the elaboration of one's political ideology and positions. Cyberspace is democratic in that way even if it is not based on voting but on confronting and exchanging. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.

I know nothing of Shadowrun, and I don't play RPGs, but this is still a fascinating book. Published in 1991, it's the sourcebook for a cyberpunk universe, but it's more interesting as an extremely dated, nostalgic cultural artifact, a reminder of a time, not so long ago, when the future seemed a lot more futuristic. Amongst the primitive Amiga-ed CGI and 'System Shock'-esque descriptions of 'Black IC', 'decks' and 'frames' is the sense that people once thought the internet would be more than just a home-shopping network, the sense that Japan would inevitably dominate the business world, and the sense that, in the future, people would have dreadlocks and wear thin, slitted sunglasses.

Wow!!! This supplement makes the matrix worth running. No Game master should ever have to go through what the basic rules ask him to go through in order to make the matrix work. The rules are so incredibly slow and cumbersome that only a computer geek could love them. This supplement is absolutely essential if you want your gamers to appreciate the decker class as anything more than "neat, but I'll hire out the work to an NPC the GM controls". Get it. Read it. Know it. Be a Decker. It's cool.

As a masters student studying international law, I never thought that virtual reality, cognitive therapy, or anxiety disorders would ever be of interest to me. Once I decided to write my dissertation on Legal & Social Aspects of International Peacekeeping Forces, I focused on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and issues relating to psychiatric disorders and effects that were problematic for peacekeeping forces post-deployment. I stumbled upon this book, searching for PTSD resources, and the idea sparked my interest. The book, written by a husband and wife team (a physician and a psychologist), shows the impact of anxiety disorders, what the current treatments are, and how virtual reality can massively improve such symptoms. I was shocked at the idea, but after reading this book (which is interesting, informative, and written in a way to which a non-medical individual can relate) I was sold. Virtual reality (I focused mostly on the PTSD studies) has the ability to take an individual who suffers from PTSD and slowly recreate the incident that causes them PTSD symptoms, providing an efficient, individually paced, and easily duplicated method of cognitive-behavioral therapy in order to "relive" the incident to better manage symptoms of PTSD. This book shows a multitude of various areas to which virtual reality has improved science (e.g. anxiety disorders, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias), which intrigues me, a person who has never studied psychology or any sort of medical science. I would recommend this book to anyone, medical minded or not, who has, in any way, a fear or phobia as well as an interest in the future of science.

As a psychologist specialising in treating anxiety, I found this book fascinating. It walks you through how to treat each type of anxiety disorder eg PTSD, driving phobia, phobias like heights and spiders etc. It is very thorough in describing how long a person should be exposed to the virtual reality environment, how to test if a person is truly appropriate for this type of treatment, and what to expect from the treatment. It also gives advice on what to do if things don't go to plan. I found this honesty very refreshing as most people will try and sell their new found item as the holy grail and tend to overlook drawbacks with their new form of therapy.
The only criticism I would have is that the book makes out that virtual reality is relatively cheap to get a basic system going. It also has a list of dealers from which you can buy from. Of this list of 12 or more dealers, only 2 are still in business. As for it being cheap, think again. I personally believe that unless you have some serious money to spend, then you are not even going to get a look in. Give it a few years and I think that VR technology will have caught up and be able to provide therapists with a much cheaper therapy tool.
So why buy this book then? I found that the book allows you to look at therapy in a completely different way, open your eyes to new possibilities. I have used VR and it is brilliant and does indeed work. It is brilliant for height phobics and people scared of flying. VR is a new and revolutionary form of treatment for anxiety offering amazing potential that would be rapid and cost effective (once the equipment is purchased). If you are an entrepreanaur, VR could be an area to look into.
The authors have done a brilliant job researching and writing this book.
Anthony Gunn
psychologist and author of Fear Is Power: Turn Your Fears Into Success

For those who are familiar with Baudrillard, being told that the Real is being murdered before our very eyes will come as no surprise. After all, let's be fair; Jean Baudrillard has been saying the same thing for quite some time now, and you shouldn't expect any surprises here. You've heard it before, in "The Transparency of Evil," "Simulacra and Simulation," "The Perfect Crime," et cetera.

Still, if before his position was characterized by what we might call a sort of nostalgia, now it would seem to be panic. You get the impression that Baudrillard suddenly realized that he may actually be right, and that this being the case, he may need to be understood by more than just his cult following and a few academics. The prose is uncharacteristically clear for Baudrillard, and although this may be in part because the selections are part of a series of lectures, one gets the impression that there is more to it. He wants to be understood.

At times, one cannot help but be reminded of Sci/Fi by the likes of Philip K. Dick or J.G. Ballard. It is hard not to think of the latter's novel "High Rise," for example, when Baudrillard asks apropos of cloning, "Have we come...to the same point at which animal species, when they reach a critical saturation point, automatically switch over to a kind of collective suicide?". That is, is cloning really, despite appearances, a symptom of what Freud called the Death Drive?

This is great cultural commentary. Thought-provoking and unsettling. For those of you who are new to Baudrillard, but were fascinated by "The Matrix," this book might be a great place to start investigating some of the possibilities that film suggests. As for those who, like me, know just enough Baudrillard to be dangerous (to themselves mostly), this might just be the most accessible thing by him in English that you've read so far.

4 Stars for content. 5 stars for presentation.

Although it is illuminating to peruse the range of philosophic thought throughout the ages, from pre-Socratic ponderings to Kant's analytical deconstructions, I cannot help but find many of these famed thinkers to be more interesting as _historical thought_ rather than paradigm-paths to set one's foot upon. Such is the price of time, of evolving cultural consciousness. Thinkers of the past are intimately tied to the world as it existed then; their procedures and puzzles grow and gel into the vast soup of the hyper-spun mind-verse, annexed and assimilated like so much else-; whereas, in this accelerated, pre-apocalyptic era, the crow caw of the post-postmodern ("meta" squared) philosopher addresses, to the forward-thinking inclination, the challenges party-crashing their way into the 21st century, the horrific changes already in embryonic phase...

French harbinger Jean Baudrillard is among my favorites of the current era's post-post prophets, the unflinching eye and unwavering cry to detail the vertigo of the so-called 'hyper-real.' Baudrillard isn't the easiest read: the good professor seems to prefer oblique allusion over clear-cut definition, in both idea and grammatical usage: an effective stratagem for expressing the nightmarish quagmire of the impending future, with all of its possible ramifications, but rarely something to breeze through at the bedside. In The Vital Illusion, however, Baudrillard (or, perhaps, his translator) has set his syntax to a more digestible format, and only occasionaly do these essays slip into metaspake-insinuation. Thankfully, the content of the book itself is not affected; indeed, this more straightforward approach lends a subtle dynamism to the ideas expressed.

The essays, in brief:

1. The Final Solution: Here Baudrillard casts to us, scions of the 21st century, the snake-eyes dice-roll of ultimate conformity: the chilling concept of living in "the Hell of the Same." As science strives toward the seductive apple of immortality, its juicy flesh of *primal desire* will be devoured and irrevocably transformed, via cloning and genetic refinement, into a frightening husk of its original promise, the metaphorical allure stripped clean, the remains w/out nourishment or natural constituent. With the eventual dominance of the 'artificial continuum,' the human element will be subsumed in turn, the core motivational urges of sex and death eradicated by their very obsoleteness, all original thought and spiritual cognizance reduced in turn to a cold white tunnel-vision, the zero-essence of widespread cultural monothought.

Worse, the blind arrow of this post-modern scientific drive exterminates the raw and the flaw of evolution for the controlled security of moderated, non-trauma sub-being: the clone: a fearsome involution. The key motivation here appears to be a surrealistic *suicide-drive* -- the collective unease at our historical prominence and ever-expanding ability: our subsequent subconscious _need_ to 'ready ourselves' for the impending, inevitable catastrophe resultant of this era's technological excesses. Thus, the Final Solution: sacrificing the whole diversity of specie, and indeed the fertile loam of the earth itself, for the Pandora's Box of limitless experimentation, a grand scale kamikaze wet-dream--; via commodity, cancerous replication, clone-reproduction and the causality therein, Nietzche's "human, all too human" factor erodes before the immortal-coil ambition, and Baudrillard warns that the consequential artificial hegemony will transform mankind into a mere genetic simulation of life -- "the Hell of the Same," ad infinitum... and ironically, our only remedy will be the survival-mechanistic *resistance* that both propels and retards human advancement.

2. The Millennium: Our philosopher endeavors, in a rather round about sort of way, to express how time has been mapped: our past by nostalgic reminisce and sentimental bias; our present in the glaring symbol-fractures of liquid quartz crystal; and our future...ah, the future...predicted and devoured accordingly, with all "current events" anticipated and presented with bare resemblance to the actual occurrence -- the event itself overhyped and saturated to the point of non-entity. Baudrillard also addresses the unfortunate mass confusion that even now pervades the knowledge-explosion of the mediaverse: how the loss of "utopia" and ideological theism has jeopardized the *vital illusion* of structure, shipwrecking the common man upon the unkind shores of nihilism. Alas, the cynical result (a mental entropy in and of itself) has already [irrevocably?] infected the mainstream herd mentality of both the "real" and its cyberspace equivalent.

In this new millennium, as the simulacra outstrips the original in replication/expansion, increasingly *clone-like* symbols -- of religion, commodity, etc. -- emerge to the forefront: and the original intent of these icons are diluted/raped and/or mutated into strange monstrosities of blind belief... A (very prominent) past example: the Nazis corrupting and in turn stigmatizing the hakenkreuz swastika of Hindu cosmology, transforming a powerful symbol of cyclical movement into a brand of hatred, genocide, and reactionary fear.

3. The Murder of the Real: Finally Baudrillard settles back into the comfort-zone of post-modernism, indulging in the safety net of metaspeak to detail a very un-safe concept: that the 'Real' is not only dead, it has vanished completely: the 'rules' terminated before the law of 'higher' realms (the virtual, for one, with all its criminal possibility & sterile generalization of humanistic motifs); all ideological structure hopelessly corrupted & replicated to the abstract point of having almost no resemblance with its original intent; language melted down to the base-communication of keyboard strokes and emoticon glyphs. The 'murder' is that of human *conception*, slain before eruptive expansion: there is simply too much -Real- to assimilate! It no longer can be catalogued and calculated; chaos has begun to rule. Shiva is on the dance-floor, folks, and Baudrillard suggests it might be better to slip on our suede shoes and boogie down to the beat, to celebrate disappearance and obsolescence as an artistic form, rather than succumb to the black-hearted ruin of spiritual capitulation. Shape chaos! We all do it anyway, to a greater or lesser extent...

...and so forth. Even if you don't agree with this bleak vision of the future, Baudrillard at least gives us entertaining concepts to introduce at the next dinner-party. Shake up the routine of endless pop-culture riffing, corrupt the small-talk routines! The crow's caw is never welcome, but neither can it be truly *ignored*.

This book is cool! You should try the red, yellow, and blue levels. But don't play the Abdomable Snow Woman, It's hard to win. P.S. I don't like V.R. any more. There's one thing for sure, you sure won't like it anymore!

(Just to start this don't think the Vegans are people from Vegas)You start out in a virtual reality store or is it?(there's two options you can pick from:Off Vega or The Abominable Snow Women)if you pick Off Vegas your in for a bumpy ride dont do anything stupid like try and escape they may be strong but they're chickens use the cartons to get past them dont hurt them either all they want is help.The Vegans need your help to beat their enemy.(The Arcturians) the Arcturians made a game if you lose you die that simple...but dont go looking for it the Vegans will take u right to it and (when you meet the lizard in one level(the red level) dont chop it up use the blaster) after you beat the Arcturians they're will be a little suprise waiting for you at the "Virtual Reality"palce all i can say is its a mess...Now about the Abominable Snow Women(you'll never guess who she is in reality)you meet a new friend in the Abominable Snow Womenhis name is Andy all you have to do in this level is kill her that seems simple enough dosent it? people who pick Off Vegas Good luck with the aliens people who pick Abominable Snow Women...you need all the help in the world I dont know which one is better to go with so its your choice READERS BEWARE YOU CHOOSE THE SCARE!!!...your you die before you get to choose(im just joking people)

Something good:
This book, written before the Internet was little more than a government and university project with a few commercial interests throw in, presents an almost precognitive look at a world interconnected via the computer. Some of the technology described, even if slightly off-base, rightly predicts what we are using and developing today.

Something bad:
I won't delve too much on the absurdities described with a supposedly ancient "hacker" algorithm being made to free mens' minds from the entrapment of a hypothetical space "virus". Nor will I go into the rancid historical references used to back up this laughable proposition (there are more intelligent people than me who have detailed this in reviews here already.) But to suppose that by 2012 (this is a guess based on evidence in the story since the date isn't listed anywhere I could see) that the entire US government would be minimalized to the point of vestigial worthlessness because of over privatization, and that society would be fractured into competing commercial "franchises", run by agencies such as the Mafia none-the-less, is just silly. Sure there's room for satire (I'm pretty sure Stephenson was not a fan of the Reagan era), but an author has to at least give a more realistic time line to work with. This is supposed to be a natural deterioration here, not even post-war, yet, somehow, all democratic society withered away in 20 years.

Something awful:
Contrived plots and silly ideas are one thing. Writing them down in such a poor and inconsistent manner is inexcusable. There are times when the characters will completely shift their narrative and their personality. Just going from the first chapter to the next couple presented such a fundamental change that I have to believe that the first was written years apart from the rest of the book.

Later in the book Stephenson can't seem to find a better way to express his largely contrived ideas than to expound upon them in a fashion that I can only relate to a Socratic dialogue (in tone if not in substance.) First there's the main character, Hiro, talking back and forth with an AI librarian for chapters at a time trying to formulate this Sumerian plot point, then later we get the same type of performance except now we have the heads of a few of these world controlling franchises playing the parts of the librarian. Stephenson couldn't think a better way to get his ideas across than to create lengthy (and quite boring) dialogues?


To conclude, I'm not sure why this book is so beloved. The writing is immature, and the ideas supporting the plot are untenable. If it wasn't for his view of an interconnected virtual world this book would be worthless.

I started reading Snow Crash with high hopes. It was picked by Time Magazine as one of the top 100 English-language novels and two friends had recommended it to me. It seemed like a safe bet.

Woops.

Snow Crash is a nonsensical stew of crackpot ideas and sophomoric escapist fantasies. If you want well-drawn characters and an engrossing plot, look elsewhere. This book is nothing but a jumbled assortment of "cool ideas" strung together in a ridiculous plot filled with two-dimensional caricatures. It's the literary equivalent of a lowbrow Hollywood blockbuster: a bilious torrent of pseudo-intellectual sensory overload spewed at the audience to no particular effect.

If you're a twelve year old boy or a fan of crackpot philosophy then you'll probably love this story about samurai hackers riding around on motorcycles chopping up zombies infected with a religious virus. If that doesn't sound totally freakin' awesome to you, save yourself the 468 page effort and skip this turd.

Stephenson earns two stars for prescience, but this book is a loser.

Snow Crash is a cyberpunk science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson, originally published in 1992. It involves virtual reality and computer science, religion (particularly ancient Mesopotamian religions, Sumerian in particular), linguistics, and philosophy.

Stephenson writes in the present tense, a technique that is typically annoying and inferior, but which Stephenson pulls off reasonably well. This is not to say, however, that Snow Crash would not have been better served by being written in the standard past tense. It's close.

The world Stephenson has created is vivid and interesting. Society has degenerated into anarcho-capitalism; virtually every aspect of government has been relegated to the private sector. Elements of Stephenson's Metaverse are present in today's internet. Stephenson holds the reader's interest with his colorful characters, including his main character, the sword-wielding hacker Hiro Protagonist.

A cast of interesting people doing interesting things is, ultimately, enough to carry the book, which is good, because Stephenson's take on philosophy, religion and linguistics falls flat. Stephenson obviously did a lot of research, which he presents as page after page of lecture from the Librarian character. He's gotten some things fundamentally wrong, however, most notably the development of early Christianity. And his concept of a real-life virus as code is downright silly.

Ultimately, Snow Crash is seriously flawed, but well worth reading.

First, let me say that this book has the best first chapter of any book that I have ever read. After you read that chapter, it goes down slightly in quality.

Perhaps Mr. Stephenson rewrote that chapter again and again, or perhaps he wrote it for something else. Regardless, it HUMS. And it feels different from the rest of the story. Darker, more dangerous, just as satirical, but not quite as funny.

Past that, though, the story hardly breaks down. It is entertaining throughout, very amusing in most places, and harbors characters that I will probably never forget. I had previously read a single Neal Stephenson book (The Big U), which I also loved. Every time I see one of his new books come out, I have the feeling that I should buy it. (I had this same feeling with Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, and Kazuo Iguro's Never Let Me Go...now adays, I simply listen to that little voice, obviously).

The story never gets bad, it is entertaining throughout, the characters are original and interesting, so why not five stars? Well, two reasons. First, I don't think that any of the characters develop, at all, in the course of the book. Things happen, people die, and no one changes. Not something that I ordinarily like to give five stars to. Second, while it is terribly fun, it is not terribly relevant. There is nothing here that made me think, "Hrmmm..." in the realms of personal thought or thoughts of import. Again, not something that I like to give five stars to. If I could, I would, also, give it four and a half stars. If only Amazon would give us ten stars to use!!!

I read this book, enjoyed it, and discovered why it is on Time's list of the 100 Best Books in English since 1923 - Because it is good! So, I will be lending it, recommending it, and reading it again. It's definitely worth picking up.

B+

Harkius

Hiro Protagonist is a free-lance hacker for the CIC (the Central Intelligence Corporation) and pizza delivery guy for the Mafia, a concert promoter, and other things to make ends meet. He is also the greatest swordsman in the world of the not too distant future. Most nation states have fallen apart and corporations have taken over running things. Hiro and his sidekick Y.T. are in up to their necks in a plot to take over the world by a "computer virus" as old as civilization itself.

In this very original thriller that smacks of Lethal Weapon and the Matrix (although written in 1992) Neal Stephenson weaves together Sumerian myth, hackers, Pentecostalism, the world of organized crime, and an America that is scarily recognizable into a fast-paced intelligent story that will keep you turning the pages far into the night. The only problems are that Stephenson is sometimes needlessly crass, and the ending of the book is so abrupt it leaves a lot of loose ends that left me gasping for breath and a little put out with the author.

I enjoyed it immensley, but it left me unsatisfied with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.