During the student led discussion on Monday the issue of Asian representation in Snow Crash was brought up. The concern was voiced that depicting Asians as a single race was reverting back to when Westerners refused to differentiate between Asians. While in many attempts the book does reject stereotypes, there are still unyielding definitions of race. While I wholly agree that these are legitimate observations, I feel that Stephenson made the subversive decision to not distinguish between any of the races.

As I was reading Snow Crash, the most consistently jarring ( as in, taking me out of the story ) aspect was Hiro's swordplay. Though he's the greatest hacker in the world ( both real world and Metaverse ), he's equally proud of being the greatest swordsman. He carries his katanas everywhere, and uses them extensively-- not just in the Metaverse, but the real world. A modern-day samurai, with the emphasis on " modern-day ".