Oryx and Crake

Oryx and Crake was probably my favorite book that I read during this semester. The concept of the world as we know it ending and starting a new seems so plausible and like it could happen at any moment. The way this book is set up was very intriguing. By starting in the middle of the story and working in back story and leading up to where they started kept it interesting. Throughout the whole book I was kept on the edge of my seat wondering how things got this way. The characters Crake, Jimmy, and Oryx were very dynamic and had so many aspects to relate to that really pulled me into the story. I really felt like I was there with Jimmy experiencing what he was experiencing, tried to work through and understand what is happening and trying to understand how it all relates to his past. I was always looking forward to the passages about his past and his experiences with Oryx and Crake. I loved reading the stories about Oryx's past, and just like Jimmy I wanted to know more about her, understand why she is how she is.
Also there are many great quotes in this novel, such as this one that talks about society, "Human Society, they claimed, was a sort of monster, its main by-products being corpses and rubble. It never learned, it made the same cretinous mistakes over and over, trading short-term gain for long-term pain. It was like a giant slug eating its way relentlessly through all the other bioforms on the planet, grinding up life on earth and shitting it out the backside in the form of pieces of manufactured and soon-to-be-obsolete plastic junk." I found it very interesting because in my business class I was writing a paper about urban development and how it affects the cultures and the environment. This quote seems right on with human society and how we are damaging the world.
I find the different concepts and studies of humans as a whole and the problems with our species to be very interesting this book definitely highlighted many concepts and ideas that I have thought about in the past and presented them in new ways. I have already recommended this book to many of my friends and I intend to read it again when I get a chance.

Snow Crash

I really enjoyed reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, there were so many things to relate to. The whole concept of the metaverse reminds me of current mmorpg's. It seems like it will only be a matter of time before something similar is developed in our own world. We have the power to create it we just need to work out the details. The world is already tied together by the internet, and millions of people have access to it. The only thing we seem to be lacking is making the sensory parts, we have technology that can sense our bodys mostions and apply them in a game, such as with the Wii but it still isn't perfect. I deffinately believe that if a metaverse was created in our world I would join. Yet there are other parts to the story other than the metaverse, yet all of it seems to be tied together. This was one of the things that made the story confusing at first, Stephenson would jump back and forth between the real world and the metaverse and it could be hard sometimes to tell which you were in.
Overall I really enjoyed the characters in the book, especially Y.T. now it may just because I myself am a teenage girl but I found myself wanting to be her. Crusing along on a board down the high way, working with the mafia, meeting the Raven. Y.T.'s skateboard is one of my favorite technologies in the book. You can go anywhere over any terrain as if it is a smooth surface, it is as if it is a part of you as you move, it moves. I cannot wait untill something like this is developed in the real world, I can't actually skateboard but this sounds like something I could manage.