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Cool book, I liked it a lot. Interesting story and setting, good noir mystery. I had to read it closely sometimes, to slow down a bit, which I (usually) like. Good art, primarily Western style but with some manga-influenced details, especially for example the last panel of the first issue/chapter. There are some minor problems in both the writing and the art. In a few spots the characters are too quick to anger and insults, unbelievably so. And at least once it was obvious that the writer, Pornsak Pichetshote, had a morsel from his research that he really wanted to include and it didn't come off as seamlessly as he probably hoped. I liked most of the art but there was one detail that bothered me: the artist drew a hatch in a sidewalk with rigid handles sticking up from the doors, creating an obvious significant tripping hazard. I don't understand why an artist would draw something like that. And then a few pages later the artist drew the same hatches with the handles at least twice as big as in the first drawings. Sure, overall quite minor, but I found it distracting.

I appreciated the pages of immigration history added at the end.

Boy-o-boy am I surprised I didn't like this more. Its rating here on Goodreads is very good. People whose opinions usually align with mine gave it 5-stars. 10 years ago I read Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon' and really liked it: I gave it 5 stars. Esquire put Snow Crash on their list "The 50 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time"!

Some of the ideas are pretty interesting, and the story outline is good. But the thing is, I just never really got into it. I found the writing to be bland. (Detail: The writing 'voice' of the robot dog felt like a person trying to write in the voice of a robot dog.) I found the protagonist Hiro to be kinda boring, the love interest was unconvincing, and the big bad never felt super menacing. I did like the Aleut assassin Raven, and kinda liked Y.T. I did not like their relationship though.

For me it's a middling 2+, rounded up to 3. For context: 1 star is 'did not finish', and 2 is 'I thought about putting it down but soldiered on', so 3 is the 'right' rating for me for this book even if it feels generous.

As for liking Cryptonomicon but not really liking this one: Cryptonomicon was published around 7 years after Snow Crash. I'm thinking, hoping, that it means that I like newer Stephenson books so I can maybe try another one some day.