(7) Snow Line
You may think you can skim Stephenson's wacky prose and not miss a thing. You may also think that you could climb Mount Everest with only two weeks of mountaineering training under your belt. In both cases, you'd be dead wrong.
Snow Crash is a novel filled with complex ideas, which are expressed with complex language. Sure, some of that language is slang that doesn't exist yet, and some of those ideas are voiced by social outcasts such as hackers and skateboarders, but take our advice and slow down to enjoy the ride as well as maximize your reading comprehension. Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to have a basic knowledge of linguistics, religious studies, World War II history, computer coding, and the laws of physics. Just sayin'.