> Did you miss the downhill skateboarding in an office building? The nuclear-powered cyborg security drone? Hiro deflects a spear with a katana. There's a man with his own nuclear deterrence strategy.
Seriously, all these things are like you asked a 90's teenage what would be "kickin' rad". I loved the book, but in many ways it was just Stephenson saying, "Check out all this cool shit I thought up".
Of course. One of the themes in the book is the adolescent fantasies of male badassitude which follow them well into adulthood, with a diminishing but ever-present sense of possibility.
Not to sound too pretentious, because it definitely presents those fantasies in a sincere way, but the book also satirizes the idea; Hiro, a consummate badass who literally carries samurai swords with him everywhere he goes, is constantly placed out of his element, relying on other people to save his bacon. He frequently reflects that what he sees as his own badassness is probably down to just dumb luck, as the frequent deaths of his companions who are objectively more badass than him demonstrate. He behaves like an action movie character, but it's a sham; somewhere at the back of his mind, he knows he doesn't actually have what it takes to play at this level (a realization literally embodied by Raven). In the end, he wins only because he was actually a pretty good hacker.
Again, I'll agree the book is not conceptually perfect nor brilliantly executed, but it does got a lot more going on than it seems.
One of the themes in the book is the adolescent fantasies of male badassitude which follow them well into adulthood, with a diminishing but ever-present sense of possibility.
Actually I'm not sure that is a theme. There's a brief meditation on the theme of adolescent badass fantasies, but it's only used as a way of introducing a new character who is an even more ridiculous adolescent badass fantasy than the ridiculous adolescent badass fantasies that we've met up to this point.
The passage you're talking about is specifically about the fact that Hiro feels a sense of relief from the fact that he will never be more badass than Raven. That's a very particular angle on the situation, and you can read it at least partially ironically, because in fact it doesn't stop Hiro from trying to be, well, a hero, and if anything causes him to be more badass in the future.
But the book is full of male characters who die because they are trying to be or think that they are badasses. Raven is held up as an an ironic sort of idol; he demonstrates how badass you actually have to be in order not to die, and it's a comically excessive amount. And yet he's the only one who seems not to be motivated by that desire at all; he's just trying to get something done.
I don't think it takes a particularly close reading to see this theme; you just need to be willing to entertain the possibility that it's not just adolescent fantasy.
Seriously, all these things are like you asked a 90's teenage what would be "kickin' rad". I loved the book, but in many ways it was just Stephenson saying, "Check out all this cool shit I thought up".