[notahacker]

I dunno, I find Snow Crash dates much better than most cyberpunk - William Gibson included - precisely because the ridiculousness was intentional. Neal no more believed we'd actually be living in an anarcho-capitalist dystopia with samurai-wielding hipster-heros delivering pizzas for the Mafia than Aldous Huxley believed we'd actually be letter-graded and programmed into praising his Fordship from birth.

Some of the space opera, on the other hand, was so earnest and certain that we'd be flying around at light-speed by now you feel almost disappointed for the authors.