Snow Crash

For starters, this is a great title for a book . I just happened upon the author, Neal Stephenson (there are links to interviews with him on his homepage), when someone left a book written by him in a hotel room. That book, Cryptonomicon, just grabbed me and didn't let go until several hundred pages later. I was gratified to learn, through an NPR piece, that it was among Nancy Pearl's favorite books in the sci-fi/fantasy genre (although clearly there are large doses of history wrapped up in there). Snow Crash is clearly set in a future world that doesn't sound all that pleasant; I'm reminded of the bleak picture of our future presented in Blade Runner (the movie based on Dick's novel: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep). Those who can afford it, escape to an elaborate virtual world, the Metaverse--something that wouldn't seem foreign to inhabitants of Second Life--all the more remarkable because this book was written almost 20 years ago. Hiro Protagonist (nice name :-) is a sometimes computer programmer, sometimes pizza delivery person, and sometimes information source for the CIA; he's adept with samurai swords. The US government is holed up in a compound. Megachurches and megacorporations are running the world. Hiro's sidekick is a 15-year old Kourier who delivers packages on her skateboard--don't even think you know about skateboards until you read about her model. They are trying to figure out who or what is behind the attack on one of the world's leading computer programmers, causing him become a gibbering idiot in a hospital after he watched black and white "snow" on a computer in the Metaverse. It's a wild ride in more ways than one and wildly creative, with just one serious flaw. There is a much too elaborated tie in to the ancient Sumerian language and various biblical and other mythology that just drags, sometimes for several pages. Normally, I like this kind of historical fiction reference, but I was lost and got annoyed. So you either need to really be into this particular brand of religious mythology or just skim over it like I did. It's definitely worth reading. There's a lengthy and excellent overview of the story line at the Complete Review.