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Snow Crash
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| Author: |
Neal Stephenson |
| Publisher: |
Roc UK, 1992 |
| Series: | |
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This book does not appear to be part of a series. If this is incorrect, and you know the name of the series to which it belongs, please let us know. |
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| Awards: |
1993 BSFA Nominated 1994 Clarke Nominated |
| Sub-Genre Tags: | Cyberpunk Light/Humorous SF |
| Member Rating: |
   (20 reads / 14 ratings)
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Synopsis
Only once in a great while does a writer come along who defies comparison--a writer so original he redefines the way we look at the world. Neal Stephenson is such a writer and Snow Crash is such a novel, weaving virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility to bring us the gigathriller of the information age.
In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about Infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous...you'll recognize it immediately.
Excerpt
The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed sub-category. He's got esprit up to here. Right now he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books.
When they gave him the job, they gave him a gun. The Deliverator never deals in cash, but someone might come after him anyway - might want his car, or his cargo. The gun is a tiny, aero-styled, lightweight, the kind of a gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane, and when you get done using it, you have to plug it in to the cigarette lighter, because it runs on electricity.
The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger, or in fear. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. Some punks in Gila Highlands, a fancy Burbclave, wanted themselves a delivery, and they didn't want to pay for it. Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat. The Deliverator took out his gun, centered its laser doo-hickey on that poised Louisville Slugger, fired it. The recoil was immense, as though the weapon had blown up in his hand. The middle third of the baseball bat turned into a column of burning sawdust accelerating in all directions like a bursting star. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. Stupid look on his face. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator.
Since then the Deliverator has kept the gun in the glove compartment and relied, instead, on a matched set of samurai swords, which have always been his weapon of choice anyhow. The punks in Gila Highlands weren't afraid of the gun, so the Deliverator was forced to use it. But swords need no demonstration.
The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.
Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. He is a roll model. This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it - we're talking trade balances here - once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwaves in Tadzhikistan and selling them here - once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel - once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani bricklayer would consider to be prosperity - y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else
music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery
The Deliverator used to make software. Still does, sometimes. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.D.s, the Deliverator's report card would say; "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills."
Copyright © 1992 by Neal Stephenson
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Snow Crash in Blogs
- boogaj: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
I just finished Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash last night and I'm torn. I actually enjoyed the book for the most part, but it had some serious problems which destroyed the flow and took you out of the world he created... - Neal Stephenson 'Snow Crash' (VX heavens)
Neal Stephenson "Snow Crash" (book cover). snow: n... 2.a. Anything resembling snow. b. The white specks on a television screen resulting from weak reception. crash: v... -infr.. . . 5, To fail suddenly, as a business or an economy. ... - Listen to the Lion: Time's All-time 100 novels: Neal Stephenson's ...
Time's All-time 100 novels: Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash". I'm sure that reading Snow Crash upon its 1992 publication would have been a much more exhilarating experience than reading it 10 years into the 21st century. ... - Speculative Fiction Junkie: Review - Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson Why am I reading Snow Crash now, more than fifteen years after it was first published? Well, for starters I was a mere twelve years old when it was first published in 1992. This point aside, however, the decision to read ... - Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson Neal australian Space genre comic Fiction
... works in the postcyberpunk genre with a penchant for explorations of society, mathematics, cryptography, currency, and the history of science. View original here: Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson Neal australian Space genre comic Fiction. - Book Review, “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson
Somehow, I've gotten to be 52 years old, and I think I'ma decent geek (I used to be a bit-twiddling systems programmer back in the day) as well as a Sci-Fi fan, and I managed to miss reading Snow Crash for 18 years (published in 1992). ... - Raiding the Library : Neal Stephenson's worlds, Part 1 : Critical Hits
I've long been a fan of Neal Stephenson's work. To this date, his Snow Crash and Age of Diamonds novels are, by far, my favorite Sci-Fi stories . I've read Snow Crash every two years since it's first printing as a paperback and I've ... - Snow Crash
My familiarity with Neal Stephenson began with Cryptonomicon , which at the time came much more highly recommended to me than Snow Crash . The former doesn't quite count as “science fiction”; it was more like a techno-thriller consumed ... - Be a “Snow Crash” Gargoyle with the Help of VHoldR's New Wearable ...
[Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash]. Okay, well, maybe not quite yet. But VHoldR is trying to get you there with their new selection of accessories for the (extreme sports) gargoyle wannabe. VHoldR is offering a waterproof case, ... - Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
A postponed session, not unfortunately due to snow (how perfect that would have been), but just because I was away in Wales at the time. Taking place instead on the second week of January, the discussion on Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash ...