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Snow Crash is a cool story set in the future, where the world governments are virtually non-existent and corporations rule in their own individual "worlds". In this futuristic world there truly seems to be two worlds: the normal physical world and the Metaverse, an Internet that's been fully pumped up from today's concept into a 3-D world with avatars where people go and interact. This futuristic Earth is the home of Hiro Protagonist, Y.T., Raven, Da5id, and Juanita. Hiro Protagonist and Juanita are both elite hackers that have given up programming for corporations after having left the corporation that Da5id ran in the form of "The Black Sun". They were both involved in the evolution of the Metaverse, Hiro creating sword fighting algorithms and the "undertakers", and Juanita developing facial expressions for avatars recognizing their importance in communication. Hiro and Juanita also were lovers surrounding the time that they were developing these pieces of the Metaverse. Hiro has given up being a programmer for corporations though and at the start of the story is a pizza delivery man, working for a corporatized Mafia which controls all pizza delivery. He ends up meeting Y.T., a Kourier who ends up delivering a nearly late pizza for Hiro after Hiro ends up crashing his car. Y.T. attracts the Mafia's attention after having delivered the pizza just before it's time expires while Hiro loses his job. After a new drug appears both in the Metaverse and in a physical form, Juanita and then Hiro set out to take down the leader of the cult behind the drug for their own reasons. Also, the Mafia together with a few other corporations decide to also take on this cult leader using Y.T.'s skills to get through some tough jams. The story unfolds into the distant past, tying the origins of man and language to the new drug cult tying religion, language, and computers together in a very intresting way. I really liked this book and how it tied aspects of language, religion, and modern day computers together. It was an interesting way to tie them together and sparked a bit of an interest in the origins of civilization. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good story and isn't afraid of Stephenson's writing style. Lynn suggested and loaned this book to me after finding out that I had read Cryptonomicon and that I had liked it so much. And to be fully honest, Sarah also had suggested/talked about it a long time ago and I don't know why I didn't read it back then. :P |