Snow Crash

The only relief from the sea of logos is within the well-guarded borders of the Burbclaves. Is it any wonder that most sane folks have forsaken the real world and chosen to live in the computer-generated universe of virtual reality? In a major city, the size of a dozen Manhattans, is a domain of pleasures limited only by the imagination. But now a strange new computer virus called Snow Crash is striking down hackers everywhere, leaving an unlikely young man as humankind's last best hope.

THE 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION WITH NEW, NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED MATERIAL

After the Internet, what came next?

Enter the Metaverse - cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons, where anything and just about everything goes. Newly available on the Street - the Metaverse's main drag - is Snow Crash. A cyberdrug that reduces avatars in the digital world to dust, but also infects users in real life, leaving them in a vegetative state.

This is bad news for Hiro, a freelance hacker and the Metaverse's best swordfighter, and mouthy skateboard courier Y. T.. Together, investigating the Infocalypse, they trace back the roots of language itself to an ancient Sumerian priesthood and find they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.

In this special edition of the remarkably prescient modern classic, Neal Stephenson explores
linguistics, computer science, politics and philosophy in the form of a break-neck adventure into the fast-approaching yet eerily recognizable future.

'Fast-forward free-style mall mythology for the twenty-first century' William Gibson

'Brilliantly realized' New York Times Book Review

'Like a Pynchon novel with the brakes removed' Washington Post

'A remarkably prescient vision of today's tech landscape' Vanity Fair

Auteur

Neal Stephenson is the author of New York Times bestsellers including The Diamond Age, Zodiac, Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World, REAMDE, Anathem, Seveneves, Fall: or Dodge in Hell, and Termination Shock, as well as nonfiction works such as In The Beginning . . . Was the Command Line. He has worked for Blue Origin and Magic Leap, and more recently co-founded Lamina1, a startup creating an open Metaverse platform.

Résumé
&quote;This Snow Crash thing--is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?&quote; Juanita shrugs. &quote;What's the difference?&quote;The only relief from the sea of logos is within the well-guarded borders of the Burbclaves. Is it any wonder that most sane folks have forsaken the real world and chosen to live in the computer-generated universe of virtual reality? In a major city, the size of a dozen Manhattans, is a domain of pleasures limited only by the imagination. But now a strange new computer virus called Snow Crash is striking down hackers everywhere, leaving an unlikely young pizza delivery man as humankind's last best hope.The perfect cyberpunk sci-fi read, Snow Crash is an equally worthy successor to William Gibson's Neuromancer and predecessor to Ernest Cline's Ready Player One.***What readers are saying about Snow Crash:'It's hard to believe Neal wrote his books when the published date claims. He's always so right about the future, and I keep on hoping he's so wrong' Goodreads Reader Review'Snow Crash is to Books as The Matrix is to movies (with only the absolute BEST parts of Tron and Da Vinci Code thrown in)' Goodreads Reader Review'Loved it! Can't recommend it highly enough. Everyone should read this book. Go do it. Do it now. It's just awesome. You won't regret it' Goodreads Reader Review'It's hilarious and mind-blowing. From the first page to the last, I was amazed at just how much influence this book has had on TV, movies, etc.' Goodreads Reader Review