Let me start off by saying that when I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, I was laughing from the first couple of pages. I mean the fact that the main character is named “Hiro Protagonist” alone is hilariously over-the-top to me. Hiro works as a Delivarator, or as we normally know it as a pizza delivery boy, but instead of getting a free pizza if it takes longer than thirty minutes for delivery, you can kill the Delivarator and take whatever you want of theirs. Now you might be thinking that the people of this world take pizza very seriously, but you would too if the pizza place was run by the Mafia. Like I said before, this book is amazing because how exaggerated the characters, story, and setting are. The story is set in Los Angeles in the 21st century, but it is no longer part of the United States. Instead, the federal government of the U.S.A has ceded a majority of its power and territory to private organizations. These organizations are then divided into franchises, which are run individually through a person, or manager and the organization can close or hold that franchisee responsible instead of taking the hit themselves. The police force is scares in a majority of the areas except for a few, so immigration in not managed in a lot of the areas.
The territory that ceded from the government is also divided into sovereign regions, or city states, and each is run by its own business franchise. The entire social and governmental hierarchal structure is very capitalistic because everything is run by a major industry and even the government and police force are under the industries power. This world has even redefined classes and races, and like the book they are over stereotyped and exaggerated as well.
Hiro is a free-lance hacker who worked for a pizza place, until he is fired after he meets a seventeen year old girl named Y.T. (Yours Truly) who helps him deliver a pizza. In this world Stephenson has created a place for his characters called the Metaverse, which in some way is a version of the internet or a multiple player game. In my eyes, it’s a very intense and technical version of World of Warcraft, but just like that game you get lost in the world and lose a sense of reality (I had a friend who played World of Warcraft for seventeen hours straight; he was a mess after that). Each player has an avatar and can either customize it, or get a pre-made avatar but upgrades are available. There are two major functions in the Metaverse: one is access to restricted environments such as an exclusive Metaverse club (Black Sun), and two is technical acumen which can be often shown by the level or complexity of one’s avatar. For Hiro, his avatar is almost exactly like him and is the best sword fighter in the Metaverse, which is not saying much because he wrote the code for it.
So far the only knowledge of the title of the book is that “Snow Crash” is a computer virus that can now affect humans. It is a “pseudo-narcotic” that is being offered in exclusive nightclubs in the Metaverse.
cyberpunkmads34 