Book Review: "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson

27 Jun 2011

The second Neal Stephenson book I read, Snow Crash didn't fail to impress after Anathem.

Synopsis

Snow Crash plays out in a not-too-distant future where super-inflation has ruined the world economy, the United States of America exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, the Mafia controls pizza delivery, and the Internet is virtualized as the "Metaverse", an online world where hackers rule.

When Hiro Protagonist, a hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza delivery driver, witnesses his best friend frying his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash, he sets out to track down its origin.

Accompanied by "radical" Catholic and computer whiz Juanita Marquez and skateboard-riding courier Y.T., Hiro follows clues from religious texts, Sumerian history, the Metaverse and high technology in an attempt to thwart a conspiracy to take control of civilization… or what's left of it.

Memorable quotes

"I don't even want you to nod, that's how much you annoy me. Just freeze and shut up."

"'Did you win your sword fight?' ... 'Of course I won the fucking sword fight, I'm the greatest sword fighter in the world.' ... 'And you wrote the software.' ... 'Yeah. That, too.'"