Name : Snow Crash

Author: Neal Stephenson

Genre : sci-fi/cyber-punk

Pages : 400+

Language: English

Publication Year: June 1992

Is Review Spoiler: No

Movie based on this book : –

Awards :

Rating: 4/5

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Published shortly before the dot.com boom, this book is the realistic look at the future of Internet, Games, Humanity, Religion and off course pizza delivery business. Snow Crash – a cyber punk novel is third novel by Neal Stephenson which I read so far other two are Cryptonomicon and Anathem.

The book is set in futuristic America, where everything is owned by private companies. In this world everything is for rent – the army, the police, the highway’s, everything except for pizza delivery business because it’s monopolized by the mafias.

Story revolves around Hiro – the pizza delivery boy and last of the freelance hackers and world’s greatest sword fighter in metaverse (he wrote the code) as well as in real world. He happens to be the only guy who standing between metaverse and a dangerous ancient virus called ‘Snow Crash’.

As with other Stephenson books, this books ending was little disappointing, was expecting one or more chapter’s to conclude the story apart from this I liked this book a lot. The research and technical details covered in this book are accurate except for few details here and there but we need to keep in mind that this book was written around 1988 before the internet craze and the contents in this book are way ahead of the time when it was written/published. The research done on historical & philosophical content in this book are real amazing, specially the content on Sumerian mythology and culture.

One more amazing thing about this book is the way Stephenson ‘re-engineered’ the Sumerian legends to fit into the story line is really ingenious. I read and re-read few chapter in this book and I deliberately slow down My reading to process more data, so if you are looking for something light and simple read – then this isn’t it. this book is thought-provoking though this book is published a decade ago. at certain point while reading this book, you will definitely think ‘what the/how the hell this guy come up with this?’, overall an amazing and thought provoking read. if you are sci-fi/cyber punk fan then this book is for you!

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 CosoNostra 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!

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