Book,
Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book)
Spectra, (May 2, 2000)
Abstract
From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel <I>Snow Crash</I>, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, <I>Snow Crash</I> interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, <I>Snow Crash</I> is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible. 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 <b>Snow Crash</b> 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.<br><br>In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra 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. <b>Snow Crash</b> is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous...you'll recognize it immediately. <p>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 <I>Snow Crash</I> 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.</p><p>In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra 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. <I>Snow Crash</I> is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous... you'll recognize it immediately.</p><HR><p>"Stephenson has not stepped, he has vaulted onto the literary stage with this novel."<br> <I>LOS ANGELES READER</I></p><p>Ä cross between <I>Neuromancer</I> and Thomas Pynchon's <I>Vineland</I>. This is no mere hyperbole."<br> <I>SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN</I></p><p>"Fast-forward free-style mall mythology for the 21st century."<br> <A HREF="/author.cgi/9073">WILLIAM GIBSON</A></p><p>"Brilliantly realized... Stephenson turns out to be an engaging guide to an onrushing tomorrow."<br> <I>THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW</I></p><HR>
