Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson (1959 - ) is a singular writer. His fiction is shelved, for categorical convenience, in science fiction/fantasy here at Whistlestop Bookshop. He has written novels which have transformed the field of science fiction, historical novels which upend conventions of historical parameters, and contemporary novels which embarrass many of the current tropes and concerns of MFA literature. He is also an essayist with a wide range of interests. His breakthrough book was Snow Crash (1992), which coined and conceived the workings of “metaverse.” It also signaled his passion for ancient history, for outsiders, and for how systems work and decay and repair themselves and what they are (or are becoming) after being repaired. Ambitious stuff. And Stephenson is unafraid of Big Ideas.
Snow Crash Deluxe Edition
Snow Crash Deluxe Edition
Now in a gorgeous new hardcover edition featuring never-before-seen material, the “brilliantly realized” (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators
Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.
Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30 U-Stor-It. He spends most of his time goggled in to the Metaverse, where his avatar is legendary.
But in the club known as The Black Sun, his fellow hackers are being felled by a weird new drug called Snow Crash that reduces them to nothing more than a jittering cloud of bad digital karma (and IRL, a vegetative state).
Investigating the Infocalypse leads Hiro all the way back to the beginning of language itself, with roots in an ancient Sumerian priesthood. He’ll be joined by Y.T., a fearless teenaged skateboard courier. Together, they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.