by David Furritus

Created on: February 04, 2010

“There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music, movies, microcode (software), and high-speed pizza delivery”

Prophetic words from Neil Stephenson’s rather bleak, yet hopeful look at the world of “almost tomorrow” in his masterpiece, Snow Crash”.

In Snow Crash, Stephenson plunges the reader into a world that even William Gibson would have to do a double-take in. America has declined to the point where inflation has gone so high, that carrying around a million dollars is almost commonplace – mostly, because if you want to buy up a car, you better be ready to lay down a billion dollars. Large chunks of the former Los Angeles area have been purchased by random nations and formed into conclaves that are essentially their own countries. Pizza delivery services are run by the Italian mafia and woe unto any driver that fails to deliver their pizza in under thirty minutes.  For the rich, there are cyborg guard dogs, for the poor there is great housing opportunities in storage units. And, in all of this we find our two main characters, Hiro Protagonist, and Y.T.

Hiro Protagonist is a hacker, pizza “deliverator”, band promoter, master swordsman, creator of the “metavers” (think internet+ virtual reality), and general loser. His father was African American and his mother Korean (or Niponese as they’re called in the novel). He spends most of his time making do with whatever he can by taking pizzas to hungry people of the conclaves, promoting his roommate, Vitaly Chernobyl’s band, and hanging out in the swankier parts of the Metavers.

Y.T. is a fifteen year-old “Kourier”. Kouriers are the extreme of the extreme. They make deliveries all over the conclaves at extremely high speeds by riding skateboards that they attach to the backs of fast moving cars with magnetic harpoons. Her mother works for the Central Intelligence Corporation (formerly known as the CIA, prior to America more or less collapsing).

Two interesting and deep characters that literally run into each other one night and are drawn into an incredible world of insidious computer viruses, religious intrigue, and a legend tied to the Tower of Babel – seriously.

While hanging out in the Metaverse, Hiro runs into an old friend and programming associate that gets handed a “card” (ie, program) with something called “Snow Crash” on it. His friend opens the card and his personal

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