Review: Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

[alyxmj]

Hiro Protagonist starts out as a deliverator - a hard core, no holds barred pizza delivery driver for the mafia - and it just gets more interesting from there. In this alternate world, most of America has been divided into separate sovereign states run by big name businesses and franchises. In the end though, this piecemeal world is just a backdrop for the more pressing issue: hacking the human race through language. Hiro and a young kourier named YT end up drawn into a much larger plot where the Sumerian language is presented as a kind of firmware code for the human race and they must try and stop a virus spreading throughout the nations people.

While it sometimes reads as a Wikipedia article, impressive considering it was published in '92, it also has a very tongue in cheek take on the cyberpunk genre. There are many small references that may be missed if this is your first cyberpunk, but it still offers an interesting and immersive story and setting that draws the reader through Hiro and YT's adventure.