Snow Crash
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4.2 • 128 Ratings
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
THE 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION WITH NEW, NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED MATERIAL
After the Internet, what came next?
Enter the Metaverse - cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons, where anything and just about everything goes. Newly available on the Street - the Metaverse's main drag - is Snow Crash. A cyberdrug that reduces avatars in the digital world to dust, but also infects users in real life, leaving them in a vegetative state.
This is bad news for Hiro, a freelance hacker and the Metaverse's best swordfighter, and mouthy skateboard courier Y. T.. Together, investigating the Infocalypse, they trace back the roots of language itself to an ancient Sumerian priesthood and find they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.
In this special edition of the remarkably prescient modern classic, Neal Stephenson explores
linguistics, computer science, politics and philosophy in the form of a break-neck adventure into the fast-approaching yet eerily recognizable future.
'Fast-forward free-style mall mythology for the twenty-first century' William Gibson
'Brilliantly realized' New York Times Book Review
'Like a Pynchon novel with the brakes removed' Washington Post
'A remarkably prescient vision of today's tech landscape' Vanity Fair
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In California of the near future, when the U.S. is only a ``Burbclave'' (city-state), the Mafia is just another franchise chain (CosaNostrastet Pizza, Incorporated) and there are no laws to speak of, Hiro Protagonist follows clues from the Bible, ancient Sumer and high technology to help thwart an attempt to take control of civilization--such as it is. When he logs on to Metaverse, an imaginary place entered via computer, Hiro encounters Juanita Marquez, a ``radical'' Catholic and computer whiz. She warns him off Snow Crash (a street drug named for computer failure) and gives him a file labeled Babel (as in Tower of Babel). Another friend, sp ok/pk Da5id, who ignores Juanita's warning, computer crashes out of Metaverse into the real world, where he physically collapses. Hiro, Juanita, Y.T. (a freewheeling, skateboard-riding courier) and sundry other Burbclave and franchise power figures see some action on the way to finding out who is behind this bizarre ``drug'' with ancient roots. Although Stephenson ( Zodiac ) provides more Sumerian culture than the story strictly needs (alternating intense activity with scholarship breaks), his imaginative juxtaposition of ancient and futuristic detail could make this a cult favorite.
Customer Reviews
Great story hasn't dated
Good characters and interesting story. Loved it.
You can do better, iBooks...
I'd just like to start off by saying - Snow Crash is one of my favourite books, and NS one of my favourite authors. It was really tempting to just instinctively give it a maximum rating.
However, I can't give this version of it 5 stars. I have to agree with the previous reviewer that whoever turned it into this electronic copy really didn't do a good job, and there are miss-scans and typos are all over the place. It makes it extremely difficult (and annoying) to read.
As the first book I've bought from iBooks, this is really disappointing and really makes me think twice about spending money on more books.
I really hope they update this to fix the mistakes, for those of us who have handed over the cash for it. If they do, I'd have no hesitation in giving this book a 5 star review.
I would definitely recommend Snow Crash, but do yourself a favour and don't buy this version. Either wait for it to be fixed, or just buy the actual paper book!
Exciting book, couldn't put it down
Shame about the typos