A cyberpunk novel by NealStephenson.
In a future dominated by practical and popular virtual reality, someone has begun to kill hackers using an advanced virus. Hiro Protagonist, last of the freelance hackers and the greatest swordsman alive (according to his business card), finds himself in the center of this problem. Throw in a 15-year-old delivery girl, a biker who carries a nuclear warhead, and a dozen other denizens of this strange new world, and you've got an interesting book on your hands. Now throw in the Tower of Babel, some allusions to TheOriginOfConsciousnessInTheBreakdownOfTheBicameralMind, and the religious conspiracy theory to end 'em all, and you've got an interesting and very weird book on your hands.
Snow Crash is considered one of the two great Cyberpunk novels of all time, along with WilliamGibson's Neuromancer, and is alternately considered the first great post-cyberpunk novel.
There's a lot more in Snow Crash than cyberpunk. I (GarethMcCaughan) enjoyed all the Sumerian business immensely, for instance. (Yes, it's ludicrous, but so what? It's just plausible enough to work.)
Hmm. I found the Sumerian mumbo-jumbo tiresome in the extreme. -- KB
It's funny how fast sci fi dates. They're using videotape? -- tarquin
The story is already dated within the first few pages. Right aroud when Snow Crash came out, pizza delivery time guarantees were made illegal. No more "Thirty minutes or less, or your pizza is free." Take it from someone who delivered pizza off and on for ten years. And minivans for moms in the burbs? Nowadays they drive SUVs. -- ElizabethWiethoff
Huh? It's illegal in ${jurisdiction} for pizza delivery companies to offer such an SLA? I'd love to read the mighty deliberations of the legislators that came up with that. -- KeithBraithwaite
Pizza delivery people in the US - at least at the time, this is not so true any more - lived off of the delivery tips. "30 minutes or the pizza is free" means the delivery person has to get there or doesn't get paid. Add to this that the majority of pizza delivery people were unskilled drivers in their teens, and the SLAs indirectly caused a lot of injury and death.
I have a /Spoilers question...
Is there anything wrong with copying contributions from other Wikis to this Wiki? -- BrentNewhall Brent, there are issues of copy "right" or something, that need to be considered. . . MarkDilley
Excellent point, Mark. According to Wiki:WikiCopyRights, we can reference data on Ward's Wiki, but we cannot reproduce it. So, we can't migrate content, but we could become a sister site, which would elegantly solve the problem. Laurent? -- BrentNewhall
We certainly could. Note also that migration of pages has been seen to occur, with previous Sisters of Ward's Wiki. -- lb
I migrated some of my book reviews (most notably InColdBlood) from Ward's Wiki to here, but I was very careful to just take my contributions. IIRC, I took some of my writing here on [Dashiell Hammett]? and moved it to WikiPedia:Dashiell_Hammett. I'd have to check, but I was fairly certain I paraphrased one to the other. -- SeanO'Leary
I'm still waiting to hear back from Ward about the SisterSite? idea; I never had a reply to my first email on it. I'm wondering if I should ping Ward or resend that email. C2 has been a source of concern to Ward recently, so there's a matter of timing involved. -- lb
I find myself wondering what would be gained by becoming a sister-site? Bookshelved might gain more publicity and more contributors but at what cost? I personally prefer the slow organic growth that this site has had. It's meant that whilst the rules of the game have often changed the changes have not disrupted the essence of the game or markedly altered the demographic profile of the players. Consequently just about everyone on Bookshelved knows and has met 'in the flesh' at least one other player. I suspect/fear that when this web of acquaintanceship snaps we'll have more discussions along the lines of AnesthesiologyReview. But I could be wrong.--ade
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