The verdict
The funniest and most quotable cyberpunk novel, with one genuine idea under the jokes.
Quick facts
- First published
- 1992
- Publisher
- Bantam Books
- Series
- Standalone
- Best for
- A faster, funnier door into cyberpunk than Neuromancer
- Skip it if
- You dislike long digressions, or want the women treated as well as the men
Author Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash is Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel about a pizza delivery driver who is also a hacker, a swordfighter and, by his own account, the last freelance intelligencer worth hiring. Hiro Protagonist co-wrote the software that the world now lives inside. Then someone starts distributing a drug that works in the real world and in the virtual one at the same time, and it happens to be a language.
The idea behind it
The novel’s best invention is not its technology but its tone. This is cyberpunk played for laughs, and the jokes are load-bearing. Franchises run countries, the mafia deliver pizza because they are the only organisation left that can guarantee a thirty minute window, and everyone accepts this as normal.
Under the comedy there is a real idea: that a sufficiently old language can be run as software, and that a society can be reprogrammed the way you would reprogram a machine. Stephenson takes that literally, from Sumerian tablets to a virus that spreads through both a computer network and a population, and the book is serious about the mechanics even while it is being funny.
The story, spoiler-light
Hiro and Y.T., a fifteen-year-old courier who is the most competent person in the novel, end up working the same case from opposite ends. A drug called Snow Crash is being pushed through the Metaverse, the shared virtual world Hiro helped build, and the trail runs back through the Pacific and into a private enterprise with its own navy.
The plot is a chase with a lecture in the middle, and the lecture is the part people either love or skip. Stephenson stops the story to explain Sumerian myth, information theory and the history of religion, in long confident paragraphs. It is either the best or the worst thing about the book depending on your patience.
What makes it science fiction
The Metaverse is the famous contribution, and it has aged into a familiar idea rather than a startling one, which is the usual fate of good predictions. What holds up better is the structure of the world: not a dystopia imposed from above but a bazaar of privatised authority, where law enforcement is a subscription and the street is a market.
The novel is also unusually physical for its period. Hiro carries a katana, the fights are fought with real blades as often as with code, and the book is not embarrassed about enjoying itself. That appetite is why it still reads well.
Who should read it, and who should give it a miss
Read it if you want the friendlier door into cyberpunk, or if you like a book that is clever and knows it. Snow Crash is faster, funnier and far more forgiving than Neuromancer, and it is the better first stop if dense prose puts you off.
Give it a miss if you dislike digressions, or if you want the female characters treated as well as the male ones. It is a 1992 novel with 1992 habits, and the middle section stops dead for a lecture.
Where to start, and what to read next
Start here, then read Neuromancer if you have not, because the two books are the argument the genre has been having with itself for thirty years. Snow Crash is the answer, Neuromancer is the question, and both are worth your time.
If you liked the satire more than the cyberpunk, The Diamond Age is Stephenson’s follow-up in the same territory and is the better constructed of the two.
The verdict
The funniest and most quotable cyberpunk novel, with one genuine idea under the jokes. Read it for the world and forgive it the lecture in the middle.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the word Metaverse come from?
This novel. Stephenson coined it in 1992 for the shared virtual world his characters enter, and it has since been taken up by the technology industry, which he has commented on with some amusement.
Is Snow Crash connected to Neuromancer?
Only as a reply. It is not a sequel and shares no characters. It answers the earlier book’s mood with satire rather than despair, and the two are best read as a pair of arguments.
Do I need to know anything about Sumerian myth?
No. The novel explains its own research at length, which is the divisive part. Readers who enjoy the digression get a great deal out of it; readers who do not can skim to the next chapter without losing the plot.
Does it stand alone?
Yes. It is a complete story with no sequel and no series to keep up with.
Where can I buy it?
It is available in paperback and as a Kindle edition, and the buy links for Amazon.com and Amazon.in are on this page.