Neal Stephenson’s novel, Snow Crash, is compared to William Gibson’s Neuromancer on the back cover. This was enough to get me started - not to mention that the book was recommended by a few of my co-workers. I was expecting a fresh take on science fiction, and that’s exactly what the book delivers.

Snow Crash blends together Stephenson’s approach to virtual reality, Sumerian myth, the Mafia, pizza delivery services and the age-old hero-saves-girl-from-villain motif. While some of the writing is a bit repetitive, mostly spots of uninspired dialogue, his ability to throw all of these things into the mix and make them entertaining is pretty much downright amazing.

What I personally found really exciting about this book was that it was published 17 years ago, and yet many of the things Stephenson describes in the book hadn’t occured yet! For example, he depicts a virtual reality space that he dubs the Metaverse. in this space, real-life people are controlling characters called avatars. Well, back in 1992, places like Second Life and World of Warcraft didn’t exist. So this was all a part of Stephenson’s imagination, or his ability to predict the future. The amount of detail that he employs to describe this future world is overwhelming.

The other great thing about this book is that it has a good sense of humor. There is a lot of wordplay and irony with the plot and even the names of the characters. The main character is named Hiro Protagonist, and his sidekick is a 15-year old caucasian female named Y.T. (short for Your’s Truly, of course). And the story begins with Hiro as a pizza delivery guy, and ends up with him masterminding a scheme to save the world from a maniacal villain bent on destruction. Snow Crash is the name of a drug that only works on hackers or people who understand binary code. If you’ve ever stayed up until 5 AM watching basic cable before, you have undoubtedly seen a snowy signal. Well, this is what happens to the minds of those who ingest the drug. I wouldn’t advise taking that trip, but if you’re into science fiction, give Snow Crash a read.

4/5 Stars. 470 pages. Published 1992.