Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
"Snow Crash" is a science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson that delves into a dystopian future where the richest individuals inhabit a digital realm known as the Metaverse. The story follows Hiro Protagonist, a skilled hacker and pizza deliverer, as he grapples with debt to a Mafia-controlled delivery service while becoming embroiled in a larger conspiracy. Central to the narrative is a dangerous drug called Snow Crash, which not only affects users in the real world but also impacts their experience in the Metaverse. Hiro, alongside a daring Kourier named Y.T., investigates the origins of Snow Crash, which he discovers is linked to an ancient metavirus that manipulates language and thought.
The plot intertwines elements of ancient Sumerian mythology, suggesting that the drug is a modern equivalent of a viral linguistic control, originally suppressed by the god Enki. As Hiro and Y.T. attempt to thwart the ambitions of L. Bob Rife, a megalomaniac seeking to distribute the virus globally, they collaborate with various factions, including the Mafia and Japanese interests, to confront Rife’s plans. The narrative explores themes of control, information overload, and the intersection of virtual and physical realities, ultimately revealing the profound implications of language and communication on human consciousness.
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Subject Terms
Snow Crash
First published: 1992
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—cyberpunk
Time of work: The twenty-first century
Locale: California
The Plot
In Neal Stephenson’s cyberspace, called the Metaverse, the 120 million richest people in the world conduct their pleasure and business blithely unaware that L. Bob Rife, the owner of the fiber-optic network they all use, is plotting their domination. Meanwhile, Hiro Protagonist, a hacker who wrote some of the earliest software for the Metaverse, prowls about looking for intelligence to sell in an information-overloaded age. Hiro has a debt to pay: He owes the Mafia-run CosaNostra, the twenty-first century version of Domino’s Pizza, the cost of a new delivery car. Before he can repay his debt, he is swept up into a larger adventure. At the urging of his still-intriguing former lover Juanita, he begins investigating a new drug, Snow Crash, that has rendered his former partner, Da5id, brain dead. The ominous part about Snow Crash is that it affects the brain when administered in the Metaverse; in a twist on the typical relationship, the virtual determines the real.
With the help of Y.T., a Kourier who meets Hiro on the fateful night he wrecks his car, Protagonist steps on the trail of Snow Crash in both real and virtual life. In the former, he traces the path of Raven, an atomic-bomb-toting Aleut who seems to be the source of Snow Crash. In the latter, he employs a nearly omniscient virtual librarian to investigate the drug’s extensive history. He discovers that Snow Crash is not a drug at all but a modern manifestation of an ancient metavirus that provides access to deep structures in the brain that control individuals. Prior to the fall of Babel, all people spoke a language that used this infrastructure and thus lived in a static culture. The Sumerian priest Enki released humanity from the metavirus by uttering an incantation, or nam-shub, that reprogrammed the brain so that people could no longer understand the deep language. Consequently, multiple languages developed.
The metavirus continued because it has both a linguistic and a biological component. It was circulated mainly through the cult of Asherah, a throwback to Sumer, and spread itself both verbally and through sexual contact. Exposure to the metavirus returns the infected to a pre-Babelian state, bringing the mother tongue closer to the surface and thus causing the person to speak in tongues. In the twenty-first century, its chief manifestation is Pentecostalism, but in hackers the virus has a more devastating effect. Because knowledge of binary structures is “wired” into the brain’s deep structures, hackers can be infected by looking at a bit map. Although most people who are infected continue to function, hackers are reduced to a state of neurological mush.
The slow distribution of the metavirus is accelerated when a twenty-first century megalomaniac, L. Bob Rife, finds out how to manufacture it. Acting as a benefactor, he spreads it throughout the Third World via vaccines and infiltrates the First World via Snow Crash. As the novel opens, Rife is about to land a Raft full of infected Third World refugees on the West Coast in his larger invasion of the United States. To stop Rife, Hiro and Y.T. link up with the Mafia and the Nipponese, who have a vested interest in protecting their own global empires, to infiltrate Rife’s Raft. There they find Juanita. After an extended chase, they manage to release Enki’s nam-shub once again and thus free Rife’s followers.