Snow Crash (1992) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Hiro Protagonist: Pizza delivery driver. Resident of U-Stor-It. Hacker extraordinaire. Greatest sword fighter in the world.
• Y.T.: Skater chick. Coyote trickster. Too young to be out that late. Real hero of the novel. Don't mess with her!
• Uncle Enzo: Owner of a pizza chain and the Head of an organized crime family
• L. Bob Rife: Magnate; Installer of the Fiber-option communication network making the Metaverse possible. Also the leader of the Raft - a floating "city" moving around the pacific rim.
• Raven: Aluet mercenary. Major antagonist.
• The Librarian: Precursor of Google embodied. The Librarian in the Library of Everything.
• Ng: Security technician of Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. Owner of Ng Security Industries
• Juanita: Ex-girlfriend of Hiro
• Enki: Sumarian deity.
• Hiro Protagonist: Is a totally bad *** hacker. He is a warrior prince in the metaverse, and is renowned as being one of the first hackers. Both in real life and in the meta verse he carries two swords.
• Bruce Lee: Leader of a pirate crew.
• Eliot: The captain of the ship that Hiro and the mafia use to attempt to board the raft.
• Mr. Caruso: Add a description of this character.
• Vitaly: Musician and Hiro's roommate.
• Wayne
• Clint
• Tony
• Vic
• Adam
• Gurov
• Chuck Wrightson
• Kramer
• Dale T. Thorpe
• Livio
• Clem
• Bonnie
• Frank
• Mr. Pudgely
• Da5id: Hiro's friend and previous boss.
• Lagos: A "gargoyle" gathering information on Snow Crash.

Quotes edit see section history

• “When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery.”

  (Narrator)

• “"Wait a minute, Juanita. Make up your mind. This Snow Crash thing—is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?"Juanita shrugs. "What's the difference?"”

  Hiro and Juanita

• “"These guys aren't scared of the Mafia, if that's what you have in mind," Eliot says. "That's just because they don't know us very well."”

  Fisheye and Eliot

• “As Hiro approaches the Street, he sees two young couples, probably using their parent?s computers for a double date in the Metaverse, climbing down out of Port Zero, which is the local port of entry and monorail stop.”

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• This Snow Crash thing—is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?” Juanita shrugs. “What's the difference?”

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• Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.”

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• Besides, interesting things happen along borders—transitions—not in the middle where everything is the same.

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• Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martialarts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.

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• The world is full of power and energy and a person can go far by just skimming off a tiny bit of it.

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• The franchise and the virus work on the same principle: what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder—its DNA—xerox it, and embed it in the fertile lining of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a left-turn lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines.

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• There's only four things we do better than anyone else music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery

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• They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hip-hop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree killers, space walks, buffalo jumps, drive-bys, cruise missiles; Sherman's March, gridlock, motorcycle gangs, and bungee jumping. They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture.

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• Condense fact from the vapor of nuance.

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• But in the bleak light of full adulthood, which is to one's early twenties as Sunday morning is to Saturday night, he can clearly see what it really amounts to: He's broke and unemployed.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• The Raft: A series of boats strung together around a ship bringing "Refus" to LA.
• The MetaVerse: A SecondLife-like virtual reality world
• Kowloon: A Yacht owned by Mr. Lee's company.
• America
• California
• Pacific
• Fedland
• Texas
• Oregon
• Narcolombia
• New South Africa
• Port Sherman
• Houston
• United States
• Astoria
• Windsor Heights
• Flatland
• The Black Sun

Organizations edit see section history

• CosaNostra Pizza Inc.: Like being in a family. A really scary twisted abusive family.
• Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong: A private, wholly extraterritorial, sovereign, quasi-national entity not recognized by any other nationalities and in no way affiliated with the former Crown Colony of Hong Kong, which is part of the People's Republic of China.

First Sentence edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Metaverse: A virtual reality.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Corruption: Describe this theme.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Startide Rising (The Uplift Saga, Book 2), and followed by Rats and Gargoyles.

Preceded by The Stand, and followed by The Martian Chronicles.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Neal Stephenson (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) (Finalist, 1993)
• Clarke Award (Finalist, 1994)
• Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire (1997: Foreign-language Novel)
• Arthur C. Clarke Award (Finalist, 1994)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: 91045453
• Dewey: 818'.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Contains various things that may be considered inappropriate for children, and possibly some young adults including sexual metaphors, drug use, violence and sex.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Authors, A-Z › ( S ) › Stephenson, Neal
• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Science Fiction › High Tech

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