My favourite part of Snow Crash, however, lies in the secondary characters, namely Uncle Enzo, L. Maybe it was her gender, or her youth, or just the fact that I liked her better than Hiro, but I always felt more concerned when she was captured by the villain than when Hiro's life was threatened.

She's a fifteen-year-old street smart skater (a Kourier) who's smarter and perhaps even bolder than Hiro. The secondary protagonist, Y.T., is more interesting. In this respect, I think that Snow Crash's target audience, the wannabe-cool hackers of the '90s, would identify a great deal with Hiro. He's an uncomfortable mix of competent and idiotic, and his relationship with the Love Interest, Juanita, is uninteresting. The primary protagonist, named Hiro Protagonist for reasons I never quite comprehended, isn't a great character. and it works, which may be the most surprising observation of all. Somewhere along the way, Stephenson infuses archaeology and a little linguistic mysticism. The book has nary a dull moment, beginning with an epic pizza delivery (yes, pizza delivery can be epic when the Mafia owns your pizza franchise!) and concluding with a helicopter/aircraft carrier battle and escape. While I suspect he was quite liberal in his interpretation of Sumerian history, he nevertheless weaves that interpretation into a compelling story, complete with heroism, high-risk sword combat, and crazy technological gambits to take over the world. Aside from the fact that Stephenson reveals it mostly through exposition, the plot and themes were quite interesting.

The plot of Snow Crash entranced me once I figured out what was going on. I had to compensate for my exposure to more advanced technology before I could enjoy this book. In other words, Snow Crash presents a dated version of cyberpunk.

As such, I first found Neal Stephenson's depiction of virtual reality as camp, reminding me much of Net Force and its ilk. Hence, it took some time for the book to endear itself to me, because my reaction to the Metaverse, a virtual reality, was filtered through my experiences with the Internet. I entered the Metaverse ignorant of the fact that Snow Crash was first published in 1992 (i.e., pre-Internet).

Snow crash by neal stephenson