laura_seabrook | Snow Crash

I finally finished Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson this morning. I can remember seeing this in the discard bins for years, but never getting around to buying a copy for $2. I still haven't as it was a library copy.

The style of this book reminds me of Mick Farren in it's combination of high/low tech and streetwise anarchic savvy. Very neat depiction of a dystopia that hasn't quite happened yet. It also depicts the Metaverse (apparently the term is coined from this novel) with avatars. Although Stephenson may not have invented the term, he popularised its use.

I found the description of the Metaverse interesting after having played Second Life. In the book the entire VR world takes place on a black sphere where everything is black until something is created there. There are subsystems (called daemons) at work that do automated tasks, but these (and almost everything else in the world) have been created by hackers.

There are nightclubs, businesses and homes in the metaverse. There's no flying or teleportation however, and avatars have either catch a monorail or have their own transport to travel any faster than walking (and also have to climb into and out of the metaverse to login/logout). Avatars become semitransparent in the main street to avoid traffic congestion but are solid otherwise, and can be "killed" in world, forcing the user a delay in logging back in.

The novel certainly paints a vivid description of both the metaverse and of a future America, balkanised by franchises and the disintegration of government. Somehow though, it ends flat when the current crisis is resolved. While it's tempting to want another chapter (what happens to Raven?) I can understand why it ends there.

Also, check out The Web Site of Aleph for some interesting essays about the book.