Now in a gorgeous new hardcover edition featuring never-before-seen material the brilliantly
realized” (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal
Stephenson a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon
Valley innovators Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the
eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states where
law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions. Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a
living defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords.
His home is a shared 20 X 30 U-Stor-It. He spends most of his time goggled in to the Metaverse
where his avatar is legendary. But in the club known as The Black Sun his fellow hackers are
being felled by a weird new drug called Snow Crash that reduces them to nothing more than a
jittering cloud of bad digital karma (and IRL a vegetative state). Investigating the
Infocalypse leads Hiro all the way back to the beginning of language itself with roots in an
ancient Sumerian priesthood. He’ll be joined by Y.T. a fearless teenaged skateboard courier.
Together they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.
