So I picked up a copy of Snow Crash today

Pizza Delivery is serious business.

You aint kiddin

I'm very surprised that no one has created a Hiro Protagonist character in SL, although there's a Hiro Pendragon and a Higbee Protagonist, and...and...

I wonder if there was, at one point, but he left SL? Anyone know?

The name and connection is just too apt to not use.

I enjoyed Snow Crash immensely, but The Diamond Age is still my fave.

what's it about?

Zuzi, more info here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash

I've held the view that it's more about a parallel reality than a future-set thing (as much as I consider it cyberpunk, or post-cyberpunk, or parodic cyberpunk or whatever) for the reason that minivans are still in marketing prominence -- as opposed to SUVs -- yet Bart Simpson is no longer around in the capacity that, well, Homer holds in our timeline.

I met a Juanita Protagonist back in Beta, which I thought was a pretty good name.

Oh, I'm glad you're still here!

I've always felt that Stephenson's novels are interdependent. Cryptonomicon depicts a world very similar to our own, in which computing is as advanced as it is now, but certain revolutionary ideas are just beginning to gain acceptance. Of these ideas, the data haven is the most important. As is mentioned in the novel, the existence of a data haven makes it almost impossible for the state to collect income taxes, as income can be immediately shifted to digital form, and protected using unbreakable cryptography.

I believe that the events in Cryptonomicon precede the events in Snow Crash by approximately 10 to 15 years. In the time between the two novels, we witness the increased impotence of government, and the rise of free enterprise. The power shifts from the federal government to the people, who then trade that power to these corporate identities for employment and housing. When Snow Crash begins, the power transfer is almost complete. The burbclaves and franchulates are almost completely autonomous, and all formerly public utilities become privatized.

Finally, we see the evolution of these ideas in The Diamond Age. The reckless and lawless behavior of the franchulates (e.g. Cosa Nostra and Narcolombia) is reined in by the Common Economic Protocol, a sort of metalaw by which all persons and quasi-national franchises must abide. The Protocol serves as the nucleus of new social growth. From the chaotic anti-society of Snow Crash, a hundred new nations crystallize. These phyles are the direct descendants of the original burbclaves and franchulates. They represent a compromise between the national governments which existed before Cryptonomicon, in which people are brought together by common ancestry or heritage, and the Libertarian/Anarchic societies of Snow Crash, in which people unite out of necessity. The result are micro-societies in which people of like ethos and disposition coexist peacefully. Members of society who disagree with the principles of society are free to leave that community, and join a new one. As far as chronology is concerned, we can assume that roughly 50 years pass between the events in Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. As evidence, consider Nell's teacher/mentor, who was a Kourier when she was much younger. We also glimpse the beginning of yet another societal evolution, in the form of Nell and the mouse army. Perhaps Stephenson will some day come back, and write about the next step in societal evolution.

Even the Baroque Cycle demonstrates this focus on the evolution of society. Though these books deal with so many topics, one of the underlying threads deals with the end of monarchy and the rise of the republic. The economic adventures of Eliza provide insight into the nature of economy and society during the Enlightenment, and the impending changes which society is about to undergo.

Indeed -very serious business!


Come check out SNOW CRASH Trivia event .


SNOW CRASH Trivia

I looked for Snow Crash yesterday in the library.
It was checked in, but the author was either listed (or dyslexicly read) as "Stephan Neal" instead of "Neal Stephanson" so I never found it. D'oh!

From the Wiki


Uh oh. If I'm incapable of finding it at the library, I should take that as a warning that I probably don't have the smarts to follow such a book anyway.

The name Hiro Protagonist has been registered and left for dead.

Hiro Protagonist? Cute.
Maybe I'll read this book after all. Author sounds like a real wiseass.

Well, I'm at just about at page 100, and I'm starting to definately see why people have drawn so many comparisons between the Metaverse and SL.

Well... I dunno.

Personally, I don't like SnowCrash.

I liked the idea behind linguistics<->religion and the human condition...

but Neal Stephenson is not a good writer IMHO. To me, the book is very juvenile and is just a masturbation of adolescent fantasy. The characters are horrendously shallow, the pacing is pretty much non-existent, dialogue is terrible, and the setting is just wankery.

Hiro... man with limitless supply of money as a hacker from the underground works as an extreme-sports version of a futuristic pizza boy for kicks. Carries around a katana? Known for stunning one-liners as he's the quiet type.

The metaverse -- a mystical place that is loosely built by computer simulation and is the result of "hackers" who helped build it. Ill-conceived and poorly explained. It is merely a plot device that allows characters at different physical locations to interact with eachother.

Again.. some good ideas, but overall it's a pretty lame book. I would have rather Neal did a dissertation on his ideas surround the connection between language and religion rather than sit through SnowCrash. He probably would've done better at it and practically DID do it in SC (those long intermittent spurts by the "librarian".

Anyhow, good luck with it Lance. I hope you do enjoy it, but I reccommend you read more Willam Gibson. Especially the "bridge" series... but each series starting with Neuromancer sequentially take place earlier in time. Which allows you to see how the Internet and technology evolved in the Gibson universe... which I must say is far more satisfying than a mystical computer-generated parallel dimension.

Cheers.

that's the definition of cyberpunk isn't it? i read Neuromancer and that description fits it pretty good IMNSHO.

it was still fun to read tho.

Well in my opinion, sometimes bad writers make great worlds... like Robert Jordan isn't a good writer, but I love the world he's created. So much that i'm still reading the books lol.

Someone make a Wheel of Time RPG!!!! Pleeeease!!!

Oh right... Snow Crash...

It was alright I guess. I can't really remember it, it was a few years ago.

I don't want to get into the Gibson-Stephenson flamewar, as I think they're both excellent authors. I do think that you need to more carefully read Stephenson's books, though. Stephenson offers a great deal of criticism about the superficiality of the world today, about the world of tomorrow, and about the desperate gambits which dinosaur governments will partake in when they know that they're about to die. Even your description of the main character demonstrates that you haven't read the novel very clearly. Hiroaki does not have a limitless supply of money. Though he made a great deal of money from the Black Sun stock which he sold, all of that money was used to care for his mother. The mafia pizza job was his primary means of earning a living, a living which consisted of living in a tiny storage locker and using the less-than-stellar facilities at the washroom franchulate.

It's not Thus Spach Zarathustra, but it's at least on par with anything that Gisbon has turned out as far as insight goes. The primary difference is that Stephenson can write an intelligent novel without sacrificing the humour. Gibson's novels tend to be far more dry, and the material tends to be rather cliche nowadays. In the end, my point is simply that the novel is both a serious work and an amusing, interesting read.

Do you want a MMORPG for Wheel of Time, or will a D20-based pen & paper game cut it? Because I have the sourcebook for a Wheel of Time campaign that was published a couple of years ago. The classes and story depicted in the sourcebook were really interesting, but I've still not amassed enough desire to read the Wheel of Time series yet.

I have the WoT PnP RPG Players Guide, as well as the Prophecies of the Dragon campaign... but no one to play with *sobs*

I'd like a good WoT computer game is all... not the crappy FPS that came out

(too many acronyms O_o)

Then you should understand that all computer programming is a form of religion

Only "juvenile" book I know that delves into ancient Sumerian myth and has a firm understanding of powers of 2.

And? That wasn't terribly obvious that it wasn't intentional from the main character being named Hiro Protagonist?

I dunno, seems pretty well paced for me. Maybe too fast paced for you?

Are you referring to his liberal use of four-letter words or his lack of 4+ syllable "I'm an English major" variety words?

Why are you playing SL? LOL


Ain't it great?


I'll debate you on this. Stephenson, as a student of history, shows a deep understanding of how the digital world works. This book, in 1991, was written WAY before the Internet was a blip in a household's radar, and yet he understands the programmer's lingo and style very well - from his description of number use, to collision detection, and most certainly a prophetic sense of where the world is going.

I really don't understand how you can say that. The Metaverse IS the book. It is the ultimate interaction of people - it is the natural result of a postmodern world that birthed burbclaves and privatized policing. The Metaverse is sheer postmodernism - the mix of avatars and ads in The Street, the gathering of all peoples inconceivably in one place.


Did you miss the point that Snow Crash, the book, is a virus in itself? Hell, by Philip & others deciding to invest money in a Metaverse is sort of evidence alone that Stephenson had spread his intellectual seed (to borrow from the Enki myth). The metaverse acts as a conduit between all people that is the modern day tower of Babel. A language all people speak.

And Hiro, the hacker to keep a single demagogue from exploiting it.


I liked Gibson, too, but... where Gibson is cyberpunk, Stephenson kicks it up to another level - the philosophical, and daresay spiritual one. Stephenson is post-cyberpunk, the next step in sci-fiction briding into sci-reality.

I believe very fundamentally that the dreamers of sci-fi are brilliant people - they are both prophets and visionariess. They both predict and help create the future. Take Da Vinci as one of the first - with his sketches of inventions that would take decades to come to fruition. Or Orwell with 1984 and predictions of beaurocracy, or Asimov whose 3 rules for robots have been practically the 3 Commandments for all writers of cyborgs and such.

Stephenson painted the Metaverse in a way no other sci-fi writer did - in a way accessable to the creators - to programmers. Stephenson is not flawed for hiding this in an action-cyberpunk novel - it's his strength. The message is like a trojan, the payload...

... well, we're playing it.

Whenever I talk with SLers about the concepts behind the game - which it isn't - Stephensons Metaverse is mentioned. Sometimes Neuromancer ... which I both enjoyed greatly. Different style, different quirks. Both won't get the Nobel for Literature, but both are a very good read...

But both put a lot of emphasis on technology and ever more advanced technology (neural taps, HUDs etc.) in creating the Metaverse. So why do we often "feel" so much "in" in SL with the shabby technology we are using today? Has been desribed best in "Calling Names" by Vernor Vinge, IMHO. I wonder, why the story isn't mentioned at all ... or so seldomly. It's not "cool" - like Stephenson or Gibson. But its a perfect literary adaptation of what Corey Linden is trying to say in his whitepapers about the feeling in a "place".

Never heard of it Kim, know anywhere off-hand one can find it?

I've read both Snow Crash and Neuromancer (as well as Cryptonomicon and All Tomorrow's Parties), and am a big fan and lover of both Stephenson and Gibson. Each bring something different to the table in their stories.

Gibson's cyberspace is more of a transition from the internet we have today to makeing it fully immersable, where things are held on "sites" or seperate enviornments from eachother, such as "The Walled City", but yet all are present in a huge "space" which one can travel.

Stephenson's metaverse is more of a recreation of our physical world in a digital landscape where the internet we know today has very little presence (Stephenson never mentions any internet like place in Snow Crash, it could possibly co-exist however).

SL I think more represents Stephenson's projection today, with the "metaverse"/SL co-existing with the internet, rather than fully replacing it, which I don't know if it ever would fully replace it.

The metaverse and cyberspace could actualy co-exist to become the future of the internet, where the metaverse takes over most of the entertainment, becoming a large "Walled City", and the cyberspace exists for other purposes. I think "flatland" (text editors, code compilers) will always exist however and we'll never have any sort of weird ass 3D programming (as seen in some laughable movies), both Gibson and Stephenson I think felt this as well, as I've never really heard of either of them describing any sort of contraptions.

I wouldn't call SL the metaverse quite yet, its on track to being there... but I think it'll be in the distant future. There is alot of reflection between SL and The Metaverse though.

Regardless, I think Snow Crash is a great book, I've read it twice so far and both times liked it alot, I think the second time it made more sense to me.

Hope you enjoy it.

sure:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312862075/qid=1108462552/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-4081641-2093412?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

or
http://home.comcast.net/~kngjon/truename/truename.html

as I said - not 'cool' as Stephenson or Gibson. But ... moving.