Snow Crash

Snow Crash is a science fiction novel by American writer Neal Stephenson, published in 1992. Like many of Stephenson's novels, it covers history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics and philosophy.

Snow Crash
US paperback cover
AuthorNeal Stephenson
Cover artistJean-François Podevin
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction, Cyberpunk, Postcyberpunk
PublisherBantam Books (US)
Publication date
June 1992
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages480
ISBN0-553-08853-X (first edition, hardback)
OCLC25026617
813/.54 20
LC ClassPS3569.T3868 S65 1992
Followed byThe Diamond Age 

Stephenson explained the title of the novel in his 1999 essay "In the Beginning... Was the Command Line" as his term for a particular software failure mode on the early Macintosh computer. Stephenson wrote about the Macintosh that "When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television set—a 'snow crash' ". Stephenson has also mentioned that Julian Jaynes' book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind was one of the main influences on Snow Crash.[1]

The book presents the Sumerian language as the firmware programming language for the brainstem, which is supposedly functioning as the BIOS for the human brain. According to characters in the book, the goddess Asherah is the personification of a linguistic virus, similar to a computer virus. The god Enki created a counter-program which he called a nam-shub that caused all of humanity to speak different languages as a protection against Asherah (a re-interpretation of the ancient Near Eastern story of the Tower of Babel).

Snow Crash was nominated for both the British Science Fiction Award in 1993, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1994.[2][3]

Background

The story opens in Los Angeles in the 21st century, an unspecified number of years after a worldwide economic collapse. Los Angeles is no longer part of the United States, since the federal government has ceded most of its power and territory to private organizations and entrepreneurs.[4] Franchising, individual sovereignty, and private vehicles reign supreme. Mercenary armies compete for national defense contracts while private security guards preserve the peace in sovereign, gated housing developments. Highway companies compete to attract drivers to their roads and all mail delivery is by hired courier. The remnants of government maintain authority only in isolated compounds where they do tedious make-work that is, by and large, irrelevant to the society around them.

Much of the world's territory has been carved up into sovereign enclaves, each run by its own big business franchise (such as "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong", or the corporatized American Mafia), or various residential burbclaves — quasi-sovereign gated communities.

This arrangement resembles anarcho-capitalism, a theme Stephenson carries over to his next novel The Diamond Age. As described in both novels, and the short story "The Great Simoleon Caper" (1995), hyperinflation has sapped the value of the US dollar to the extent that trillion dollar bills—Ed Meeses—are nearly disregarded and the quadrillion dollar note—the Gipper—is the standard "small" bill. This hyperinflation was created by the government overprinting money, due to loss of tax revenue, as people increasingly began to use electronic currency which they exchanged in untaxable encrypted online transactions. For physical transactions, most people resort to alternative currencies such as yen or "Kongbucks" (the official currency of Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong). Hyperinflation has also negatively affected much of the rest of the world (with some exceptions like Japan), resulting in waves of desperate refugees from Asia who cross the Pacific in rickety ships hoping to arrive in North America.

The Metaverse, a phrase coined by Stephenson as a successor to the Internet, constitutes Stephenson's vision of how a virtual reality–based Internet might evolve in the near future. Resembling a massively multiplayer online game (MMO), the Metaverse is populated by user-controlled avatars as well as system daemons. Although there are public-access Metaverse terminals in Reality, using them carries a social stigma among Metaverse denizens, in part because of the poor visual representations of themselves as low-quality avatars. Status in the Metaverse is a function of two things: access to restricted environments such as the Black Sun, an exclusive Metaverse club, and technical acumen, which is often demonstrated by the sophistication of one's avatar.

Plot summary

Hiro Protagonist is a hacker and pizza delivery driver for the Mafia. He meets Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), a young skateboard Kourier (courier) who refers to herself in the third person, during a failed attempt to make a delivery on time. Y.T. completes the delivery on his behalf and they strike up a partnership, gathering intel and selling it to the CIC, the for-profit organization that evolved from the CIA's merger with the Library of Congress. Within the Metaverse, Hiro is offered a datafile named Snow Crash by a man named Raven who hints that it is a form of narcotic. Hiro's friend and fellow hacker Da5id views a bitmap image contained in the file which causes his computer to crash and Da5id to suffer brain damage in the real world. Hiro meets his ex-girlfriend Juanita Marquez, who gives him a database containing a large amount of research compiled by her associate, Lagos. This research posits connections between the virus, ancient Sumerian culture, and the legend of Tower of Babel. Juanita advises him to be careful and disappears.

The Mafia boss Uncle Enzo begins to take a paternal interest in Y.T. Impressed by her attitude and initiative, he arranges to meet her and offers her freelance jobs. Hiro's investigations and Y.T.'s intelligence gathering begin to coincide, with links between the neuro-linguistic viruses, a religious organization known as Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates and a media magnate named L. Bob Rife beginning to emerge. Lagos's research showed that the ancient Sumerian ur-language allowed brain function to be 'programmed' using audio stimuli in conjunction with a DNA altering virus. Sumerian culture was organized around these programs (known as me) which were administered by priests to the populace. Enki, a figure of legend, developed a counter-virus (known as the nam-shub of Enki) which when delivered stopped the Sumerian language from being processed by the brain and led to the development of other, less literal languages, giving birth to the Babel myth. L. Bob Rife had been collecting Sumerian artifacts and developed the drug Snow Crash in order to make the public vulnerable to new forms of me which he would control. The physical form of the virus is distributed in the form of an addictive drug and within Reverend Wayne's church via infected blood. There is also a digital version to which hackers are especially vulnerable as they are accustomed to processing information in binary form.

Hiro heads north to where the Raft, a huge collection of boats containing Eurasian refugees, is approaching the American coast. The center of the Raft is L Bob Rife's yacht, formerly the USS Enterprise nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Rife has been using the Raft as a mechanism to indoctrinate and infect thousands with the virus and to import it to America. Y.T. is captured and brought to Rife on the Raft, who intends to use her as a hostage, knowing her connection to Uncle Enzo. With help from the Mafia, Hiro makes it onto the raft and recovers the nam-shub of Enki which Rife had been concealing. With help from Juanita who had previously infiltrated the Raft, the nam-shub is read out and Rife's control over the Raft is broken. Rife flees the Raft, taking Y.T., and Raven attempts to activate the digital form of Snow Crash at a virtual concert within the Metaverse. Hiro is able to neutralize the virus and Y.T. escapes. After a confrontation with the Mafia, Raven is injured, and Rife is killed as he attempts to flee on his private jet. Y.T. is reunited with her mother and Hiro and Juanita appear reconciled.

Characteristic technologies

Various technologies are employed in this fictional world, and help define it. Among these are:

Rat Things

Rat Things, also known as semi-autonomous guard units, are cybernetic personal defensive guards found in and around Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. Engineered from pit bull terriers surgically augmented with cybernetic components, Rat Things are named for their long, flexible tails.

Rat Things were invented by Mr. Ng, of Ng Security Industries, who was severely handicapped after a helicopter accident in Vietnam. Like the Rat Things, Mr. Ng is also a cyborg.

Rat Things remember their previous lives as dogs. They can also communicate with other Rat Things by "barking" in the Metaverse. Although their minds are largely controlled by their implants, they can sometimes act independently of their programming. When in the Metaverse and not performing guard duties, Rat Things experience running on endless beaches, playing in the surf, eating steaks that grow on trees, and blood-drenched Frisbees floating around, waiting to be caught.

Like other technology in Snow Crash, Rat Things are powered by a nuclear isotope battery, which requires extensive cooling due to the massive amount of waste heat generated. The Rat Things are passively cooled by a system of heat sinks that are only effective when the Rat Thing runs fast enough to move ambient air across the fins. To prevent rapid overheating when stationary, they must remain in their hutches (effectively dog houses), where they are continuously sprayed by jets of refrigerant. Through running, Rat Things are capable of breaking the sound barrier (about 768 mph at sea level), although this is not typically permitted by Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong's "good neighbor" policies due to noise reasons. Because they must be either moving at high velocities or actively cooling in their hutches, Rat Things are rarely seen by human eyes and few people know what they look like.

Smartwheels

A fictional type of wheel used on skateboards and advanced motorcycles. They consist of small segments of contact surface mounted on telescoping spokes, allowing the wheel to take the shape of cracks, curbs, and bumps. They have a passing mention in The Diamond Age as being used on a wheelchair belonging to a minor character.[5]

Reason

Reason is a railgun in a rotary cannon configuration which fires depleted uranium flechettes. It is mounted to a large, wheeled ammunition box and is equipped with a harness for user comfort, a nuclear battery pack, and a water-cooled heat exchanger. The weapon, created by Ng, was still in beta testing, and suffers a software crash during a battle, resulting in the death of its user. Hiro is later able to apply a firmware update, and uses it until its ammunition supply is depleted. It bears, in inscription on its nameplate, the Latin phrase Ultima Ratio Regum, "the last argument of kings".

Metaverse
Main article: Metaverse

The Metaverse is a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space,[6] including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet. The word metaverse combines the prefix "meta" (meaning "beyond") with "universe" and is typically used to describe the concept of a future iteration of the internet, made up of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe.[7]

Stephenson's Metaverse appears to its users as an urban environment, developed along a single hundred-meter-wide road, the Street, that runs the entire 65536 km (216 km) circumference of a featureless, black, perfectly spherical planet. The virtual real estate is owned by the Global Multimedia Protocol Group, a fictional part of the real Association for Computing Machinery, and is available to be bought and buildings developed thereupon.

Users of the Metaverse gain access to it through personal terminals that project a high-quality virtual reality display onto goggles worn by the user, or from low-quality public terminals in booths (with the penalty of presenting a grainy black and white appearance).[8] Stephenson also describes a sub-culture of people choosing to remain continuously connected to the Metaverse by wearing portable terminals, goggles and other equipment; they are given the sobriquet "gargoyles" due to their grotesque appearance. The users of the Metaverse experience it from a first person perspective.

Within the Metaverse, individual users appear as avatars of any form, with the sole restriction of height, "to prevent people from walking around a mile high". Transport within the Metaverse is limited to analogs of reality by foot or vehicle, such as the monorail that runs the entire length of the Street, stopping at 256 Express Ports, located evenly at 256 km intervals, and Local Ports, one kilometer apart.

Literary significance and criticism

Snow Crash established Stephenson as a major science fiction writer of the 1990s. The book appeared on Time magazine's list of 100 all-time best English-language novels written since 1923.[9] Some critics have considered it a parody of cyberpunk[10][11] and mentioned its satiric or absurdist humor.[12][13]

In his book The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the End of History, Walter Benn Michaels targets Stephenson's view that "languages are codes" rather than a grouping of letters and sounds to be interpreted. Michaels contends that this basic idea of language as code is central to the construct of Snow Crash ("... a good deal of Snow Crash's plot depends upon eliding the distinction between hackers and their computers, as if—indeed, in the novel, just because—looking at code will do to the hacker what receiving it will do to the computer"[14]), but at the same time, trivializes the role of meaning in linguistic works.

The body that is infected by a virus does not become infected because it understands the virus any more than the body that does not become infected misunderstands the virus. So a world in which everything—from bitmaps to blood—can be understood as a "form of speech" is also a world in which nothing actually is understood, a world in which what a speech act does is disconnected from what it means.

— Walter Michaels, The shape of the signifier

In this respect, Stephenson's views are not shared with other contemporary writers such as Bret Easton Ellis, Kathy Acker, Octavia Butler, Paul de Man and Richard Rorty (with respect to the latter's literary criticism). In contrast, it uniquely risks developing a racialized view of culture. Because "in Snow Crash, the bodies of humans are affected by "information" they can't read; the virus, like the icepick [in American Psycho], gets the words inside you even if you haven't read them,"[14] culture is not transmitted by beliefs and practices, but rather by physical characteristics, such as blood (or genetic codes).

Rorty's Achieving Our Country uses Snow Crash as an example of modern culture that "express the loss of what he [Rorty] calls "national hope"...the problem with Snow Crash is not that it isn't true—after all, it's a story—but that it isn't inspirational."[15] This lack of inspiration is offset by something else Snow Crash and other works like it offer: "These books produce in their readers the 'state of soul' that Rorty calls 'knowingness,' which he glosses as a 'preference for knowledge over hope' (37)";[15] this preference for knowledge "contribute[s] to a more fundamental failure to appreciate the value of inspiration—and hence of literature—itself."[15]

Influence on the World Wide Web and computing

While the 1986 virtual environment Habitat applied the Sanskrit term avatar to online virtual bodies before Stephenson, the success of Snow Crash popularized the term[16] to the extent that avatar is now the accepted term for this concept in computer games and on the World Wide Web.[17]

Many virtual globe programs, including NASA World Wind and Google Earth, bear a resemblance to the "Earth" software developed by the Central Intelligence Corporation in Snow Crash. One Google Earth co-founder claimed that Google Earth was modeled after Snow Crash, while another co-founder said it was inspired by Powers of Ten.[18] Stephenson himself has commented on the legacy of his "Earth" program's god's-eye aesthetic in his novel Reamde, in which his protagonist, a game designer, steals the technique from Google Earth:

The opening screen of T'Rain was a frank rip-off of what you saw when you booted up Google Earth. Richard felt no guilt about this, since he had heard that Google Earth, in turn, was based on an idea from some old science-fiction novel.[19]

Stephenson's concept of the Metaverse has enjoyed continued popularity and strong influence in high-tech circles (especially Silicon Valley) ever since the publication of Snow Crash.[20][21] As a result, Stephenson has become "a sought-after futurist" and has worked as a futurist for Blue Origin and more recently, Magic Leap.[21]

Software developer Michael Abrash was inspired by Snow Crash's Metaverse and its networked 3D world. He left Microsoft for Id Software to write something in that direction, the result being Quake.[22] The story for the 3DO game Immercenary was also heavily influenced by Snow Crash.[23] A direct video game adaptation of Snow Crash was in development in 1996,[24] but it was never released.

The online virtual worlds Active Worlds and Second Life were both directly inspired by the Metaverse in Snow Crash.[25]

Former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer J Allard and former Xbox Live Development Manager Boyd Multerer claimed to have been heavily inspired by Snow Crash in the development of Xbox Live, and that it was a mandatory read for the Xbox development team.[26]

Possible film or television adaptation

The novel was optioned shortly after its publication and subsequent success, although to date it has never progressed past pre-production. American-Canadian science fiction director Vincenzo Natali in particular has remarked against a two-hour feature film adaptation because of a perceived lack of fit with the form; inasmuch as the novel is "tonally all over the place", he feels that a mini-series would be a more suitable format for the material.[27]

In late 1996, it was announced that writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff would adapt the novel for The Kennedy/Marshall Company and Touchstone Pictures. Marco Brambilla was attached to direct the film.[28]

In June 2012, it was announced that English director Joe Cornish, following his 2011 debut film Attack the Block, had been signed as director of a future film adaptation for Paramount Studios.[29] In 2013, Stephenson described Cornish's script as "amazing", but also warned that there was no guarantee that a film would be made.[30] In July 2016, producer Frank Marshall said that filming could start in 2017.[31]

In August 2017, Amazon Studios announced that it was co-producing an hour-long science fiction drama television show based on Snow Crash with Paramount. The television show will be executive produced by Cornish and the Kennedy/Marshall Company's Frank Marshall.[32]

In December 2019, it was announced that HBO Max had acquired the series with Paramount continuing to produce and Cornish remaining executive producer.[33]

See also

References
  1. Mustich, James (2008-10-13). "Interviews - Neal Stephenson: Anathem - A Conversation with James Mustich, Editor-in-Chief of the Barnes & Noble Review". barnesandnoble.com. Retrieved 2014-08-06. I'd had a similar reaction to yours when I'd first read The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, and that, combined with the desire to use IT, were two elements from which Snow Crash grew.
  2. "1993 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-10-24.
  3. "1994 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-10-24.
  4. "Snow Crash depicts a twenty-first-century America in which the needs of entrepreneurs have won out over hopes of a free and egalitarian society." Rorty, Achieving Our Country, 4.
  5. Note:Arthur C. Clarke's version of adaptive wheels are utilized by the lunar transport which shuttles Dr. Heywood Floyd to the site where the Tycho Magnetic Anomaly TMA-1 was excavated on the moon.
  6. "Smart, J.M., Cascio, J. and Paffendorf, J., Metaverse Roadmap Overview, 2007". Accelerated Studies Foundation. Retrieved 2010-09-23.
  7. "IEEE VW Standard Working Group". Retrieved 2013-10-15.
  8. Allbeck, J. M.; Badler, N. I. (1998). "Avatars á la Snow Crash". Proceedings of Computer Animation, 98: 3.
  9. Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo (2005-10-16). "All-Time 100 Novels". TIME.
  10. Nakamura, Lisa (2002). Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. Routledge. pp. 69–70. ISBN 0-415-93836-8. Retrieved 2009-12-05.
  11. Brooker, M. Keith; Thomas, Anne-Marie (2009). The Science Fiction Handbook. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 278–286. ISBN 978-1-4051-6206-7. Retrieved 2009-12-05.
  12. Wolfe, Gary K. (2005). Soundings: Reviews 1992–1996. Beccon. p. 130. ISBN 1-870824-50-4.
  13. Westfahl, Gary (2005). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders, Vol. 3. Greenwood Publishing. p. 1235. ISBN 0-313-32953-2. Retrieved 2009-12-05.
  14. Michaels, Walter Benn (2004). The shape of the signifier: 1967 to the end of history. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 68. ISBN 0-691-11872-8.
  15. Michaels, Walter Benn (2004). The shape of the signifier: 1967 to the end of history. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 74. ISBN 0-691-11872-8.
  16. A Beginner's Web Glossary Archived August 9, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  17. "avatar, n.". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2018. §Draft Additions September 2008. Computing and Science Fiction. A graphical representation of a person or character in a computer-generated environment, esp. one which represents a user in an interactive game or other setting, and which can move about in its surroundings and interact with other characters.
  18. Avi Bar-Ze'ev (from Keyhole, the precursor to Google Earth) on origin of Google Earth Archived 2008-10-12 at the Wayback Machine
  19. Stephenson, Neal (2011). Reamde. Princeton, N.J.: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-197796-1.
  20. Park, Gene (17 April 2020). "Silicon Valley is racing to build the next version of the Internet. Fortnite might get there first". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  21. "Brain scan: A novelist's vision of the virtual world has inspired an industry". The Economist. London: The Economist Newspaper Limited. 1 October 2020. Retrieved 9 October 2020. This article was published in print on page 11 of the Economist's technology quarterly special section, which ran in the center pages of the printed issue dated 3 October 2020.
  22. "Valve: How I Got Here, What It's Like, and What I'm Doing - Valve".
  23. Szczepaniak, John (19 September 2012). "Making a Prototype of the Future: The Development of Immercenary". Gamasutra. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
  24. "Snow Crash". GamePro. No. 95. IDG. August 1996. p. 57.
  25. Maney, Kevin (2007-02-04). "The king of alter egos is surprisingly humble guy". USA Today. Retrieved 2007-02-20.
  26. Pitts, Russ. "the birth of xbox live". Polygon. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  27. Peter Hall (25 May 2010). "Interview: Vincenzo Natali Explains How to Crack 'Neuromancer', 'Snow Crash' and 'High Rise'". AOL Moviefone.
  28. Johnson, Ted (1996-12-02). "Nachmanoff to script 'Snow Crash'". 'Variety'. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
  29. "Joe Cornish signs up for 'Snow Crash'". Deadline Hollywood. 2012-06-15.
  30. Leo Kelion (2013-09-17). "Neal Stephenson on tall towers and NSA cyber-spies". BBC News.
  31. Adam Chitwood (July 27, 2016). "'Snow Crash' Producer Frank Marshall Says Movie Could Start Shooting Next Year". Collider.
  32. Amazon Increases Production Spending for 2018, Developing Three New Sci-Fi Series, Variety, September 28, 2017
  33. 'Snow Crash' TV Series Adaptation From Michael Bacall & Joe Cornish In Works At HBO Max From Paramount TV, Deadline Hollywood, December 13, 2019

Further reading
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