Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world... Hiro used to feel this way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this was liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken.
Possibly the best-known book by
Neal Stephenson,
Snow Crash is basically the tale of a
Mafia-backed badass pizza delivery guy who teams up with a badass courier in a
Post Cyber Punk disincorporated USA to fight "
Snow Crash" - a computer virus for the brain. Oh, and there's a badass biker with glass knives and a nuclear bomb strapped to his motorbike, too.
Of course, it is deceptively deep (much more so than the description above makes it sound, anyway) - a substantial portion of the plot is given over to exploring metaphysical interpretations of the Tower of Babel myth - but the book is perhaps most famous for its uncanny prediction of future internet trends (while we don't have holographic web terminals, everything else, from heavily populated 3D virtual worlds, to satellite photograph software, to a massive user-created online library, seems to have come true).
This book provides examples of:
- Bad Ass: Between Hiro, Raven, and even Uncle Enzo, the book has more badassness than most books should be allowed to have.
- Badass Biker: How badass? No other biker drives around with a nuclear bomb wired to explode if they die.
- Badass Bookworm: Hiro can be writing computer code one second, and kicking ass the next.
- Chekhovs Gun: At least two that this troper can think of: Uncle Enzo having the skateboard, which has a glass-shattering charge, right before being attacked by Raven, and Y.T.'s Dentata, mentioned several times before... well... you'll know the moment when you read it.
- Chekhovs Gunman: Fido, a dog once kept by Y.T. and now a cybernetic Rat-Thing, ends up saving the day at the end.
- Cool Boat: A raft shanty town the size of a large city.
- Cool Car: "The Deliverator" is far, far cooler than any pizza delivery car ever deserves to be.
- Don't forget Ng's "wheelchair."
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: L. Bob Rife. Uncle Enzo probably counts, too, but he ends up working with the heroes.
- Cyberpunk: if this isn't cyberpunk, nothing is.
- Determinator: The Deliverators, the greatest pizza pie delivery service of all time.
- Divided States Of America: The US government now consists of just the FBI and the Post Office. The rest of the country is now a patchwork of autonomous corporate franchises and "Burbclaves."
- Gatling Good: The ultimate BFG of the book is "Reason", a nuclear powered rotary rail gun that shoots needles of depleted uranium and can carry close to half-a-ton of ammo.
- I Call It Vera: Reason. Ultima Ratio Regum. Nuff said.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Hiro fights with katanas, and even went so far as to hard-code a katana simulator into the virtual universe he helped write. Partially justified, in that his Japanese upbringing meant he learnt to use the katana at a young age.
- Justified in the virtual universe, in that he did write the code.
- The Computer Is A Cheating Bastard: Slightly subverted. As mentioned above, Hiro wrote the code for virtual sword fights, and as a result he just happens to be the best sword fighter in the whole goddamned (virtual) universe.
- The Mafia: Now trading freely and making the best-tasting pizzas in America.
- Meaningful Name: Hiroaki "Hiro" Protagonist.
- Obstructive Bureaucracy: The FBI even goes so far as to send out 10-page memos about toilet paper use, one of which is printed in full in the book.
- Perdita X Dream: Yours Truly (Y.T.) and Da5id.
- Plucky Girl: Y.T. - a 15-year-old skateboarding courier that doesn't take an ounce of crap from anyone and is loaded with enough self-defence gear to break out of an FBI building. On her skateboard.
- Portmanteau: "Burbclave" probably derives from "suburb" + "enclave."
- Ridiculous Future Inflation: It's cheaper to use billion dollar bills as toilet paper than just go out and buy some.
- Rule Of Cool: It might not make sense for there to be a biker with a nuclear bomb in his sidecar, or cyborg dogs that can run faster than the speed of sound, or couriers who skateboard down highways at 100 mph, but damned if it's not cool!
- "Reason", though, is considered a prototype without all the bugs worked out yet.
- Serious Business: Your pizza in 30 minutes, or the courier murdered free!
- Shown Their Work: Stephenson goes a tad overboard on his Sumerian mythology.
- Steven Ulysses Perhero: It's awfully convenient how easily Hiroaki condenses to Hiro. Ditto Ravinoff > Raven.
- His last name is Protagonist. It's safe to say he's toyed around with his nomenclature a tad.
- Vagina Dentata: There is an anti-rape device Y.T. has, called, unsurprisingly, a Dentata.
- Vestigial Empire: The United States government.
