History Literature / SnowCrash

Possibly the best-known book by Creator/NealStephenson, ''Snow Crash'' is the tale of a sword-slinging hacker who teams up with an [[CoolBoard extreme skateboarder]] in a PostCyberPunk [[DividedStatesOfAmerica disincorporated USA]] to fight "[[TheVirus Snow Crash]]" -- a ComputerVirus for the brain. Oh, and there's a [[BadassBiker badass biker]] with glass knives and a nuclear bomb strapped to his motorbike, too.

* {{Deconstruction}}: ''Snow Crash'' does this in regards to the {{Cyberpunk}} genre, and is also quite a humorous take on anarcho-capitalism.
* {{Defictionalised}}:
** For a brief period, Website/FourChan had a problem where people would be instructed to save an image, change the extension, and run it for their "free sample of Snow Crash". Fortunately all it did was use your computer to post more such images back to 4chan instead of frying your brain, considering the apparently sizable number of people ''stupid enough to do it''.
** ''VideoGame/SecondLife'' is quite similar to the concept of the Metaverse, unsurprising when you know that it was inspired by the book. A group of fans puts on a performance of the book in ''Second Life'' once a year.
** AugmentedReality is now available through various smartphone applications.
** ''[[Website/{{Google}} Google Earth]]'' was inspired by the mapping/satellite imagery app described in this book.

** Averted by Hiro's katanas. He reminds himself that they can't slice easily through bone, like in the movies.

* {{BFG}}: "I told you they'd listen to [[GatlingGood Reason]]"

* BrownNote: The Snow Crash bitmap image.

* CapitalismIsBad: Downplayed as its more so a criticism of Anarcho-capitalism specifically. The entire world is a MegaCorp-owned WretchedHive, the US is fractured into various independent, privately-owned states, down to the neighborhoods. Violence is common and life is extremely dangerous. It's also very colorful and exciting, especially as seen through the eyes of the badass protagonists.

* CorruptPolitician: Everyone's corrupt. Everything's corrupt.

* {{Courier}}: Y.T.

* {{Deconstruction}}: ''Snow Crash'' does this in regards to the {{Cyberpunk}} genre, and is also quite a humourous take on anarcho-capitalism.

* TheDon: Uncle Enzo.
* TheDragon: Raven. [[spoiler:Specifically he's the enforcer to Bob Rife. As one of the deadliest men on the planet, Raven is far beyond Rife and his typical cronies and henchmen. Raven is fairly satisfied with his role, however, as his goals and those of Bob Rife coincide, and Raven isn't the type of person who's interested in a leadership role.]]

* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: PlayedForLaughs with the soulsucking job YT's mom works at. She receives a memo with a recommended reading time of 15.62 minutes, and yes, her boss ''is'' monitoring how long everyone takes to read it, and ''is'' judging them based on that. There is no amount of reading time that the boss will not find some way to interpret negatively (a little bit under, and you're efficient but lack attention to detail, a little bit over and you're methodical but care too ''much'' about details, right on the dot and you're a smartass who needs "attitude counseling").
* GatlingGood: 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.

* GrapplingHookPistol: The 'poons' used by the Couriers are lines tipped with a powerful magnet and shot to catch onto incoming vehicles.
* HandicappedBadass: Ng, a quadruple amputee who drives around in a gigantic van that can shoot missiles and deploy robots that can break the speed of sound. He also builds Reason, which gets used to [[GatlingGood rip ships in half]].
* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: Uncle Enzo lampshades this when he asks YT why she doesn't wear a helmet. YT replies that she has an instantly deployable airbag in the neck area of her uniform that will completely cushion her head in any major impact, but if she wears a crash helmet it interferes with her hearing. Uncle Enzo agrees and recounts how back in his days on frontline of 'Nam, he had friends who died wearing a helmet while he lived by not wearing one and having his senses dulled by it.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Alas, poor Fido.]] Made a double gut punch by the fact all Y.T. has to say on the matter is "''Sweet!''"

* KatanasAreJustBetter: Hiro fights with katanas, and even went so far as to hard-code a katana simulator into the virtual universe he helped write. However, Hiro takes a moment to acknowledge that katanas are not supernaturally sharp, as movies would have you believe. He even remonstrates with himself when he [[spoiler:decapitates a racist thug in one stroke]] that he forgot his training and acted as if the blade would pass cleanly through his target; sure, in this instance it ''did'', but that was just luck.

** Uncle Enzo (Lorenzo), Da5id (King David) and Juanita ''Marquez'' are all founders or leaders of sorts.

* RetiredBadass: Uncle Enzo, who served in Vietnam and [[spoiler:is able to fight Raven to a standstill with just a straight razor, his wits, and a skateboard that conveniently disables all his cute glass knives.]]

* SnipingTheCockpit: Hiro threatens to do this to a mi-24 Hind, referencing the reports of Mujahedin doing so in Afghanistan. However rather than using the Mujahedin choice of combined anti-tank rifle and crew-served machine gun fire aimed at the ballistic glass, Hiro threatens them with a ''9mm handgun''. While everyone else is initially incredulous, one person who should know better, the Russian pilot, is for some reason the one who falls for it, nevertheless nothing comes of it.

--> Da5id has even enhanced the physics of The Black Sun to make it a little cartoonish, so that particularly obnoxious people can be hit over the head with giant mallets or crushed under plummeting safes before they are ejected. This happens to people who are being disruptive, to anyone who is pestering or taping a celebrity, and to anyone who seems contagious. That is, if your personal computer is infected with viruses, and attempts to spread them via The Black Sun, you had better keep one eye on the ceiling.

* UnfinishedUntestedUsedAnyway: Reason, for all its power, was technically still in beta. [[spoiler:Unsurprisingly, its original operator is killed when the gun has a kernel panic.]]
* VaginaDentata: There is an anti-rape device Y.T. has, called, unsurprisingly, a Dentata. [[spoiler:Too bad she forgot to take it out before ''consensual'' sex with Raven. There's even a point during the act where she thinks there's something she forgot, but is promptly distracted.]] Note that the Dentata isn't some kind of bear-trap mechanism, so it causes no real physical injury; what it does is activate a tiny syringe to stick the offender and pump a mix of sedatives and depressants into them.

->''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 Creator/NealStephenson, ''Snow Crash'' is the tale of a sword-slinging hacker who teams up with an [[CoolBoard extreme skateboarder]] in a PostCyberPunk [[DividedStatesOfAmerica disincorporated USA]] to fight "[[TheVirus Snow Crash]]" - a computer virus for the brain. Oh, and there's a [[BadassBiker badass biker]] with glass knives and a nuclear bomb strapped to his motorbike, too.

Apart from its frenetic action sequences and overt use of the RuleOfCool, the book is surprisingly deep, with a substantial portion of the plot given over to exploring metaphysical interpretations of the Tower of Babel myth. Typical for a Stephenson novel, the plot juxtaposes action sequences, lengthy humorous digressions, and extremely detailed {{Infodump}}s seemingly at random.

The book is also notable for its uncanny prediction of future trends. Memes play an important role in the plot, which was written years before the public became aware of the concept through [[MemeticMutation Internet memes]]. While holographic web terminals have not yet come to pass, we do have heavily populated 3D virtual worlds, satellite photograph software, and [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} a massive user-created online library]]. Certain real world equivalents (''Second Life'', Google Earth) have been inspired by the book itself.

!!This book is the TropeNamer of:

%%* ICallItVera: "Reason."
%%* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Several people who find themselves on the receiving end of Raven.

* LawEnforcementInc: Franchises that don't handle their own security will generally subcontract it out to one of these.
%%* LemonyNarrator: And how!

%%* ManInTheMachine: Ng.

* MegaCorp: What criminal gangs and branches of the US government have become. The Navy and Army are now two separate private security corporations. The CIA likewise has become the CIC, while the Crips and the Mafia have become big business to the point of having job fairs and can control entire districts.

%%* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Raven.

%%* PsychoForHire: Raven.

* RidiculousFutureInflation: It's cheaper to use [[ZillionDollarBill billion dollar bills]] as toilet paper than just go out and buy some. Justified in that the US economy actually DID collapse. Most people use other, more stable forms of currency if they can. Played for laughs the first time it comes up, as Y.T. offers to bribe some cops with $500 billion. It seems like she's just being snarky, but the cops respond that that kind of pocket change wouldn't be worth it. They eventually settle on $750 billion. And then she swipes her card through an [[CorruptCop in-car credit card reader]]...

%%* ThirdPersonPerson: Y.T., sometimes.

* {{Zeerust}}: The novel's depiction of the Internet is based on 1990s technology. Considering that the story is supposed to be taking place sometime around 2010-2020 (that is, right now), it all seems charmingly quaint.

* BladeOnAStick: While he's more notorious for his knives, Raven actually uses a glass-tipped harpoon almost as often. Justified as he was a former tribal hunter and whaler.

* GlassWeapon: Raven uses glass knives that are SharpenedToASingleAtom because they're undetectable by security systems and can cut straight through bullet-proof vests. He also uses glass-tipped harpoons.

In late 2019, HBO [[https://nerdist.com/article/snow-crash-series-in-the-works-at-hbo-max/ announced a TV adaptation]] was in development for their exclusive streaming service.

* VestigialEmpire: Every single nation-state, including the U.S. government. There are no countries anymore, only corporations.

* LudicrousSpeed: The bikes in the metaverse definitely count. There's no air resistance to worry about, engines can be as powerful as the programmer makes them, tyres have mathematically perfect grip, and running headlong into an obstacle just brings you to a stop with no harm done - unless doing so causes you to lose sight of the BigBad, of course...

The book is also notable for its uncanny prediction of future trends. Memes play an important role in the plot, which was written years before the public became aware of the concept through [[MemeticMutation Internet memes]]. While holographic web terminals have not yet come to pass, and the jury's still out on whether Google Glass will allow the "gargoyle" to finally be realized, we do have heavily populated 3D virtual worlds, satellite photograph software, and [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} a massive user-created online library]]. Certain real world equivalents (''Second Life'', Google Earth) have been inspired by the book itself.

The book is also notable for its uncanny prediction of future trends. Memes play an important role in the plot, which was written years before the public became aware of the concept through [[MemeticMutation Internet memes]]. While holographic web terminals have not yet come to pass, and the jury's still out on whether Google Glass will allow the "gargoyle" to finally be realized, we do have heavily populated 3D virtual worlds, satellite photograph software, and [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} a massive user-created online library]]. Certain real world equivalents (''Second Life'', Google Earth) have been inspired by the book itself.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Yours Truly (Y.T.), [=Da5id,=] Raven, and ''Hiro Protagonist''.

* ICallItVera: "Reason."
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Several people who find themselves on the receiving end of Raven.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Said by President Chuck Rightson.

* LemonyNarrator: And how!

* ManInTheMachine: Ng.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Raven.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed / TakeThat: L. Bob Rife is a composite caricature of L. Ron Hubbard and Ted Turner, and it's most certainly ''not'' an AffectionateParody.

* PostCyberpunk

* PsychoForHire: Raven.

* ThirdPersonPerson: Y.T., sometimes.

* TheDragon: Raven.[[spoiler:Specifically he's the enforcer to Bob Rife. As one of the deadliest men on the planet, Raven is far beyond Rife and his typical cronies and henchmen. Raven is fairly satisfied with his role, however, as his goals and those of Bob Rife coincide, and Raven isn't the type of person who's interested in a leadership role.]]

* {{Cyberspace}}: The Metaverse.

* JailBait: Quite a lot of guys try to mack on 15 year-old YT, including the burb security team where Hiro crashes his delivery car...and [[spoiler:Raven - the 30 year old "baddest motherfucker in the world" [[TheDragon chief enforcer of the bad guys]] - with whom YT is quite willing]].

* SlashedThroat: [[spoiler:Implied to be Raven's final fate at the hands of Uncle Enzo, but not actually shown.]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: If you factor the chronology of it out, Hiro was born in the 1980's and is about 30 years old, so the story takes place anywhere from 2010-2020. The book was written around 1992.

* JailBait: Quite a lot of guys try to mack on 15 year-old YT, including the burb security team where Hiro crashes his delivery car.

* VaginaDentata: There is an anti-rape device Y.T. has, called, unsurprisingly, a Dentata. [[spoiler:Too bad she forgot to take it out before ''consensual'' sex with Raven. There's even a point during the act where she thinks there's something she forgot, but is ''promptly'' distracted. Note that the Dentata isn't some kind of bear-trap mechanism so Raven's penis is still intact, what it does is activate a tiny syringe to stick the offender and pump a mix of sedatives and depressants into them.]]