Snow Crash

Snow Crash is a Cyberpunk novel written by Neal Stephenson, published in 1992. It was nominated for the British Science Fiction Award in 1993, and Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1994.

Metaverse

The Metaverse is a collective virtual space inhabited by individuals’ avatars, each described as “…a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. The people are pieces of software called avatars. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse.” The term was coined by Stephenson and illustrates his vision of how the future of the Internet may evolve to embed virtual reality technologies.

Significance

The term avatar, although not attributed to Stephenson, was popularised throughout computer games and the World Wide Web.

Criticism

The novel has been viewed as satire and a parody of cyberpunk by some critics, as evident through the protagonist’s name Hiro Protagonist.

See Also

• William Gibson
• Cyberpunk

External Links

• Snow Crash on Wikipedia