"SnowCrash" by Neal Stephenson

"SnowCrash" by Neal Stephenson

The story is set in futuristic Los Angeles. The Central government is falling apart and shrinking. Various franchises are taking over and private city states each with their own laws are popping up every where. Security is handled by private armies like the Mafia, Enforces and the Crips. Hiro Protagonist the main character is both a hacker and driver for a Mafia owned pizza company. He crashes the car and meets Y.T. a skateboarding kourier who get around by harpooning fast moving cars with a suction harpoon. After Hiro crashes his car she delivers the Pizza for him. After that they form a partnership. Hiro as a hacker gets money for information that he sells to the CIC . Kouriers get all sorts of information. The Metaverse is like a virtual world in cyberspace where Avatars meet up and chat. It is in the Black Sun owned by his friend Da5id that Hiro gets wind of something called "Snow Crash" a sort of cyber drug. He declines the first offer and later on learns about it from an ex girlfriend who was married to Da5id for a while. Hackers and programmers like him have to beware it will infect their brain. Someone is out to get all the programmers. Da5id is not so lucky he gets dosed and ends up totally brain dead. While in the Black Sun a Japanese swordsman tries to take down Hiro but fails. Snow crassh is written in an Ancient Sumerian language that easily enter the brainstructure. Once uttered it give the En or person who controls the namshub access and control over the person;s mind. THe person behind all this is L.Bob Rife he owns the Pearly Gates Church and he is spreading the virus. The Mafia, Y.T. and Hiro team up to stop the spread off the virus. Along thee way Y.T gets kidnapped and ends up on board the Enterprise, an old Navy cruiser purchased by L.Bob Rife, which is his base of operations. Juanita manages to infiltrate the ship which proves crucial in the final battle. Hiro board the ship with the aid of the mafia in order to rescue Y.T and Juanita. Raven is a super strong Villain and Aleut from Alska with a grudge against America. He is an expert assassin who is Hiro's toughest nemesis. Hiro is also an expert swords man.

Excellent story, I found this book very entertaining. The references to Ancient Sumerian mythology and Kabballah are very mind opening. I have found that now I have a bunch of addition material to research. This is a five star book.