SNOW CRASH

In addition to reading NEW MODEL ARMY this semester and in keeeping with the cyberculture impetus of the DMC subject I went back to discover the novel that many place alongside NEUROMANCER as one that defines cyberpunk culture most effectively in science fiction. Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel centres around the ironically named Hiro Protagonist who is a hacker, samurai, and Pizza Delivery expert for the mafia (Just the Pizza Delivery part).

He also as a freelance hacker gathers information and makes cash on the side selling it to CIC, the latest incarnation of the CIA no doubt, which in it's new coroprate (that's the C replacing the A) model hires and co-opts the public into gathering intel in any form that may prove useful into a grand database. This information is then graded and the procurer is paid accordingly based on the pertinance of the information logged. Kind of like a clandestine digital paparrazzi.

Early in the novel the Metaverse (like NEUROMANCER's Matrix) is introduced and the notion of virtual avatars within it as Hiro proceeds to a bar inside this world, called the Black Sun. One of his fellow hacker friends partakes in a business card which when handled in the metaverse transfers data into the avatar and host computer/terminal simultaneously. What Hiro's friend doesn't realise is that he has accepted a data card which contains the SNOW CRASH drug/virus of the title and his digital self being linked to his physical self causes severe, perhaps irreparable damage for both his bodies metaversion and physical self in reality.

The notion struck me as one that has become an all too real possibilty in reality. Something that is dangerous or harmful in the digital sense has become an occurence that through anxiety and stress manifestation can affect one's physical state. The idea of someones bank details being vacuumed is an obvious problem, but so reliant are we on our digital caches of data, that monetary issues seem quite reparable in comparison to theft of ideas and the disappearance of whole bodies of intellectual work, things that are build profit and go beyond just a singular score.

Also the statement that was made in class around the idea of a digital footprint that we all leave and how something being floated digitally can never be scooped out of the pool. A horrible analogy is made in the book about Herpes and the idea that once it is caught it manifests itself in your biology form then on recurs, with varying degrees of seriousness, but there is no shedding it completely. SNOW CRASH heightens these ideas to a degree making them part of an entertaining and humourous adventure story, but the portentous nature of what has become an all pervasive system riddled with potential disease among all the coolness is quite powerful and allows the novel to earn its place alongside Gibson's masterpiece quite cosily.