The Metaverse is an enhanced version of the internet, an actual visual representation of everything that happens online today and even more. Each person has his own avatar, with which he is able to interact online, walk along the Street and even own buildings.

The story of the novel concentrates around Hiro Protagonist, a hacker and world’s best sword fighter and Y.T., a fifteen year old Kourier, who try to track down the creator of the Snow Crash, a virtual drug, that is able to crash the computer and your brain system simultaneously. This drug, in it’s virtual form, is however effective only on hackers, because it transmits a crash signal in the form of a binary code to the visual canal of the recipent, which only they can read, causing irreparable consequences to their minds.

Since I don’t want to spoil your reading enjoyment, I won’t divulge into further details of the story. But I’ll add only one interesting curiosity. Thanks to the wide popularity of the book at the time of it’s release, the word avatar, which was introduced by Stephenson, is since then used as the standard definition for the visual representation of a person in the internet.

Rip Cantrell is a student working with a seismic group in Sahara, when he suddenly spots a shining piece of metal in the middle of the desert, which turns out to be a saucer, that is, according to professor Soldi, who is an archaeologist, buried there for over 140.000 years. This discovery is of course quickly spotted by the US military who send its UFO force to seize the saucer. But they are not alone. The second richest man in the world, Richard Hendricks has also dispatched his own group of soldiers to bring him the vessel. And just when it seems that Hendricks will be able to steal the Saucer from Rip, he and Charley Pine, a US air force pilot, take off in the saucer from the scene, right in time before the local army, who also joined the game, was able to get their hand on this precious machine. And this is where things get complicated, when extortion, hiding and decisive action from individuals take place. A story that really keeps the adrenaline in your veins and leaves you with asking for more. And there is more! There is a second book, named The Conquest, which was released in 2004. I haven’t read it yet though, because I couldn’t find it in my local library.

The whole story is very fascinating and all, but since I’m a science fiction lover I also demand answers to the opened questions! And there were many in the book. From the colonization of the Earth, to the contents of the encyclopedia which was found on the ship, but was just briefly mentioned, to their common technology knowledge and the home planet of that civilization. … Yeah, I need to get the second book.

The series is a “trilogy”, which consists of five books, named: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, “Life, the Universe and Everything”, “So long, and Thanks for All the Fish” and “Mostly Harmless”. In September 2008, a sixth book was announced to be written by Eoin Colfer and bearing the title “And Another thing…”. The release is scheduled for 30th of October this year.

The story, written by Douglas Adams, starts with the contractors arriving at Arthur Dent’s house to demolish it and making way for a bypass. Only a few moments later Vogon space ships arrive, to demolish Earth and making way for a hyperspace bypass. Arthur’s friend Ford Prefect, who turns out to be an alien from a distant planet somewhere near Betelgeuse, manages to hitch a lift for Arthur and himself on one of the Vogons ships, just in time before the Earth is destroyed. There, when the Vogons discover them, they are tortured with Vogon’s poetry, which happens to be the third worst in the known Universe, before they’re thrown into space through an airlock. At that time, they are, very improbably, picked up by a ship named Hearth of Gold, which is powered by an infinite improbability drive and was stolen by Zaphod Beeblebrox, the President of the Glaxy, who is on the quest to find the planet of Magrathea. And this is when their voyage, full of improbabilities and odd events begins. It puts them on a quest to find the Ultimate answer to Life the Universe and Everything, which turns out to be 42. And since they find this answer unsatisfactory, they are thrown on the pursuit of the Question to the ultimate answer, to finally comprehend its true meaning.

And now to the story. As those of you who have already read at least the first book know, the story is set in a fictional world, on a continent called Westeros and partially also on a part of a large eastern continent of an unknown name. The story itself, is actually composed of three main stories, featuring the civil war fought by the noble families, strugling for control of the kingdom, the threat from the misterious Others, from the far north and the journey of Daenerys Targaryen, the last remaining child of the rightful king, that was murdered fifteen years ago and who is now heading back to Westeros, to claim the throne.

This is just a small insight on the story, so you’d get an idea, what’s this all about. As far as I could find out, there are two more books available, which I definitely have to get my hand on as soon as I get enough time for reading. I also discovered that there’s a fifth book in the making right now, and should be released sometime in the middle of 2009. Another two are projected to be made, so there will be a total of seven books. There’s no telling when they’ll be written, but I guess we won’t have to wait too long. The series is already a success, and I bet the author is doing all in his power to release the books soon.

At this point we come across a Pastwatch researcher, that has devoted all her life to searching and finding the origin, the exact point in history in which slavery was adopted. Although at that time she can’t do anything to change the history, she finds the cause of the widespread slavery – the voyage of Christopher Columbus and the Conquest of America. And it is then, that she and her co-worker, found a strange conversation among two members of a tribe, that was just about to be attacked by the Spanish conquistadors. They were talking about them, describing how they see them watching at what was happening. Now it became clear to them, the machines Pastwatch developed were not only able to passively watch the past, but were also interacting with it.

… I guess that’s enough to give you a general idea about the storyline The book is very well written, combining the present situation with the past and describing into detail all the actions that were made. It’s obvious from my description what comes next, a voyage in the past to make changes that would make the world better. However all comes at a price. To change the flow of events means that the current time will be altered and will cease to exist. Everyone that you know, will never be born and some of the achievements could have never been achieved.

To cut it short… the book is a must read! Oh, and by the way: This only the first book, another two are planned to be published, though there’s no telling when.

Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan

Last week I’ve been walking among shelfs in our local library, trying to find an interesting book, so I could have something to read when I wouldn’t have anything better to do. Don’t get me wrong, I like to read, it’s just that lately, there’s so much other things to do, mostly with websites I manage, scouts and various other meetings plus school, so I don’t really have time to do anything else. And when I do have time, I usually spend it watching movies or playing a game I wanted to try for a long time (I’ll get back to this later in another post) or I simply go to sleep.

And so it happened that while I was searching a book shelf, specifically a shelf containing english science fiction literature, I stumbled upon an author that was previously unknown to me. It was Richard Morgan. And what a find! The mixture of hardcore cyberpunk, detective and crime fiction is just awesome! The story of Takeshi Kovacs, an Envoy born on Harlan’s World doing a detective’s job on the other side of the explored universe for a rich immortal men is very well written and at the same time mind boogling. The whole society, its technology, way of life, people’s prejudices and political corruption are so neatly and realistically presented, that you can’t help but to feel as a part of this world, and the story.

I don’t want to spoil the story for you, so I won’t go into details. All I want to say is, if you’re fans of science fiction, and if you liked Michael Crichton’s technically detailed novels, then you mustn’t miss this one.