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.