Snow Crash
Snow Crash is a science fiction novel by the American writer Neal Stephenson, published in 1992. Like many of Stephenson's novels, its themes include history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics, and philosophy.
US paperback cover | |
| Author | Neal Stephenson |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Jean-François Podevin |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction, Cyberpunk, Postcyberpunk |
| Publisher | Bantam Books (US) |
Publication date | June 1992 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 480 |
| ISBN | 0-553-08853-X (first edition, hardback) |
| OCLC | 25026617 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3569.T3868 S65 1992 |
In his 1999 essay "In the Beginning... Was the Command Line", Stephenson explained the title of the novel as his term for a particular software failure mode on the early Macintosh computer. Stephenson wrote about the Macintosh "When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television set—a 'snow crash'". Stephenson has also mentioned that Julian Jaynes' book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind was one of the main influences on Snow Crash.
Snow Crash was nominated for both the British Science Fiction Award in 1993 and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1994.