"Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson

This is the first novel by Neal Stephenson, his second being "Diamond Age" which I already reviewed some time ago. "Snow Crash" does the same for virtual environments and language development as "Diamond Age" did for nano-technology and social identity. It is a very in-depth and ingenious follow through of current trends into a possible future. The book is centered around the hacker Hiro Protagonist, half african-american, half japanese, and his sidekick, skateboard courier, the 15 year old Y.T. (yours truly). The world of tomorrow is a world where nation states fell apart and the US government sold most of its property and army, and is only holding on to few buildings with ridiculous bureaucracy. The mafia is a franchise of Pizza parlors and pizza delivery is an extreme job. The world has its virtual meeting place, The Street, a VR world that Hiro helped create, in the center of which is the hacker pub the "Black Sun".

Hiro learns that one of the most powerful people on the planet, owning the main religious franchise is using Summerian technology from 8,000 years ago to give the people knowledge of the universal language that all people spoke, before Enki, Summerian god, created the language virus that created the many different languages in order for other language viruses which could be used to control people don't spread. Add to this surveillance-technology wearing "gargoyles" and an Aleutian native american with low urge control and a nuclear warhead in his motorbike whose fuse is connected to ECG signals from the Aleutian and you have a complex mess that is a pleasure to untangle. Oh, and don't forget the enormous "Raft" anchored by a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and consisting of thousands interwoven vessels transporting people from poor Asian countries to the US.