Pick of the week: Snow Crash

This weeks pick is a book - you know those analog ((If you prefer digital you can get it from Audible.com or from iTunes)) thingies that doesn't require batteries. My pick is Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and this is quite possibly the best science fiction novel I have ever read. Snow Crash is set in the early 21st century where we follow Hiro Protagonist and a young girl nicknamed Y.T. ((Short for Yours Truly)) through an epic tale that mixes together Sumerian culture, virtual reality, religion, love, computer viruses and sword fighting. The main theme of the book is a computer virus called Snow Crash that begins to infect humans. To explain how this transition from machine to flesh is possible Neal Stephenson uses the somewhat controversial ((I find the theories described in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind very believable - i.e. it just makes sense)) concept of Julian Jaynes Bicameral Mind Theory. The attention to detail in this book is phenomenal as is the writing - I guarantee that if you first pick up Snow Crash, you won't be able to put it down again before you have read the last page - and then you'll wish there were more chapters to be read.