Snow Crash- Discussion Questions

What kind of role does race play in the novel? How is the role of race different here than in other novels? How is Hiro’s biraciality important? How does Hiro move between several categorizations? How is this important? How is race significant for Raven? What do we make of Y. T.’s name and the way it relates to her race? How do issues of race inform other characters and event in the novel? Gender and Sexuality

How is gender significant in this novel? Do the characters conform to or challenge gender roles? Both? Neither? What do you make of Y. T.’s practice of costuming? Is Juanita in need of rescue? What do you make of the sexualization of Y. T. as a fifteen-year-old girl? Consider the scenes between Y. T. and Raven. What about the dentata? The Franchise World

How has the United States been transformed? Why? What is it now? What are the franchises and burbclaves like? How do they organize society? What does this do to boundaries and interaction between disparate characters? How might this limit society? How is the franchise world related to our own? What do the franchises reflect about the people who live or work in them? Are any of the franchises outside this structure? Can you relate the franchise world to myths of creation? Working

How is the world of work defined in this alternative vision of the present? What does it mean to be the Deliverator? A Kourier? A CIC stringer? Are people defined by their jobs? Why doesn’t Hiro want to work for a software company? What has happened to most jobs in the United States? How is working in Fedland structured? What does it mean to have jobs micromanaged to such a degree? How does it affect creativity and innovation? Why is this important in the novel? The Metaverse

What is the Metaverse like? How is it similar to other virtual environments we have explored in previous texts? How is it different? Is it similar to our relationship with the internet? What kinds of transactions occur in the Metaverse? Is this an information economy? Consider the double date? Who is allowed in the Metaverse? Why are Juanita’s faces so crucial to the working of this system? Why does she abandon this system? How might this version of the universe distort human relationships? Consider Hiro’s relationship to the Metaverse. How is it similar to or different from Case’s or P. Burke’s? How does one balance reality and the Metaverse? What does it mean to become a gargoyle? Cybernetic Systems & The Rat Things - Good Little Doggies?

Consider the cybernetic systems in the novel. Are gargoyles cybernetic systems? What is Ng’s argument about why it is better to live as a technologically assisted organism? Do you think he is right? What are the Rat-Things? What does it mean to think of them as Rat-Things, robots, technologically assisted organisms, or dogs? Do each of these designations change the reality of your perception? How do they think of themselves? Is memory important? Are their lives better than they were before? What defines Fido? Snow Crash

Does the drug “fuck up your mind or your computer?” Is there a difference between your mind and your computer? What is the difference? If there isn’t one, what does that mean? How can Snow Crash be a drug, a virus, and a religion? What does breaking down these barriers mean? What does L. Bob Rife want to use Snow Crash for? What is the motivation of other characters: Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates, the President of the United States, Raven? Are these motives justified? Who opposes Snow Crash and why? How is this virus the Fall for the Metaverse? What happens after the Fall? Religion and Technology

Several of the works we have read have discussed the relationship between religion and technology. Consider their varying strategies and approaches. Some works have made a religion out of technology, is Snow Crash making a technology out of religion? What is important about this distinction? What does it mean to explain ancient mythology in terms of modern technology? How are the stories of Creation, the Fall, and Babel used in this novel? Why might Babel be “the best thing that ever happened to us?” How can religion be like a virus? What other kinds of ideas or information can be viral? Are semiotic ghost viral? What is the difference between rational and irrational, or viral, religion? How does one achieve a rational faith? How does one develop a resistance to viral ideas? Binary Code & Binary Universe

What is the importance of binary code and binary distinctions in the novel? How is binary code applied to Sumerian mythology? Are binaries repeated in the novel? Are characters arrayed in a binary fashion? Do we live in a binary universe? Explain Hacking the Brain Stem

What does it mean to have the power to hack the brain stem (like Juanita)? How is the brain related to a computer system in this sense? What would one do with this kind of power? Cyberpunk Style

What is Stephenson’s writing style? Is this cyberpunk according to Sterling’s definition? Explain. What do you make of Stephenson’s use of humor?