The Original Definition of the Metaverse: Neal Stephenson's Triumphant Snow Crash

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

When you've been given the name Hiro Protagonist, you're typecast from the day your birth certificate was completed. Luckily for our hero Hiro, however, he fits the name quite nicely: he's a world-class swordsman when wielding the katana his father left him, not to mention being a world-class hacker. On that last point, he's one of the original founders of the virtual-reality world known as the Metaverse — which means he can get into its most famous virtual nightclub, the Black Sun, any time he wants. In real life, Hiro's found that freelance hacking jobs are sparse and swordplay doesn't pay at all, so he's employed as a deliveryman for the Mafia. A pizza deliveryman...

A partnership of convenience is formed when Y. T., Lolita-esque blonde skateboarding "Kourier," saves Hiro's bacon by delivering his last-ever pizza (last ever 'cause his car was at that time sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool). They'll partner 50:50 to deal in information, the only real currency in an age where trillion-dollar bills ("Meeses") are most useful when shredded for kitty litter, and most worldwide franchises print "local" money that's far more stable than the poor ol' greenback.

When Organization Fails

Careful What You Wish For - Hallie Ephron

Like the Bushes and the Kennedys in politics and the Barrymores in theater, there are dynasties in fiction. Some are more successful than others: think Steven King and his son, Joe Hill (ignore Tabitha, though…) in the world of horror; or James Lee Burke and daughter Alafair if your taste runs to mysteries. And then there are the Ephron sisters… everyone knows Nora for such films as “Sleepless in Seattle” or “Silkwood,” but did you know that her sister Hallie Ephron is also a writer? Neither did I, at least before I picked up a copy of Careful What You Wish For… and I’m still not sure.

Meet Emily Harlow, erstwhile third-grade teacher turned Marie Kondo clone; right down to that whole “spark joy” bushwa. She and a buddy operate Freeze-Frame Clutter Kickers, one of those “organizer” services that help hoarders and near-hoarders clean out their closets. Yeah, as if… Truth be told, Emily should be helping her husband, Frank, clean up all his junk.

Who Is Killing Charlie Grant's BFFs?

Catch Me - Lisa Gardner

Boston Homicide's D. D. Warren is not about to let a case of the postpartum blues slow her down, no, not one step. But this latest case is… just plain weird. Oh, one more dead pedophile is nothing new; but the woman she meets at the murder scene, a woman who's come to see the cop she expects to investigate her own murder? Now, there's a first.

Charlie Grant's two BFFs were murdered exactly one year apart on January 21st, both cases still unsolved. With just a few days left before she expects to meet her own death on that wintry date, Charlie's gone underground in Beantown. She's turned herself into a lean, mean, fighting machine and armed herself for bear - but she's still certain she knows what date will be carved to the right of the dash on her tombstone. That's when she comes on Warren's radar; not because she seems afraid but she seems somehow… guilty.

The Footage Shall Reveal...

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson

The generation born in the 1970s and '80s has benefited from a revolution in the way our world functions; a sea change of the magnitude of steam power, Ford's assembly line, or the refutation of the heliocentric universe. Never before has information spread at such velocity. Consider "dancing baby" and "all your base are belong to us," phenomena that circumnavigated the globe at the speed of thought. To our grandparents, fashion and commerce were local: the corner bakery, the town tailor and milliner, a grocer served by local farms and gardens. Today, however, children the world over identify the icons of our age regardless of their native alphabet; they recognize the swoosh and the golden arches and the red and white soda can at a distance of a thousand paces.

Neal Stephenson's "Reamde": The Fantasy Trilogy Grows Up

Reamde - Neal Stephenson

By now, I suppose you've figured out the format for The Great Fantasy (---)logy. It used to always be "Trilogy" in homage to LOTR, but I think some authors are now up to more than twenty volumes per "story." Anyway, the standard set of tropes is a battle between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil, some sort of "fellowship" that invariably splinters, an arduous journey (usually across mountains) and a talisman that must be rescued/destroyed/captured so that Evil can be held at bay – at least until the next series begins. Oh, and there's one more convention: medieval weaponry. It wouldn't do to have this particular saga's version of Frodo picked off by a sniper who's hiding behind a boulder high on the slopes of this particular saga's version of  the Mountains of Mordor. Yeah: that's fantasy.