Revisiting cyberpunk novels Neuromancer and Snow Crash in today’s context

(This was first published at jshamsul.com on 2024-07-19)

I remember reading both William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash when I was still a teenager in the late '90s. Although Neuromancer was published much earlier, it wasn't until the late '90s that I became a fan of cyberpunk and the hacker culture, leading me to discover the novel.

Neuromancer is often credited as the novel that coined the term ‘cyberspace,’ while Snow Crash is credited with coining the term ‘metaverse.’ I remember the feeling when I first read both novels; the technology described seemed so far-fetched and cool. Re-reading these novels in today’s context, however, feels like the technology we have today is almost catching up with what was written in Neuromancer and Snow Crash.

Here’s a short, semi-spoiler recap of both novels:

Neuromancer

Set in a dystopian future, a high-tech meets low-life society, the story follows the main character, Case, who is what the book calls a ‘console cowboy’ (also known as a ‘hacker’). He lost his ability to jack into cyberspace due to neurological damage. In this world, you ‘jack in’ to cyberspace, like Neo from the movie The Matrix (which I think was probably influenced by Neuromancer).

Case then meets Armitage, who knows the right person and has the proper connections to help Case repair his neural access to cyberspace. However, it comes with a price. He has to do certain favours for Armitage. Together with Molly, a katana-wielding ‘street samurai’ who becomes Case’s partner and bodyguard in the real world, they embark on heist missions for Armitage.

We later find out that Armitage was only a pawn in a grand scheme. The actual entity controlling and manipulating Armitage, Case, and everyone else is Wintermute. I say “entity” because Wintermute is a self-aware AI. Its objective is to combine with its counterpart AI, Neuromancer. Once combined, Wintermute will transcend its current limitations and achieve a higher level of intelligence and consciousness.

No spoilers; you have to read it for yourself to find out what happens.

(Checkout Neuromancer at bookshelf)

Snow Crash

In a similarly dystopian future, where the American government has all but disbanded and the entire country is divided into corporate-controlled city-states and private enclaves, the story follows the main character, whose name is Hiro Protagonist. Yes, that is his name. Hiro is a katana-wielding sword fighter, a freelance hacker, and a pizza delivery driver for the Mafia-controlled CosaNostra Pizza.

It wasn’t clear if it was actually “pizza” he was delivering because one of his delivery runs ended in a high-speed chase. He later meets a teenage girl skateboard courier named Y.T., which stands for ‘Yours Truly.’

Hiro, as a hacker, also has skills in the metaverse. This is what the book refers to as an immersive virtual reality space where users interact through avatars. It's a 3-dimensional, shared, digital world where people can be someone else, conduct business, or just hang out. Hiro was one of the hackers who helped build part of the metaverse. Particularly, a virtual nightclub called ‘The Black Sun’.

The story picks up when a virus called ‘Snow Crash’ starts making the rounds, infecting both avatars in the metaverse and the actual bodies in the real world. It fries the infected person’s brain, shutting down all cognitive functions, making them brain-dead.

Hiro, with his unexpected allies, including the pizza mafia, starts to investigate and discovers that the virus has links to ancient Sumerian legend. The book has some crazy ideas, and I loved it.

(Checkout Snow Crash at bookshelf)

Tech in Neuromancer and Snow Crash That We Might See in Our Lifetime

I mentioned at first that when I first read these novels, I was fascinated but felt that the tech and dystopian worlds described were still far in the future. Reading them again in today’s context made me think that some of the tech, like it or not, we might see in our lifetime.

VR / AR - Metaverse

In both novels, the main characters, portrayed as hackers, ‘jack in’ to a fully immersive digital virtual environment. In Neuromancer, it’s more like taking an immersive look into interconnected systems — the book calls it cyberspace — while in Snow Crash, it’s called the metaverse, a shared digital virtual world where users can take on different avatars and interact.

‘Metaverse’ was (and probably still is) Mark Zuckerberg’s big bet. He even renamed his company Facebook to Meta. With their Meta Quest headgear, the world envisioned by Meta closely resembles the metaverse described in Snow Crash. Apple has also made a move into this space with their Vision Pro offering. This makes me think it won’t be long until the way we work with computers changes. It will be an immersive experience, and similar to the folks in Snow Crash, we’ll get used to working, transacting, and interacting in the metaverse.

Artificial Intelligent

Both books approach the subject of AI differently. In Neuromancer, AI is the main plot. Neuromancer has a more apocalyptic view about AI taking over the world. The plot involves a self-aware AI, Wintermute, plotting and manipulating to get what it wants.

In Snow Crash, however, the AI is less nefarious. Hiro, the main character from Snow Crash, interacts with a ‘Librarian Program’ to learn more about the origin of the Snow Crash virus and how it relates to ancient Sumerian legend. Hiro talks naturally to the ‘Librarian’ as it explains based on the resources it has.

Snow Crash’s Librarian program is like today’s specialised LLM trained with specific data, and users can inquire about information just by chatting with it. If they put ChatGPT in a metaverse, give it an avatar, and have users interact with it, we already have the ‘Librarian.’

Cybernetic Enhancements, Bionics, and Prosthetics.

Both books have these elements, presenting them as the norm in everyday society. From nootropic drugs to artificial limbs and organs to cybernetic implants enhancing one’s skills in the digital or real world.

To me, this is scarier than AI. What will become of humans now that we can change almost every ‘bio-ware’ we have? Today, we see Elon Musk’s Neuralink making progress and getting closer to a brain-computer interface. This has the potential to lead to the dystopian future described in both books.

World Govern by Corporation

This is not really technical, but it’s another bleak outlook of the dystopian future envisioned in both books. In Neuromancer, there is a massive and powerful corporation known as Sense/Net. And what does this corporation have that makes it so powerful? Data. It stores a vast amount of information and media. It controls the data, which influences public perception and knowledge. Sounds familiar? Sounds like your everyday data-hoarding big tech social media company that we have today.

In the world of Snow Crash, it is even more obvious that corporations and entities like the mafia are running the show. The U.S. is split up into smaller city-states that each major corporation runs and governs. They use ‘freelancers’ and ‘mercenaries’ to do the job for them, similar to how today’s gig economy with gig workers operates.

It is fascinating to see how all the futuristic tech described in both novels is probably just a few years away. I don’t know how I feel about this, though. Part of me is excited about what is to come, but another part is worried about the societal decay that both books describe.