ROC Penguin Group (London, G.B.) 1993, English text 440 pp.

Armchair shopping in the metaverse. In Reality, the Burbclaves are miniature nation states, MetaCops take major credit cards and the CosaNostra controls the pizza franchise. Freelancer hacker and delivery boy Hiro Protagonist shares a U-Stor-It in LA with his two swords and an Ukrainian grunge metal guitarist. On the street he is one of the elect who wrote the protocols of the Metaverse, where custom avatars strut and advertising space sells by the pixel. The street is much sharper than reality and less dangerous - until an out-of-focus lowlife starts handing out free samples of Snow Crash...