Snow Crash

Snow Crash, a novel by Neal Stephenson, was the inspiration for the initial versions of Active Worlds, then called WebWorld by Ron Britvich.

Inspiration

The story is based on a future America run by corporations instead of government. The internet had been replaced by a 3D and more advanced alternative called the Metaverse. It was this idea that inspired Ron Britvich to create WebWorld, a 2.5D chat system that predated AlphaWorld before he joined Knowledge Adventure Worlds.

Active Worlds still does not contain the advanced features described in Snow Crash's idea of a metaverse such as advanced realistic avatars. However, it is still close with features such as avatars and the ability to build like other programs such as There, also inspired by Snow Crash.

Amazon.com's Editorial Review

From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible.