We all know Second Life, now. Of course we know who we pay every month that subscription, it’s Linden Research Inc, commonly knew as Linden Lab. But the game has it’s origins in a novel. Yes guys, first it was a story, every time there is. Someone had to think it first but the fellows from Linden Lab put the virtual reality in real reality, if you know what I mean.

Anyhow, the storyteller is Neal Stephenson and the story is “Snow Crash”. Of course is a futuristic version of the future, they all are, where private organisations take over the government. And in this kind of environment the Metaverse makes it’s unavailing. It is described by the author as the successor of the Internet and actually it’s a vision of a virtual reality based internet. The main character is this book is Hiro (you also can read it as “hero”), who, of course, tries to uncover of a new drug “Snow Crash” having it’s effects in SL, just like a computer-virus, as well as in the RL, altering the minds of the users.

The book was published in 1992 and the Second Life game was launched only after 11 years. As you might have noticed, every big idea was firstly present in the imagination of the writers and afterwards it became reality. I think it’s a very interesting book to read especially if you want to know the origins of the reality you’re playing with.