Original artwork, not a still
Snow Crash • 1992
The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The sentence is a perfect cyberpunk joke: the grand language of a knightly order, spent on a man who delivers pizza. It tells you at once that Stephenson will treat a collapsed America as satire of franchise culture, and it makes Hiro's pride in the job feel real. Fans quote it for any mundane trade that takes itself, and its craft, seriously.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for Snow CrashShow the scene
This is the opening sentence of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (Bantam, June 1992). The first chapter follows Hiro Protagonist, who in these pages is the Deliverator: a high-speed pizza courier for the Mafia in a franchise-ruled, post-collapse Los Angeles. The chapter makes the case that pizza delivery is one of four things America still does best, and it ends with Hiro no longer the Deliverator. Soon after he meets the skateboard Kourier Y.T., and the story moves into the Metaverse and the Snow Crash virus.
Sources (2)
- Wikiquote: Snow Crashsection "The Deliverator", Chapter 1 entriesReference checked
- Wikipedia: Snow Crashinfobox and SummaryReference checked
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