Neal Stephensen=Nathan Eple (there is no 'y')

The metaverse. Cool. This guy has nerd written all over him. The kind of nerd that gets picked on so much in high school he locks himself in his room with a computer and stack of Japanamation comics every weekend. Maybe even convinces himself he is a ninja? "Cyberpunk" or glorified nerd? What I did like about the novel is the difference between the Metaverse and Reality. Capital R. At any given moment you may be in one or the other or both, like when he plugs into the cigarette lighter of the car. How to tell the difference if Hiro is in the Metaverse or Reality-if he is a broke loser it is definitely Reality. If he is a popular sword-carrying ninja it is the Metaverse. It is also interesting that everything in Reality is Incorporated, especially the government. Stephensen has taken millennial thinking to a whole new super paranoid level where in the future there is nothing but corporations and mafias and the governments keep track of your every move. Now even the Metaverse is being threatened by drug corruption and a foreshadowed apocalypse. You can call him a cyberpunk but I will call him a nerd.