Neal Stephenson Celebrates 'Snow Crash' 30th Anniversary by Auctioning Sword with NFT, Manuscripts

The auction house Sotheby's is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash in a big way, reports Forbes. Stephenson teamed with special effects and prop company Weta Workshop to create "a bespoke piece, a cultural and historical artifact, stemming from the unique mythology of his new and coming Snow Crash universe." "The sword took us a year to create and is one of the finest pieces of craftsmanship WETA has created," said Sir Richard Taylor, founder of WETA workshop. "The whole collection is then housed in a crate from a fictitious gaming company that in theory has owned this sword that has now come up for auction. It is an insane, inworld fusion of ancient craft with the digital age." Taylor adds that "the swords Tansu storage case itself is an, automated, internally driven, magnetically activated, very unique box, with hidden compartments, secret items, coded messages and other inworld special nods to the world Neal authored."

This auction will not only celebrate Stephenson's legacy and the lore of Snow Crash but could also serve as a springboard to expand the Snow Crash universe further. [Taylor adds that Stephenson is exploring "future transmedia developments".] For Taylor, they are at the cusp of creating a body of creative work that blurs the line between the physical and the digital, which we have been affectionately calling 'Masterworks for the Metaverse'.
The sword will, of course, have its own unique NFT "capturing every detail of its physical twin," and someone's already bid $60,000 for it.

Also up for auction are two original manuscripts for Snow Crash and the painting used as the original edition's cover art — but also two forgotten artifacts from the book's afterlife:

• "The only surviving materials from the original graphic novel concept for Snow Crash titled Dioxin Posse, ca. 1989"

• "The leather jacket meant to be worn by Y.T. in the original graphic novel concept for Snow Crash, featuring the 'Elmo' logo used by her group, the "Dioxin Posse," ca. 1989."

I'm going to celebrate - by ripping you off

[greytree]

Nothing says respect for your public like selling them NFTs

Re:

[Rei]

A year ago this would have been like, "Oh great, there goes another person jumping on the bandwagon", but today someone selling NFTs seems like an anachronism.

Re:

[greytree]

He used to predict the technology of the next decade, now he's trying to con people with the technology of last year.

Re:

[Velocir]

It's a custom-made sword with a digital twin thrown in, along with a bunch of other stuff relevant to fans of Snow Crash, at an auction that non-fans aren't somehow forced to bid on. Did you also whine about Anduril? Or Gandalf's staff? They were also auctioned off.

Re:

[greytree]

If I other NRF shite being hawked on here, I would also have mocked the con artists exploiting the gullible with that NRF shite.

Because the scumbags deserve it.

Somebody didn't get the memo

[93 Escort Wagon]

Or, more likely, they're hoping at least one person with money didn't get it...

But, let's be clear. NFTS ARE DEAD.

Re:

[zlives]

its a good side note with the physical original.

In other news...

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

EditorDavid gets Neal Stephenson blowjob

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you had "Snowjob" right there... why didn't you take it?

Only the beginning

[willoughby]

No-one can milk an old, creaky title & concept as well as George Lucas but, hey, gotta start somewhere.

I want my NFT

[Powercntrl]

I don't recall if Weird Al has ever remade a parody of the same song, but he really should re-do his parody of Dire Straits Money for Nothing [youtube.com] and make it about NFTs.

I just re-read Snow Crash ...

[ihadafivedigituid]

Snow Crash didn't age well, and honestly it wasn't as good as I remembered it was in the 90s. It's really disjointed, and I had a hard time caring about the characters. There were some neat ideas, but time moves on. Wiliam Gibson's "Neuromancer", and the other hand, was a stunning re-read--every bit as good as I remember it being in the mid-80s. And yeah, NFTs are so 2022.

What's with the spam

[John Smith 2294]

about some guy nobody cares about?

Snow Crash is outrageously under-utilized.

[Eunomion]

Most screenplay-ready SF novel ever written, and still not adapted decades later.

Re:

[kwerle]

It's been optioned many times.

But seriously - how long would that movie have to be in order to do the book any justice. There's a lot of world building in the book that you really can't convey in a normal length movie.

Re:

[ph0tik]

Honestly, since Ready Player One was already made into a movie, why bother? I like Snowcrash more but it's even older and as such, makes guesses about technological advances that are wrong or we've already move passed.

BTW - I love Snowcrash! Way more than RPO but it feels best to leave it be at this point.

Re:

[Eunomion]

Ready Player One has nothing to do with Snow Crash, and no resemblance to its core ideas.

It would make as much sense to say that The Matrix didn't need to be made because Tron already existed.

Re:

[ph0tik]

It seems disingenuous to say you can't compare them. Snowcrash is tech heavy and Ready Player One is more 80s nostalgia but the core concept of a "metaverse" ties the two together. RPO obviously owes a huge debt to Snowcrash coming before it.

Plus, RPO actually had an ending, unlike ever Stephenson book.

Re:

[Eunomion]

I see the most potent idea of Snow Crash not as metaverse but linguistics. The title says what it's about: The phenomenon of directly affecting the human mind via interaction with the semantics of code. Also the quasi-historical dive into things like ancient language and ideology. That's the juicy material, but it's structured in a very screenplay-ready plot with all sorts of scenes that would be visually appealing.

Re:

[Eunomion]

Doesn't have to be a movie: Lot of great work going on with limited series.

"a cultural and historical artifact"

[Oligonicella]

Pompous megalomania.

Meh.

[IonOtter]

Boooring.

Now, if they were going to make a live-world example of REASON, [technovelgy.com] then maybe we'd have something worth buying.