Regarding Snow Crash:
I liked the book a lot in the beginning, but it got increasingly lame towards the end. Similiarly with The Diamond Age. His best I've read so far is Cryptonomicon (mentioned a few months ago). It has a slightly hokey ending, but not completely lame - and the act of getting there - wow. It's my all-time favorite book.
Snow Crash (along with Neuromancer and Ender's Game) are almost required reading at my job (highly recommended in any case). However, one of my favorites is a book I read from (I think) back in the 70s called True Names (Vernor Vinge). This one's not about virtual worlds, per se, but it's kinduva cult classic among some hackers.
Cyberspace is one of those words like "infobahn" that grates on me. It's probably the most common term, and I reckon nearly everyone knows what it means, but every time I hear it I think of that episode of the Dick Van Dyke show where the FBI uses Petrie's house to spy on one of his neighbors and he makes mention of the "binocs" to an agent. Other terms are virtual worlds, virtual environments, terrain databases, virtual terrains, synthetic environments, synthetic natural environments.
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