The original manuscript of Neil Stephenson’s book snow accident — the book that coined the term “Metaverse,” — will be auctioned by Sotheby’s, according to a page on Sotheby’s official website. The auction is part of a Feb. 23 series called “Infocalypse,” which includes six physical and six digital items related to the famous book.
The original manuscript is in Lot 2 of the series. It is “wrapped in genuine Xerox 4200 paper”, protected with masking tape and contains “corrections and annotations in Neal Stephenson’s handwriting in blue ink”. It also has the title of the book written on the spine with the author’s pen.
A “Revised Typesetting Manuscript” is also up for auction in Lot 4. This is a later version filled with additional handwritten notes and author revisions.
Attention Snow Crash readers and fans!
Infocalypse, an open-edit collection of digital art created to mark the 30th anniversary of @nealstephensonThe Snow Crash novel, which coined the term “Metaverse”, will be released on February 27th.
Learn more: https://t.co/3a4DfSrdBg https://t.co/nL1HRYboyf
— Sotheby’s Metaverse (@Sothebysverse) February 23, 2023
Other physical objects being auctioned as part of the series include the original painting used as cover art for the 1993 mass market paperback edition of the book, a leather jacket that would be used in a promotional video for the comic , slides used for the comic book concept, and an actual sword inspired by the one the book’s protagonist wielded.
In addition to these physical items, the series will also contain digital art NFTs inspired by the comic book concept that preceded Snow fall.
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Published in 1992, Snow fall was set in a dystopia where most humans live in small warehouses, per the editor’s description. It followed the exploits of protagonist Hiro, a pizza delivery boy who has to fight off thugs to deliver his pizzas. Hiro spends all of his free time in a virtual world called “The Metaverse”, where citizens go to escape the misery of everyday life. But a computer virus was causing the residents of the Metaverse to become “nothing more than an unstable cloud of bad digital karma”. The novel’s plot revolved around Hiro’s attempts to figure out how to stop the virus.
The book has sold over 125,000 copies, according to the Washington Post. Since the book’s release, virtual reality enthusiasts have increasingly used Stephenson’s term “Metaverse” to describe the emerging virtual world being created by VR technology, and in recent years it has become a frequently used buzzword. researched.
The rise of the Metaverse has led to new career opportunities for some and has helped to reshape Web3 games.