"Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson (Penguin, 1992)

Some snapshots

• "When Hiro first saw this place, ten years ago, the monorail hadn't been written yet", p.25
• "A stray dog turd, red with meaty undigestible food coloring, is embossed with the RadiKS logo, a mirror image of which is printed on the tread of each spoke.
  The bimbo box is pulling away from the curb, across the street. Squirrelly scrubbing noises squirm from its sidewalls as they grind against the curb; we are in the Burbs", p.27
• "He turns off his view of the Metaverse entirely, making the goggles totally transparent. Then he switches his system into full gargoyle mode", p.387
• "he turns off Reality and returns to the Metaverse ... 'It's okay,' Hiro says, 'I'm sure theyll listen to Reason", p.388

Hiro Protagonist is the main character. Reason is a portable ballastic weapon. Metaverse is a sort of "Second Life" with avatars - for a few pages characters are simultaneous active in Metaverse and reality. There's also "pooning", "the raft", and a theory about Sumarian, quoting from Steiner and Chomsky.