Sotheby's, one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles, announced  that the original manuscript of Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash — the book which coined the term “Metaverse,” — will be auctioned on 27th February.

Thise auction is part of a Feb. 23 NFT collection called “Infocalypse” that includes six physical and six digital items related to the famous book Snow Crash. 

According to Sotheby's official website, Infocalypseis composed of images designed for, or derived from, Dioxin Posse, the graphic novel project that preceded Snow Crash, evoking the data-saturated dystopian setting and the titular image of the novel. The project is a collaboration between Tony Sheeder, the artist behind Dioxin Posse, artist and software developer Sterling Crispin, and author Neal Stephenson, to mark the 30th anniversary of the publication of Snow Crash.

Published in 1992, Snow Crash is considered — along with William Gibson’s Neuromancer — as one of the pillars of the cyberpunk genre and one of the most important works of modern science fiction. The book is credited with coining the term “Metaverse” and popularizing the use of the term “avatar,” which James Cameron later cited as a primary inspiration in his work. Stephenson’s vision of a hyper-capitalist, post-national, arch-libertarian future might be fiction, but it anticipated – and could be said to have served as the source code for – much of our contemporary world, from the metaverse to cryptocurrency, mobile computing to augmented reality, and much more.