Deeply satiric look at a future America where Robbsian (inter alia, I suppose) de-Westphalianization has fully occurred, leaving any remaining organization in the hands of private entities - mainly corporations, naturally. Darkly funny, and full to the brim with Stephenson's soon-to-be-trademark provocative and fascinating sociotechnofuturism. Not to mention a more than fair quantity of badass action and other just plain cool shit. Overall just a really damn good book, and the plausibility of his tech predictions (even mostly the stuff about the internet) hold up amazingly well considering this book was published back in, what, '93? 
 Though, I can't be the only one who didn't completely understand the conclusion (in terms of wrapping up threads etc., I mean) - especially re: Y.T., right? Right? ...Right?