Snow Crash

Hiro Protagonist tries to stop the introduction of an ancient Sumerian neurolinguistic virus into human society, which would basically turn everyone into mindless robots.

The science fiction involves a complicated but very interesting theorized history of human language and how it is intimately involved with religion, free will, and self-determination.

This is all couched in a world of virtual reality, which I found to be distracting to the basic ideas of the story, but not overly so. An enjoying and fast read. If you like cyberpunk, don't hesitate to consume.

An interesting side-note was that Stephenson originally conceived this to be a computer-generated graphic novel. He was no doubt a little before his time, because I think that would be a perfect medium for it -- if he had only wriiten this about 10 or 15 years later...