Neal Stephenson's 'Snow Crash' is a doorstopper, but his earlier short story collection, 'The Great Simoleon Cavern', contains 'Snow Crash' as a novella in a different form. The original version is shorter, wilder, and less polished than the novel. It's the pure, frenetic id of the idea—the Metaverse, the Deliverator, the memetic virus.
Reading it is like seeing a cultural atom bomb being assembled in a garage. It's messy, brilliant, and doesn't stop for breath. If you want the iconic concepts without the digressions on Sumerian myth and neurolinguistics (though those are fun too), seeking out this earlier version is a great way to get a concentrated hit of Stephenson's vision.