Bruce Sterling: The Last Viridian Note

I like to read Bruce Sterling's works, fiction or non-fiction. I own every single one of his published works except the first, which is rare. Sometimes he is cheesy or stupid, but overall he's probably one of top sci-fi writers now living.

I once saw him eating lunch at the southern Threadgill's, I ignored my dinner partner to watch him from afar. He switched between talking and listening too intently to eat, and some point dove into his backpack to haul out an Apple laptop. I'm not sure he ever ate any food.

I like science fiction that is a genuine and credible attempt to describe the future as it will be or could be, not the swords and dragons or physically impossible faster than light travel or such nonsense. I think Bruce Sterling comes to the closest to actually guessing at and describing where we are going, and I wish he would write more. During the last year, 3 or 4 times I have read news stories about the election or economy and felt a chill go down my back because I recognized stuff from Sterling's "Distraction" and "Heavy Weather", which are years old at this point.

If you are doing a startup or business that in any way is involved with the intersection of technology and law enforcement - and with privacy issues and secret supenoes, who isn't - I highly recommend you read Sterling's non-fiction book "The Hacker Crackdown".