Recommendations for Cypherpunks Books

[Ken Brown]

Bill Stewart wrote:

[...] 

> Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon is of course recommended,
> and classics like Vinge's "True Names" and "A Fire Upon The Deep".
> and Stephenson's "Snow Crash".  Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game"
> has some nice treatment of reputation systems and pseudonymity -
> unfortunately it's *much* harder to get the tech correct than it is
> to write about what if feels like to use well-designed systems :-)
> Brunner's "Shockwave Rider" and Sterling's "Islands in the Net"
> hit some of the appropriate space.
> "Trouble and Her Friends" has some good treatment of cryptographically
> protected subcultures, though that's more as redeeming-social-value
> for a book that's written for genre.
> "Idoru" by Gibson does some of the same.
 
[...] 

Brunner seconded, and a bid for Ken MacLeod. "Stone Canal" is probably
the one most cypherpunks would like the most - set in a well-described
crypto-anarchic polity where "information wants to be free" and is
willing to fight for it.  CPs ought to love the trial scene.  In an
anarchy you start by agreeing on what law you will be judged by and who
is to be the judge.

Reading them in order is best - "Star Fraction" is basically
old-fashioned 1980s-style cyberpunk (but he knows his stuff & is serious
about AI & cryptography, then "Stone Canal", "The Cassini Division" (my
favourite), then "Sky Road".

Some of the best sf of the last 5 years.

Ken (not him - the other one)