Today’s links The true post-cyberpunk hero is a noir forensic accountant: Blair Fix, Henry Farrell and Maria Farrell know more about Marty Hench than I do. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Where I’ve been. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. The true post-cyberpunk hero is a noir forensic accountant (permalink) I was reared on cyberpunk fiction, I ended up spending 25 years at my EFF day-job working at the weird edge of tech and human rights, even as I wrote sf that tried to fuse my love of cyberpunk with my urgent, lifelong struggle over who computers do things for and who they do them to. That makes me an official “post-cyberpunk” writer (TM). Don’t take my word for it: I’m in the canon: https://tachyonpublications.com/product/rewired-the-post-cyberpunk-anthology-2/ One of the editors of that “post-cyberpunk” anthology was John Kessel, who is, not coincidentally, the first writer to expose me to the power of literary criticism to change the way I felt about a novel, both as a writer and a reader: https://locusmag.com/2012/05/cory-doctorow-a-prose-by-any-other-name/ It was Kessel’s 2004 Foundation essay, “Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender’s Game, Intention, and Morality,” that helped me understand litcrit. Kessel expertly surfaces the subtext of Card’s Ender’s Game and connects it to Card’s politics. In so doing, he completely reframed how I felt about…Pluralistic: The true post-cyberpunk hero is a noir forensic accountant (17 Apr 2024)