Silicon Valley isn't usually where aspiring authors go to kick-start a literary reputation. [...] How'd he do it? By courting bloggers and influential techies like Joi Ito, Stewart Brand, and Craig Newmark demonstrating that if you can get the geek grapevine on your side, you don't need Random House.

For average working folks, America was becoming a puzzle. Who was buying all these two-hundred-dollar copper saucepans, anyway? And how was everyone paying for these BMWs? Were people shrewd or just stupefyingly irresponsible?

When the survival strategy of a civilization is invalidated, in all of human history none have ever turned back from the brink.

In all, his outfit required nearly two thousand man-years of research and development, eight barrels of oil, and sixteen patent and trademark infringement lawsuits. All so he could possess casual style. A style that, in logistical requirements, was comparable to fielding a nineteenth-century military brigade. But he looked good. Casual.

My fiction is only just over the horizon. I present a world that's different but it's familiar enough that it freaks people out a little.

Food is the very heart of freedom. How can people be free if they can't feed themselves without getting sued for patent violations?

I don't have a Facebook page. I don't use Twitter. I don't give anyone a lot to grab onto. Sometimes, I even take out the battery of my mobile phone so that I can't be localized.