Re: "Comp Titles"
Subject: Re: "Comp Titles"
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 9/5/11, 17:22
To: Daniel Conaway <dconaway@writershouse.com>
CC: "greggatghc@gmail.com" <greggatghc@gmail.com>, Stephen Barr <sbarr@writershouse.com>

I haven't read any of these, although I'm familiar with the subject matter and impact of The Cuckoo's Egg, Kingpin, and Mitnick's new book.

One of the things that got me interested in Anonymous back in the early days, and which has become much truer as it's evolved, is the extent to which the collective and the dynamics inherent to it were almost predicted by several cyberpunk authors, particularly William Gibson. In Neuromancer (1984, I believe), Gibson includes a pseudo-organization called the Panther Moderns who have their own internal culture and linguistic style and who conduct pranks/terrorist acts against major media conglomerates using digital means. In Virtual Light (93), he includes another group called the Republic of Desire which is even closer to Anonymous in several ways. Obviously that brings up an interesting question as to whether these predictive fictional accounts contributed to the advent of Anonymous; the answer, I think, is that these particular examples didn't do much directly in that regard, even though they're now closer to reality than other fiction which clearly do have influence on Anonymous' evolution, such as the comic/film V for Vendetta.

As for other books that might be similar to this, another book on Anonymous just came out, although from what I can tell it includes nothing that isn't public, the author is kind of a lightweight (no real reviews, blurbs) and the material within is largely about 4chan. http://www.amazon.com/Epic-Win-4chan%C2%92s-Army-Conquered/dp/1590207106/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315257404&sr=8-1. It looks to be selling decently at any rate.



On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Daniel Conaway <dconaway@writershouse.com> wrote:
I have a question for you both:  what narratives have you ever read (or haven't read, but are aware of) that provided an urgent sense of (let's call it) the outlaw culture of the cyber-world, and/or the transformative nature and/or the emerging / changing culture of the world (of security, of information, etc etc).

Here are a few I've come up with.  Your task:  A) give me your quick sense of these books, if you have any thoughts whatsoever, even just impressions; and B) add other titles that come to mind.  Publishers always want help thinking about examples of other books that are remotely similar...


Clifford Stoll's THE CUCKOO'S EGG (years and years ago)

Kevin Mitnick's new book (have you looked at that?), which is a New York Times bestseller right now

Kevin Poulsen's KINGPIN

BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE by Ben Mezrich

THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES: The Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich

GOOGLED: The End of the World as We Know It by Ken Auletta

THE LONG TAIL by Chris Anderson

Anything else occur to you?  Please toss 'em out.



P.S.  Stephen, on Tuesday can you run Bookscan numbers on all these?  Thanks.




________________________________
Dan Conaway
Literary Agent
Writers House



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Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302