Dean Tambling

Would have detonated my gourd had I read it in high school. I imagine my evaluation of it will improve on second reading.

It would have been a vastly superior book if Gibson had spent less time on Twitter and Google Maps as he was writing it.

Decent first draft.

Half self-indulgent, self-congratulating faff, half possibly-life-changing insight.

Odell at one point mentions writing the book in Oakland in 2018, and it's like... “don't worry, we can tell.”

Honestly helps if you consider it free-verse poetry instead of prose. Nice, rain-slicked little impressionistic morsels.

I found myself oscillating between thinking “what a wanker” and “this guy's a genius!” several times per page.

Hsu isn't exactly a gifted wordsmith, and it would be nice to hear a little more about his ethos as a toolmaker and his thoughts on what was happening, and a little less about each and every single move from a particular chess game, but this remains a fascinating, enjoyably unvarnished look at the day-to-day machinations of pushing technology forward.

Brutal, crisp, the definitive spy novel and deservedly so.