I’ve been reading science fiction since 1957. There was a phase in my childhood when I devoured old-school science fiction stories now referred to as being from The Golden Age. Early science fiction often posited what we would now think of as fantasy: unexplained invisibility, time travel full of unresolved paradoxes, and extra-terrestrial monsters with an inexplicable attraction to human females.

However, from about 1939 through about 1950, MIT graduate John W. Campbell Jr. established a new trend in science fiction in his magazine Astounding (which later became Analog Science Fiction and Fact). Authors such as Isaac Asimov, A. E. Van Vogt, and Robert Heinlein and dozens more responded to Campbell’s emphasis on using real science as the environment for their stories.

I have just finished reading a novel called Halting State by Charles Stross that strikes me as a significant event for security specialists in the development of today’s science fiction. Much as William Gibson's Neuromancer is credited with popularizing the notion of cyberspace in establishing the cyberpunk style, I think Halting State may be the first book that speaks directly to the culture of information security specialists.

Stross has been writing science fiction since he was six years old. After studying pharmacy, his FAQ says, “he went back to university in Bradford and did a postgraduate degree in computer science. After several tech sector jobs in the hinterlands around London, initially in graphics supercomputing and then in the UNIX industry, he emigrated to Edinburgh, Scotland, and switched track into web consultancy and a subsequent dot com death march.” He went on to become a technical journalist specializing in Linux and freeware. “He now lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife Feorag, a couple of cats, several thousand books, and an ever-changing herd of obsolescent computers.”

I do not want to spoil the twists and turns of the story, so all I’m going to say is that Stross captures experiences, concepts, terminology, and attitudes to which I strongly related, given that I’ve been programming computers since 1965. He uses an interesting technique of narration: every chapter is written in the vocative (“You do this…”) from the point of view of a different character.

M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP-ISSMP, specializes in security and operations management consulting services. CV online.