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You are reading: Books about hackers fiction
The success of swig’s daily countdowns of the best hacking movies and documentaries has led us to delve into the world of literature and bring you a roundup of the best hacker-themed books.
After generating a lot of buzz during lockdown with our take on hackers on TV and in movies, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to round out the trilogy with a look at the depiction of hackers (both real and fictional) in the books.
We came up with a varied list of 12 gems. After narrowing this selection down to four featured books, we attribute the selection of the podium places to the results of a recent online poll (conducted on Twitter and LinkedIn).
We already have the results.
And so, without further ado, here are the top 10 (unofficial) hacker books of all time:
10) nineteen eighty-four, george orwell (1949)
britain (renamed runway one) has become part of a totalitarian superstate called oceania after a nuclear war. its citizens are divided between workers (‘proles’) and party members. all are subject to ruthless surveillance, control, and manipulation through political propaganda.
best hackthe party hacks the English language itself to create a “new language” in an attempt to make seditious thoughts inexpressible and therefore unimaginable. double badder.
Nineteen Eighty-Four offers a stark warning against totalitarianism
9) i’m a pilgrim, terry hayes (2013)
A former US intelligence agent with a background in pathology is called into duty in the hunt for a Saudi terrorist who has created a vaccine-resistant virus.
pilgrim anonymously wrote the definitive book on forensic investigation. this acts as inspiration for the crime committed at the beginning of the narrative.
This unnamed relic of the Pilgrims’ past is what draws the eponymous “Horseman in the Blue” back into the thick of America’s tangled web of intelligence.
The best hacker is who he claims to be, and appearances are deceiving: “computers don’t lie, but liars can calculate.”
8) snow crash, neal stephenson (1992)
a science fiction novel that mixes linguistics and anthropology with computer science, cryptography and politics.
Set in a mock futuristic America, our ‘hiro’ faces off against a shadowy virtual villain to defeat a powerful computer virus that destroys hackers.
best hacksnow crash is a coded virus that affects digital systems in the same way as the people who interact with them. Language is a powerful tool in the wrong hands, as Stephenson demonstrates with his direct analog comparison of neural pathway hijacking to a standard computer virus.
7) neuromancer, william gibson (1984)
A disgraced hacker turned thief, William Case, is hired for one last job where he takes on a powerful artificial intelligence.
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Constructed on at least three levels of reality and told through an artificially intelligent stream of consciousness, the physical embodiment of data foreshadows the predominant and powerful role that data will play in our very modern and brave new world.
better hack the use of plastic surgery, in a very advanced and digitized way, which allows the characters complete anonymity. the altered skin is used as a mask to protect identity and data, the central currency of the novel as a whole.
6) microservants, douglas coupland (1995)
a novel that explores work at microsoft, silicon valley and geek culture in general. conceived as the “growth” phase of the technological world, told from the perspective of a group of programmers.
In classic bildungsroman style with a satisfying dose of surrealism, the novel traces the progress of each individual “cog” amidst the ever-moving machine of life.
best hackthe book teaches us that there are a lot of foods that are flat enough to slide between a closed door and the floor, in the very specific case that you know someone who is not to be disturbed but who also has hunger. .
5) brave new world, aldous huxley (1932)
In a soulless dystopian future, genetic engineering determines the fate of people from birth as members of a predefined caste based on intelligence. consumption and conformity are the rules of the day.
Only a small group of “savages” remain. When a woman is exiled to the wilderness reserve her and the child she gave birth to in the desert are returned to “civilization”, tragedy ensues.
Best written in the 1930s, the book forecasts not only the ability to read, but also to manipulate the human genome on an industrial scale to produce “designer” babies. these babies are shaped by social conditioning, sleep learning, and drugs to become drones or the elite of a rigidly defined society.
4) smart player one, ernest cline (2011)
In the near future, climate change has created an economic crisis. people escape their hellish everyday existence by falling into a virtual reality world, called an “oasis”.
The recently deceased environment creator has left a trail of easter eggs inside a virtual reality game. whoever solves the game will inherit both his fortune and his legacy.
best hackthe story’s protagonist, wade watts, infiltrates the headquarters of innovative online industries, a murderous multinational, to hack into their systems and bring down a roadblock he had erected in virtual reality.
3) the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, douglas adams (1979)
hapless common man arthur dent is saved from earth’s destruction by a race of bureaucratic aliens thanks to his friend, who turns out to be a stranded guidebook investigator of the same name.
What follows is a swiftian journey through space and time in which arthur teams up with a depressed robot, the narcissistic two-headed galactic president, and discovers that earth was actually a giant supercomputer designed by mice. (actually hyper-intelligent beings in disguise within their own experiment).
best trick during an incoming missile attack, arthur activates the infinite improbability boost of the spaceship he is on, without first applying any shield. the action turns the missiles into a bowl of petunias and a large whale.
2) the cuckoo’s egg, clifford stoll (1989)
The book provides a meticulously detailed chronicle of the author’s hunt for a hacker who broke into the systems of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Stoll, an astronomer turned sysadmin, becomes a detective on the hunt for an allusive prey, who turned out to be a German citizen selling secrets to the Russians during the height of the cold war.
The book has become a seminal work on computer forensics.
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better knowing that the hacker was particularly interested in the reagan administration’s strategic defense initiative, stoll created a fictitious department at lbnl that had allegedly secured a contract with sdi.
In reality, the systems and the associated ‘sdinet’ account acted as booby traps designed to lure and ensnare the hacker for clues to his location and identity.
1) the girl with the dragon tattoo, stieg larsson (2005)
Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist teams up with surveillance expert and hacker Lisbeth Salander to work on a missing person case that turns into the hunt for a serial killer.
best hacklisbeth salander connects a series of unsolved murders with biblical quotes from the journal of the missing person that blomkvist has been hired to find. Later, she uses her hacking skills to uncover evidence of financial fraud and turn the tables on the rich and corrupt businessman who sued Blomkvist for defamation.
Tens of millions of copies of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo have been sold worldwide
left on the shelf
more great hacker-themed books that didn’t make the cut
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i, robot – isaac asimov (1950)
an influential series of short stories on robotics. The protagonist of a story claims the right to hack into his own system in order to violate the third law of robotics and experience human death.
the man in the high castle – philip k. cock (1962)
an alternate history novel set some 15 years after the axis powers won the second world war. The United States is conquered and divided between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, which have become competing superpowers.
cryptonomicon – neal stephenson (1999)
a novel that presents a divided narrative. half focuses on the Axis and Allied codebreakers during World War II, while the other half focuses on their descendants using cryptography and hacking skills to build a clandestine data haven.
little brother – cory doctorow (2008)
Following the terrorist attacks in San Francisco, a group of teenage hackers sets out to battle the United States Department of Homeland Security and what they see as an attack on fundamental freedoms.
the diamond age – neal stephenson (1995)
Set in a world transformed by nanotechnology, the novel’s main theme is the role of technology and personal relationships in child development. the book also explores a cultural conflict between east and west.
shockwave rider – john brunner (1975)
A skilled hacker battles a government controlled by organized crime interests in a dystopian American where privacy belongs only to the rich and corrupt.
additional reporting by emma stocks.
Your favorite “hack-sploitation” book didn’t make the cut or didn’t agree with our ranking of your own top novel? let us know which hacker-themed books you think are the best on twitter: @dailyswig
read more top 10 hacking documentaries of all time
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