Reply #69: Yeah!

[Squeech]

Stephenson was my first thought. I just started to re-read Zodiac again-- the adventures of a rogue chemistry major turned environmental activist, where a humongous chemical company pollutes Boston Harbor wholesale, while a member of the dynastic family that owns the company runs for president on a laissez-faire for maximum profitability platform (can you say Pete DuPont?). It's sort of naive, as Stephenson himself is the first to admit, but it rocks. And the later books are even better.

Also, if you haven't read them yet, the four great social criticism novels by John Brunner are all magnificent. Stand On Zanzibar deals with overpopulation and the social engineering of a consumer society. The Shockwave Rider predicts the Internet a generation ahead of time (and gets the details wrong, but foresees the social consequences) and also ponders how a self-interested government might try to suborn this new medium. The Jagged Orbit is about guns and the therapeutic state (and is the weakest of the lot), and The Sheep Look Up traces the complete ecological collapse of the United States (and is the most depressing of the lot).