Or at least writing men.

About nine years ago I was working a bummer job as an overnight computer operator for a dead-but-still-moving tech company. Their total failure predated the dot com bustout by about two years, which was an impressive feat for a company based in San Jose. They were still breathing because a much larger company bought them and was using their impressive Human Resources infrastructure as a contractor to do all their HR work, and their utter failure as a mainframe manufacturer turned glorified colocation service as a convenient tax break.

There was a 24 hour a day staff watching four servers in a data center the size of two football fields. Needless to say, my job responsibilities largely amounted to “not being asleep when the bosses came in at eight” and “Not wearing shorts”.

Unsatisfied with the “learn to wake up without an alarm clock at seven thirty” career training offered by the other overnight workers, I would stay up remotely compiling custom kernels on my home FreeBSD box or doing endless online crosswords, and chatting with this canadian guy I had known online for a couple years over ICQ. Eventually I started reading fiction online, compiling a list of resources that could be counted on to have free legal fiction, and a larger, more significant list of pirated versions of books available on the internet and secreted around the company network. I spent much time reading Quantum Muse, pouring over an excellent military sci fi serial, or if I was bored enough, reading the “alternative” works, which were essentially uncategorizable. Poems, stream of consciousness, no niche too small. One fateful evening, a story I read (which I have since totally forgotten), thanked a man named William Gibson for creating something called “cyberpunk”, which inspired the author to write.

Despite my large collection of pirated books and huge amount of time on hand, I tended to shy away from novel length works as a rule, so I wouldn’t have to worry too much about saving my place in the file as I read. I noted the name, and looked around for a while to see if I had a copy of the novel, and checked the filesize. It clocked in pretty low, and it was in a raw text file, so I could keep it on the network at work and transfer it home without the risk of getting in trouble, I simply put it on the main workstation for my group in the WinNT directory and renamed it “sys454p.log”. Not foolproof security, but given coworkers that were likely to hop on this box, it was the equivalent of quantum encryption. I set down the first night, figuring to get a couple chapters read while the other ops napped.

I was hooked from the first paragraph, I devoured it in one sitting, sat dumbstruck that I could have missed out on this somehow. Then I went home, and looked at the directory I had ftp’d it over to, and read half of it again. I was hooked. I nabbed and read Count Zero the following night and when all the rips of Mona Lisa Overdrive I could find turned out to be cut off around the 2/3 mark, I went out and bought all three books, just so I could have them in my grubby hands.

Fast forward to early 2006. Fargo comes home from a book store with a set of paperbacks. He pulls out this red covered book with half a face smoking and I cringe. I had just finished The James Deans and wasn’t in the mood for any more halfass moody crime novels. He hands it to me the next day, maybe 14 hours later, and tells me to read it. “It’s got vampires, you like vampires.” I had also recently completed Memnoch The Devil, the end of my tolerance for Anne Rice’s bullshit. “I’m sick of faggy vampires.”, I whined. “This one isn’t faggy, he’s awesome. Read it.”, he pushed. I eyeball the name “Already Dead” and sigh.

Fine, I figured the worst that could happen is that it sucks and is full of faggy vampires and both this Charlie Huston guy and Fargo suck. It’s happened before. I sat down with Joe Pitt, and am at once transported to a rough and tumble Manhattan full of bloody violence and danger. I surfaced hours later, bleary eyed and trying to figure out where the evening had gone. I looked at the clock again and realized I should be trying to figure out where the early morning had gone. It even had a good ending. I was hooked. We went to Powell’s the next day and looked for more, and found a copy of “Caught Stealing” in the non-vampire crime section, but this time I had faith. Me and Henry spent many hours being brutalized together, and I declared completing the book to having survived a beating. Brutal and sharp and relentless. I pimp the book to everyone I know who reads. My dad, my sister, my friends, including a canadian guy I talk to online. About two months ago, I shipped a box of books up to Canada, including some Huston books.

Then, William fucking Gibson blogs about Brad, the Canadian Guy I talk to online.
Then, Brad, the Canadian guy I talk to online asks me if I want to hear something weird.
You see, he just got a book order from Charlie fucking Huston.

All this needs to be complete is for Brad to get a shout out from JK Rowling, get a link from Jack White, and then get mentioned on Frisky Dingo, and he’ll pretty much have touched bases on every single bit of entertainment I’ve enjoyed in the past three years.