Neal Stephenson is great. He can write about a white wall for six pages, and it sounds fascinating. I read the whole 'Baroque Cycle' and 'Cryptonomicon.'

I've read one too many thrillers that had really horrible technology in them.

We have to find a happy medium in our use of technology. We want things to be efficient, but we have to compartmentalise, too, so that if there is one flaw discovered, the whole thing doesn't topple.

When you write a high-tech thriller, and then people in the defense establishment start calling you - people I can't name - you feel you've hit a nerve.

I have an English literature degree. I wanted to be the next great American novelist from a very early age, but I put it aside for a while, because I got very realistic at one point.

I had always fantasized about going to the Pyramids, the Great Wall; I've always been sort of obsessed with the whole notion of Everest.