Ten fictional hackers, from the Matrix to Jonathan Franzen

The Girl in the Spider’s Web and Franzen’s Purity show how far the cyber-criminal has come in infiltrating fiction

Just published a few days apart, Stieg Larsson sequel The Girl in the Spider’s Web and Jonathan Franzen’s Purity show how far the hacker has come in fiction: a 30-year journey from cult SF, via world-conquering book and movie trilogies, to post-WikiLeaks literary novels in which ageing lords of the Gutenberg Galaxy try to get to grips with techno-crime.

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