If he were just a sci-fi novelist, Bruce Sterling would have earned a notable place for himself in the history of digital culture as one of the leading figures of cyberpunk, the movement which in the 1980s revitalised the genre and created the imaginary that many of the technological dystopias in literature and film and on TV have adopted. But Sterling is much more. One of the most scathing and acerbic chroniclers of Silicon Valley, he dissects with equal measures of accuracy and sarcasm in his frequent articles and talks the hidden hopes and intentions that the technology industry spreads through big ideas such as Smart Cities and the Internet of Things.