I want to read a fictional book, a novel, about hacking and coding. It doesn't have to be the main subject of the book or as epic and accurate as a Neal Stephenson novel, i settle for a programmer character. For instance, i know The Girl with a Dragon Tatoo's Lisbeth is a hacker and that the trilogy is supposed to have a couple of lines of, i don't know, a hacker doing it's thing? The culture, and so... Bruce Sterling has written a couple i think, but you tell me.
Amazon looks like it may have a lot of what you're looking for:<p>Books › Mystery & Thrillers › Thrillers › Technothrillers<p>Lots of interesting looking books in there.<p>It looks like if you put "hacking" in Amazon's search field at the top, and then in the left margin drill down through the genres, you'll get a hacking focused list, e.g.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_16?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Ahacking%2Cn%3A!1000%2Cn%3A18&bbn=1000&keywords=hacking&ie=UTF8&qid=1306849604&rnid=1000" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_16?rh=n%3A283155...</a><p>More generally, Amazon via Google:<p><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+hacking+fiction" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+hacking+fiction</a>
Grumby by Andy Kessler<p>"its a very funny novel set in Silicon Valley (and Wall Street), about a hacker that creates the next great consumer electronics device (believe me, you’ll want one) and then the rollercoaster ride of getting screwed by VCs, hacked, the deluge of orders, Chinese manufacturing, privacy issues and going public amongst the chaos of competition and rivalries. the technology is its own character, eyes, ears, voice and face recognition, GPS, spy software and a wise-ass personality."
Artemis Fowl? <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Artemis-Fowl-Eoin-Colfer/dp/0141312122" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Artemis-Fowl-Eoin-Colfer/dp/01413121...</a> though just get it from your library (which may have a different cover).
Not quite hacking, and not quite fiction, but I think Microserfs as well as others by the same author are representational of the more above-ground hacking that goes on quite a bit.