Jon’s strategy with these podcasts is to steer away from the typical bland interview questions (“what was your inspiration for [insert book title]?”, “who were your biggest literary influences?”, etc.). So our 20-minute chat covered the coming death of the novel, the MacBook Air, the similarities between Infoquake and Grey, the pantheon of superheroes I created when I was a kid, my editor Lou Anders, how my dad taught me to always be the devil’s advocate, how 9/11 changed Infoquake, and the engineering of foreign toilets and doorknobs.

(Our conversation was actually over an hour long, and we talked about a ton of great stuff. I regret that our talk about David Lee Roth’s vocal track for “Runnin’ with the Devil” didn’t make it in.)

I’m quite pleased with this interview. Go give it a listen.