Ian McEwan's "The Innocent," and less known, "The Imitation Game" have sigint plots, and a few of his novels have spy agency themes without falling into the tra

Ian McEwan's "The Innocent," and less known, "The Imitation Game" have sigint plots, and a few of his novels have spy agency themes without falling into the trap of being genre fiction. Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" was an obvious one as well. when I travelled in some literary circles, they were always on the edge of the bureaucracy via public funding bodies, universities, or foundations, where you were just above the fold, and so you didn't talk about intelligence stuff because everyone had gone to school with someone who was at this or that agency, and making a point of not talking about it was a social signal. I suspect this is why the material on sigint in fiction isn't nearly as rich as they all seemed to affect to know. it was ironic, as actually being a civilian in security where at least half my colleagues had military experience with CV gaps for "travel," and who over drinks might casually recognize someone's loudly striped tie as resembling a burn bag, or whose partners had implausible jobs and hobbies, where literally all of our threat assessment work included what would come to be known via snowden as bullrun- we talked about that stuff all the time. maybe it's more of a plot device these days. I sort of gave up reading fiction when sensitivity readers became a thing because investing time in novels became less appealing. perhaps all these filter bubbles and AI slops will create a new rennaisance in fiction as people search to experience the pleasure of some authentic art again.