A few years ago I wrote about a book that I had found by a self-published author with a weird name, Leinad Zaurus, called Daemon which combined the best parts of what was possible with the most dramatic elements of the near future as defined by science fiction. The entire book was a metaphor for the lack of control that comes from automating too much and living far too close to the limit of what any part in a complex interconnected system can sustain in the face of even the smallest of Black Swans.

I was so taken by Daemon (and the palindromically named Leinad) that I cold emailed him to ask if we could get together and chat about me optioning his book for a movie. I knew nothing about what any of the words in that phrase meant but I'd seen it on Entourage and hey, I was recently feeling like a Master of the Universe after selling my company.

Daniel, true to self, let me down gently by telling me that someone else had already thought of that (a small shop called Dreamworks) but thanking me profusely for being a fan thus sparking the kind of authentic author/fan relationship that is becoming more and more common as the Interent eliminates layers of indirection ("distribution") between creators and their fans. I've since gotten ARC (advanced copies) of all of his subsequent novels and reveled in how as an author he truly encompasses the Steve Jobs mantra of living at the intersection of engineering and liberal arts with his work on big themes dressed as thrillers with narrow AI, drones, and augmented reality as its villians and heroes.

It was a treat to see Daniel again in the flesh this week as he trolled the hallways of MIT for inspiration and gushed about the advances of private space flight, the maker movement, and VR. Get him going with just one beer and he'll give you positive proof that the sculptor Brancusi was right when he wrote about artists: "When we are no longer children, we might as well be dead."

Postnote: Daniel will be stopping by at our Oculus Rift "Celebrating Hardware Innovation" event tomorrow night so come and see two pieces of the future together in one place.