An American writer of speculative fiction, he is best known for novels such as Snow Crash (which was nominated for both the British Science Fiction Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award) and Cryptonomicon (which received the Locus Science Fiction Award in 2000). He also had a career as a designer of games. He studied at Boston University, majoring in geography and minoring in physics. He later worked for Blue Origin, a privately-funded aerospace company.
