Top 10 science and technology writers

A couple of weeks ago a stalwart of the IT writing business died. It got me thinking about the craft of writing and we decided to come up with a list of the top writers who had explained and expanded our knowledge of science and technology, from a factual basis.

In fact, you could argue that it is science fiction writers who do most to popularise and educate about science, even if almost every science fiction film does the opposite.

We will be doing a Top 10 of those writers next week (please put suggestions in the Comments section) but for now let's look at the science and technology writers that that deal in the world as we know it.

It was a tough list to come up with, and Shaun surprised me by suggesting the number one choice and backing it up with an argument good enough to dislodge me in full sceptic mode. Some of the writers on the list are dead, others still writing, but all are masters of their craft.

While this list does contain more than a few brilliant scientific minds, we wanted to focus on people who write well about the subject and explain complex issues to the rest of us in an understandable and entertaining way. Let us know if you think anyone's been missed out.

Honourable Mention: Randall Munroe
Iain Thomson: Shaun and I thought long and hard about this choice. Sure, he's a brilliant comic artist. But a writer?

While Munroe's XKCD strip is the unofficial court jester of the internet, I believe there's a strong case for his inclusion in the list. Some of his work could easily be classed as great writing, and I'm thinking of the Spirit piece he did recently in particular.

Shaun and I love his work and our adoption of our regular lunch haunt Morty's is in part down to the front of house manager's habit of pushing his message too.

Scratch most geeks and you'll find a deep fondness for XKCD, and Munroe has obviously hit a chord, being invited to address the Google lecture circuit and using the fame to help the underprivileged.

Writers don't always need to be verbose in order to get their point across. Munroe does more elegant skewering in a few sentences than most writers manage in a thousand words of prose, and his arguments are impeccably backed up by science.

As he puts it on a best selling t-shirt (one overwhelmingly bought by women): "Science, it works bitches!" with a graph showing data from the Cosmic Background Explorer which confirmed theoretical data on the Big Bang.

Shaun Nichols: Iain, you neglected to mention Munroe's significant contribution to the technology field. You see, aside from crafting stick figure comics loved by computer geeks and maths majors, Munroe has introduced a novel concept to the software development world.

It's called the Ballmer Peak. Munroe suggests that, in general, alcohol consumption reduces the ability to write effective computer code. At a certain point, however, that changes. Once the body hits a specific blood alcohol level, the ability to program reaches nearly mythical levels.

That blood alcohol percentage? You guessed it .1337 per cent. Just don't go over that level. Munroe says that's how Microsoft ended up with Windows ME.

Honourable Mention: Dan Lyons
Shaun Nichols: Both of our honourable mentions make the list not for their scientific chops, but for their skills at satire. To parody a subject, a person has to possess a sharp wit and an excellent understanding of the target. Dan Lyons does that better than just about anyone else when he assumes the role of Fake Steve Jobs.

Lyons set the internet abuzz in 2006 when he assumed the role of Apple's founder and chief executive. First blogging anonymously, Fake Steve was able to aptly skewer Apple's paranoid corporate culture along with those of Microsoft, Sun, Google and much of the rest of Silicon Valley.

Shortly after that, Lyons, then an editor at Forbes magazine, was outed. He released the book Options, and is now working to develop a sitcom based in part on the Fake Steve persona.

But Lyons also has a soft spot for the company he so ruthlessly spoofs. Lyons is a self-professed Mac fan and, when Jobs took a leave of absence for health reasons and the Fake Steve Jobs blog was at the peak of its success, Lyons put the project on hiatus out of respect for the ailing Apple chief.

Iain Thomson: I'm ashamed to say I was a late arrival to the Fake Steve Jobs blog but it can be very, very funny at times.

Shaun gleefully IMs me with each new bon mot, and it's clear that Lyons is a master satirist. Sure, Jobs doesn't think that way, but it's a comment on how influential, and mercurial, Jobs is that you can almost hear him say the words.

It's the sign of a really fine bit of work that's built on a good knowledge of the topic and of the issues of the IT world.

There's nothing new to this kind of writing. It's been around for years, and readers in the UK will probably be familiar with Private Eye's various pokes at British leaders with such gems as 'The secret diary of John Major (Aged 47 3/4)' and Tony Blair's St Albion Parish News.