Max Barry (www.maxbarry.com) is an Australian who pretended to sell high-end computer systems for Hewlett-Packard while secretly writing his first novel, Syrup. In fact, he still has the laptop he wrote it on because HP forgot to ask for it back, but keep that to yourself. He put an extra X in his name for Syrup because he thought it would be a funny joke about marketing and failed to realize everyone would assume he was a pretentious asshole. Jennifer Government, his second novel, was published with no superfluous Xs and sold much better, and was followed by Company, Machine Man, and Lexicon, which was named one Time’s Top 10 Fiction Books of 2013. Max also created the online political game NationStates, for which he is far more famous among high school students and poli-sci majors than for his novels. He was born and lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he writes full-time, the advantage being that he can do it while wearing only boxer shorts.