Tom Maddox

For the American football player, see Tommy Maddox.
Tom Maddox
Maddox at the Internet Identity Workshop in 2006
Maddox at the Internet Identity Workshop in 2006
Born(1945-10-00)October , 1945
Beckley, West Virginia, U.S.
Died (aged 77)
Occupation
  • Professor
  • novelist
  • short story author
Period1985–2000
GenreScience fiction

Tom Maddox (October 1945 – October 18, 2022) was an American science fiction writer, known for his part in the early cyberpunk movement.

Maddox's only novel was Halo (ISBN 0-312-85249-5), published in 1991 by Tor Books. His story "Snake Eyes" appeared in the 1986 collection Mirrorshades, edited by Bruce Sterling. He was perhaps best known as a friend and writing partner of William Gibson. They wrote two episodes of The X-Files together, "Kill Switch" and "First Person Shooter".

The term Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics (ICE) was conceived by Maddox. According to him,[1] he coined the term in the manuscript of an unpublished story that he showed to Gibson at a science fiction convention in Portland, Oregon. Gibson asked permission to use the acronym, and Maddox agreed. The term was then used in Gibson's early short stories and eventually popularized in the novel Neuromancer, in which Maddox was acknowledged.

Maddox licensed his work under a Creative Commons license, making a significant part of it available on his website: Tom Maddox Fiction and Nonfiction Archive.

Maddox also served as a professor of literary studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.[2]

Maddox died from a stroke on October 18, 2022, at the age of 77.[3]

  1. ^ Talk:Tom Maddox
  2. ^ "Tom Maddox at Evergreen". Archived from the original on 2013-07-06. Retrieved 2013-07-12.
  3. ^ "Tom Maddox 1945–2022". Locus Magazine. 22 October 2022. Archived from the original on 2022-10-22. Retrieved 22 October 2022.