Correspondence

by Sue Thomas

A hypnotic mix of cyberpunk and magical realism, this chilling first novel by Sue Thomas marks the debut of a corrosively brilliant new writer. A novel of woman and machine, Correspondence blurs the boundaries between virtual reality and real life and examines the interconnectedness of fantasy, desire and memory. More than a novel, Correspondence is a roleplay and you are both reader and narrator, a computer programmer who is a compositor of fantasies. You take your source material from the accumulated hopes and desires of the world, but you must be careful. Sometimes the end result is unexpected. Emotionally deadened by the loss of your family in an accident, you begin turning yourself into a machine; you become an extension of the prosthetics for your compositing work. Soon there will be no future for you, and no past; no emotion and no pain. But your machine consciousness is not yet complete, and from your source material you create Rosa. As she grows and flourishes, Rosa develops a life of her own and starts to distance herself from you. Still deeply connected to the woman you have made, you are left with devastating choices. Subversive and utterly imaginative, Correspondence breaks the boundaries of conventional fiction to explore the meaning of consciousness itself.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

I'm currently pitching my 3rd novel. It's about what happens when the mysteries of technology and nature intersect. 'The Fault in Reality' is set in 2016, the year everything started to go horribly wrong for the UK and the US. Restarting in fiction when you haven't had an agent for 20 years is hard to do but I hope to find a friendly publisher.

My first novel was 'Correspondence' (short-listed for the Arthur C Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 1992, The James Tiptree Award, and the European Science Fiction Award). In 1994 I published my second novel, 'Water', and edited the anthology 'Wild Women: Contemporary Short Stories By Women Celebrating Women' (1994).

After that I turned to nonfiction: 'Creative Writing: A Handbook For Workshop Leaders' (1995); the cyberspace memoir/travelogue 'Hello World: travels in virtuality' (2004), and 'Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace' (2013), a study of nature metaphors in internet culture and language.

My most recent book is 'Nature and Wellbeing in the Digital Age' (2017), which explains the psychology behind our love for nature and offers practical advice on how to feel better without logging off.

I've contributed to a wide range of anthologies and journals and written for The Guardian, Orion Magazine, Slate, and many others.

I was born in Leicestershire, England, in 1951. My parents were both Dutch but had settled in England. I founded the trAce Online Writing Centre at Nottingham Trent University in 1995, and became Professor of New Media at De Montfort University in 2005. Since 2013 I've been a Visiting Fellow at Bournemouth University.

Reviews

[Sara]

Hybotnic by magic crizy dilma.woman and machine. In gd storyteller.went in gd mix and dissere.and have many point to tell.not horror but magical sci fic go with uotmn mood.