Nightmare in Silicon

by Colette Phair

Fiction. "A toxic-shock torrent of bad energy and beautiful language, Colette Phair's Nightmare in Silicon is recklessly brave and driven writing, brimming with fluorescent style and startling ideas. Here is a strong new voice that demands and deserves to be listened to" —Alan Moore. Getting medical tests performed on her to pay the rent, staying up all night with her scarred and strange friends, sharing beds with her boyfriend and whoever else comes along, Ymo's is a world so infused with sex that it's become an identity. Ymo is a woman. That is, until diagnosis with a life threatening illness leaves her no chance of survival, except in the gender-neutral body of a robot. What follows is her struggle to stay human while existing as a sexless object. Ymo's final role as guinea pig will be to answer the question, "What if people didn't dream?"

104 pages, Paperback

First published November 2, 2007

About the author

Out now: You Are Not What You Seem, a story collection, at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L8RG5PF/...

My novel Nightmare in Silicon won the Chiasmus Press First Book Competition and received a blurb from V For Vendetta author Alan Moore, who called me "A strong new voice that demands and deserves to be listened to."

http://amazon.com/author/colettephair

My short fiction has been published alongside Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, and Edgar Allan Poe. I’ve published articles and stories with Bitch Magazine and Women Studies Quarterly, and I've also written marketing and fundraising materials for a number of nonprofits. I have a master's in market research and consumer behavior from IE Madrid and a bachelor's in politics from UC Santa Cruz. I've lived in France, Mexico, Spain, Cameroon, Norway, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Reviews

[Colette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote this so I'm not allowed to say anything about it. Or AM I?

[Karl Vergura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great quick read. Would love to see more stories connected to the world created within Nightmare in Silicon

[Made DNA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nightmare in Silicon is the tale of one woman's struggle to shake off her gender-identity while running away from reality by drowning herself in sex and drugs and like-minded individuals. But she betrays her body and her body returns the favor; instead of taking the route of oblivion (the only true way to run away from yourself), she chooses immortality.

Told in very plain, yet crushing, language, NiS is a cult classic story that doesn't try and force your mind around philosophical or metaphorical questions or postulations, and instead, invites you to understand Ymo (the protagonist) through her own language and actions.

Well written, vibrant, and scary, NiS (and I hate to use cliched terms like it) is a page-turner.