Hardwired Angel

Ingrid conHausen was a librarian in New Hamburg, Ontario.

Aptly titled, this spare novel takes the unsuspecting reader into a world of custom-made drugs, computer wizardry, and obsessive love. Angel (or Anna), the heroine — anorexic, promiscuous, brilliant — is a computer genius and a street kid. She has invented a biochip that has earned her millions and thrown her into a corporate world of greed, distrust, and danger. From this she periodically escapes to the streets, surfacing in bus stations and other out-of-the-way places in Canada.

The past and present events of her life are unfolded in broad impressionistic strokes in this futuristic novel.

Though spare, Hardwired Angel is well written. One caveat: four well-known four-letter words work overtime.

Teenagers, the obvious audience for this novel, will have to be good readers in order to thread their way through this layered novel. Though titillation is at a minimum, adults will not be comfortable in recommending to young readers the book’s brief glimpses of a bizarre lifestyle involving drugs and sex.

This novel was the grand winner of the Ninth Annual Pulp Press three-day novel writing contest.