Praise for 12 Bytes
A "Books of 2021" Pick by The Guardian, Financial Times, The Telegraph (UK), and Evening Standard
“[I]nspiring, accessible . . . books like this one, which break down complex computing and philosophical ideas into punchy, often beautiful prose (“poetical science”), are necessary . . . Winterson’s most impassioned message is that we must learn from the past to learn from our mistakes.” —Airmail“Winterson writes in a straightforward PHYSICS FOR POETS-type of conversational tone that kept me so engaged that I read the book straight through and then read it again."—Bookreporter.com
“Winterson covers the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence in this fascinating survey... Through well-paced and articulate prose, Winterson makes granular tech know-how remarkably accessible...This is full of insight.” —Publishers Weekly
"Thought-provoking and necessary – and sometimes very funny." —Guardian UK
"A vigorous, sharp mind probes the world of computer science and more... Digestible, witty, and provocative... Tucked into the corners of these erudite essays are multitudes of fascinating facts and thoughtful what-if speculations... Winterson is excellent at compressing a great deal of technical, scientific, philosophical, literary, and religious material." —Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Frankissstein
"This novel is talky, smart, anarchic and quite sexy. You begin to linger on those three s's when you speak the title aloud."—Dwight Garner, New York Times
"Winterson has stitched together that rarest of beasts: a novel that is both deeply thought-provoking and provocative yet also unabashedly entertaining (I laughed out loud more times than I could count). Frankissstein, like its protagonist Ry, is a hybrid: a novel that defies conventional expectations and exists, brilliantly and defiantly, on its own terms."—Sarah Lotz, New York Times Book Review
"A brainy, batty story— an unholy amalgamation of scholarship and comedy. [Winterson] manages to pay homage to Shelley's insight and passion while demonstrating her own extraordinary creativity . . . This is no work of conventional literary history. It's just a jump to the left . . . The dialogue is slick and funny, often delightfully obscene, but beneath all the kookiness, Winterson is satirizing sexual politics and exploring complicated issues of human desire . . . A bag of provocative tricks and treats. With diabolical ingenuity, [Winterson's] found a way to inject fresh questions about humanity's future into the old veins of Frankenstein."—Ron Charles, Washington Post
"A riotous reimagining with an energy and passion all of its own that reanimates Frankenstein as a cautionary tale for a contemporary moment dominated by debates about Brexit, gender, artificial intelligence and medical experimentation . . . While the story has a gripping momentum of its own, it also fizzes with ideas."—Financial Times
"Frankissstein is intellectually bracing and sexually explicit; a historical literary romp and a futuristic thriller. It, like its characters, rejects the binary."—Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times
"Spellbinding . . . artfully structured, unexpectedly funny, and impressively dynamic."—Elena Sheppard, Los Angeles Review of Books
"A surge of inventiveness . . . Frankissstein is a book that seeks to shift our perspective on humanity and the purpose of being human in the most darkly entertaining way . . . gloriously well observed."—Observer
"Winterson reboots Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for the 21st Century, launching us into a hold-on-to-your-hat modern-day horror story about very modern-day neuroses and issues."—BBC News
"Intelligent and inventive . . . Frankissstein is very funny. There has always been a fine line between horror and high camp, and this is a boundary that Winterson gleefully exploits."—The Times
"Devilishly scintillating and quite touching . . . buy and adore this astute, wildly inventive and totally unique book."—Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle
"A timeless writer . . . [Frankissstein is] brisk, romantic, sharp-humored."—Angela Watercutter, Wired
"Refreshingly, Jeanette Winterson's Frankissstein . . . is a wildly inventive reimagining of one of science fiction's most beloved stories . . . lyrical, gloriously raunchy, pulpy and absurd."—New Scientist
"A clever comic romp that teases at the nature—and future—of life, death and what it is to be human, without ever being ponderous . . . [Frankissstein is] first-rate."—Daily Mail
"Readers are in deft hands . . . I can think of no better guide to our transforming world that Winterson."—Prospect
"Funny and philosophical . . . This is a love story about life itself from a gifted writer."—Psychologies
"Yes, the book we have all been waiting for. Yes, everything Winterson has always done so well. Yes, above and beyond anything that is yet to be written."—Daisy Johnson
"Hilarious but serious time-travel gambol with Frankenstein: modern doubles into AI, cryogenics, and sexbots. (Hint: Mod. Byron does not come out of it well.)"—Margaret Atwood
2021-07-22
A vigorous, sharp mind probes the world of computer science and more.
Hot on the heels of her recent, critically acclaimed novel, Frankissstein, the prolific Winterson offers 12 bites of the apple known as artificial intelligence, a key topic in the novel. These essays probe the past, present, and future of computer technology. The author begins by going back to key historical figures from her novel—Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace, both of whom, “in their different ways…saw [AI] coming.” Mary had her electric-powered literary life-form and Ada her dazzling, pre-computer mathematical skills. Winterson is excellent at compressing a great deal of technical, scientific, philosophical, literary, and religious material into digestible, witty, and provocative essays. She hopscotches with aplomb from vacuum tubes and transistors to the internet, Wi-Fi, issues of privacy, smartphones, AGI (artificial general intelligence), and robots, along with the Gnostics, Buddhism, and cryonics. In “Hot for a Bot,” the author discusses the history of automata sex dolls and AI–enhanced love dolls: “Men do seem to think that a woman can be manmade, perhaps because a woman has been a commodity, a chattel, a possession, an object, for most of history.” In “Fuck the Binary,” she posits the intriguing question of whether “AI could be a portal into a value-free gender and race experience.” Chronicling the contributions women have made in the so-called “hard” sciences—“Don’t you love the language?”—Winterson bemoans the fact that, today, the “number of women taking computing-science degrees is falling.” Despite all the incumbent dangers AI might hold, the author is optimistic and hopeful: “I am sure that our future as Homo sapiens is a merged future with the AI we are creating. Transhumanism will be the new mixed race."
Tucked into the corners of these erudite essays are multitudes of fascinating facts and thoughtful what-if speculations.
