Part of Series
In the saucy but sinister Byliner Serial "Positron," Booker Prize–winning author Margaret Atwood takes readers on a thrill ride to the near future, where a totalitarian state collides with the chaos of human desire. "As seamless as a stocking, and shockingly believable" is how "The Globe and Mail" describes "I'm Starved for You," the first episode of Positron. In it Atwood maps the world of Consilience, an Orwellian society in which it's the lawful who are locked up, while, beyond the gates, criminals wander the wasted streets of America. Stan understands the Faustian deal he and his wife, Charmaine, have made. In exchange for a house, food, and what the online brochure hails as "A Meaningful Life," they've chosen to become guinea pigs in this new social order. The couple know that to break the rules is dangerous; but, driven by unrelenting boredom and lust, they do it anyway and betray each other and the system. In "Choke Collar," the second and steamiest episode of the series, they get their comeuppance: Stan finds himself the sexual plaything of a subversive member of the Consilience security team and in no time is made a pawn in a shadowy scheme to bring Consilience crashing down. Meanwhile, Charmaine is being held indefinitely at Consilience's prison, Positron, for her own sins of the flesh: a torrid affair carried on with another resident. How far she'll go to regain her good name and position is anyone's guess, especially Stan's. In "Erase Me," installment number three, the couple learn the hard way that marriage can be murder. The sexually charged and morally complex stories of Positron are like a trip to a deviant funhouse. Stay tuned for the final episode of Atwood's dystopian dark comedy, and discover whether anyone can overcome the greatest treachery of all: human nature.
Author
Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College. Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM. Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson. Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.
