SOLVED: Sci-Fi Book Told Though Emails [s]

[dirt]

The book is a series of messages from a computer that has somehow become self-aware and is sending emails to the main character (who I think is female). People start hunting for the computer and it divides itself into three parts to be spread across the internet. Two parts are found, but the other is never located. Please help me remember the name of this book! Thanks.

[Lisa]

dirt,

It sounds like a mystery series by Donna Andrews. Maybe the 3nd in the Turing Hopper series?:

You've Got Murder (#1)
Click Here for Murder (#2)
Access Denied (#3)
Delete All Suspects (#4)

I think that plot might be in Access Denied, but it might be in You've Got Murder.

It's a very unique mystery series as the main protagonist is a computer.

[Heron]

Sounds like Exegesis, by Astro Teller: In Exegesis, Astro Teller deals with the issues of emerging machine intelligence without the usual simplifications and moral generalizations. It's the story of an artificial intelligence researcher and her creation, a program named Edgar, who develops self-awareness and must come to terms with its own existence. Through their e-mail--their only means of interaction--we watch them deal with the ramifications of Edgar's development, which includes the government's desire to capture Edgar and our cultural fear of Frankenstein's monster.

[dirt]

Heron,

You are right! Thank you!

[Nancy]

There's another cool book like this by Charles De Lint called Spirits in the Wires. Publisher's Weekly Review: Canadian author De Lint follows up 2001's triumphant The Onion Girl with another fine novel dually based in the fictitious city of Newford and a magical otherworld, where spirits of faerie and folklore occupy modern technology and cyberspace is a fantasy realm in which imagination fuels artificial intelligence. When a virus crashes Wordwood, a Web site existing in an "impossible limbo in between computers," a lot of people disappear, including Saskia Madding, girlfriend of perennial Newfordian character Christy Riddell. Saskia literally sprang full-grown from a computer and was already suffering an identity crisis when sucked into oblivion. She escapes by taking up residence in the same body as Christiana Tree. The heroic Christiana, Christy's "shadow," must restore Saskia to her own body, sort out what happened to Wordwood, and figure out what can be done to save it and the rest of the spirit world from chaos. Meanwhile, Christy and a band of companions leave consensual reality and enter the Internet spirit world, seeking to save Wordwood and those who have gone missing. De Lint makes the binary tangible and handles his concept of technological voodoo with intelligence, verve and wit while introducing fascinating new characters and expanding on old ones. Not surprisingly, everyone eventually discovers that it doesn't matter where we come from but who we are that counts-but their journeys to that conclusion will please previous fans and find new ones for this master of the modern fantastic. (Aug. 28) FYI: De Lint's story collection Moonlight and Vines (1999) won a World Fantasy Award. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.