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Cover of Turing & Burroughs

Turing & Burroughs

Rudy Rucker (2012)

SubgenreSoft SF / Social SF
Age groupAdult 18+
Content ratingPG-13
Pages ()
Setting
Goodreads3.69

Content levels

ViolenceNot rated
Sexual contentNot rated
LanguageNot rated

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Synopsis

Turing & Burroughs is an SF novel set in style of a 1950s-movie “alien invasion” story. Computer pioneer Alan Turing and the Beat author William Burroughs connect in Tangier and begin a love affair. The novel fuses SF themes with beatnik styles and attitudes, switching between Turing's and Burroughs's points of view. Turing and Burroughs find a way to shapeshift into telepathic slugs, and society's reaction serves as a symbol of the 1950s horror of gays, artists, intellectuals and political outsiders. As our heroes flee the feds, the story becomes a road novel. In traditional 1950s SF style, they head for a nuclear test site in Los Alamos, New Mexico. En route, Turing and Burroughs visit Mexico City and have a heavy encounter with Burroughs's murdered wife. The story comes to a head with a thermonuclear blast and a final transcendence.