About The Red Men

Nelson used to be a radical journalist, but now he works for Monad, one of the world's leading corporations. Monad make the Dr Easys, the androids which patrol London's streets: assisting police, easing tensions, calming the populace. But Monad also makes the Red Men - tireless, intelligent, creative and entirely virtual corporate workers - and it's looking to expand the programme. So Nelson is put in charge of Redtown: a virtual city, inhabited by copies of real people going about their daily business, in which new policies, diseases and disasters can be studied in perfect simulation. Nelson finds himself at the helm of a grand project whose goals appear increasingly authoritarian and potentially catastrophic. As the boundaries between Redtown and the real world become ever more brittle, and revolutionary factions begin to align themselves against the Red Men, Nelson finds himself forced to choose sides: Monad or his family, the corporation or the community, the real or the virtual. 'The Red Men' is at heart a novel about a character wrestling with his conscience, set against a pervasive and Orwellian vision of contemporary society: surveillance, automation, biotechnology, and their implications for our humanity.

About Matthew De Abaitua

Born in Liverpool in 1971, De Abaitua studied under Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain at the University of East Anglia and worked as Will Self's amanuensis before joining The Idler magazine as Deputy Editor (he remains Editor at Large) and was also Literary Editor of Esquire magazine. He has contributed to a number of anthologies including the bestselling 'Disco Biscuits' (Sceptre) and 'Retro Retro' (Serpent's Tail), and has reviewed for and contributed widely to The Guardian and The Observer, among others. He wrote and presented an documentary series on British Science Fiction for Channel 4, and is now the Editor of Channel 4's film review site, where he launched the internet-only film review TV show, Movie Rush, which is at the cutting edge of internet media. He also contributed creatively to marketing strategy for Big Brother, The Simpsons, Ali G and other programmes. more

Praise

"Makes Michael Houellebecq seem like Enid Blyton" Matt Thorne

'Lewes, Sussex, where this column began all those horned moons ago. As I walk from the station under another horned moon I spy, standing outside a cosy looking pub, the cuddly dolmen of Matthew De Abaitua. Thirteen years ago, Matthew - who is now a talented novelist in his own right - spent a six-month sojourn as my live-in amanuensis and secretary. It was a thankless task: so far as I can remember I was completely spark-a-loco. We were living in a tiny cottage in Suffolk, and I was given to harvesting opium from the poppies that grew wild in the field margins, then driving my Citroen deux-chevaux across the same fields, solely by the light of a horned moon, Matthew placidly crammed into the passenger seat." Will Self in the Independent.