Trying to find possible non-genre novel

[mellotronman]

Hi everyone

I'm looking for a novel I read sometime around 1974 and I was hoping someone here might know it. I have a memory of it being a slim Penguin volume (orange spine), although I'd have thought that would make it easy to trace. Crucially, although it's clearly SF, I have an impression that it might not be considered 'genre' and may well not be written by a genre author.

Anyway, the plot concerns a young American woman who, like everyone on Earth, lives in complete physical isolation from other people, only communicating via screens. Everyone has a unique code (in a phone no. kind of way) - matter transmission might be involved, but, bizarrely, I'm not sure (you'd think I'd remember!)

Despite these restrictions, she falls in love with a man she 'meets' - somewhere along the line, she forgets her code and isn't able to return home. She dies in a sub-zero environment - her last, ironic act is to trace her code in the snow, remembered at the point of death. She is found and revived, possibly gets the guy and everyone lives happily ever after, or something.

Does this ring bells with *anyone*? Many thanks in advance!

 

[mellotronman]

Re-triggering this one with some new info. I think the Penguin and non-genre author references are red herrings - I'm almost certainly confusing this with a non-SF Penguin title by Paul Gallico I read around the same time from the same school library.

After much 'Net searching, the plot points and year of publication indicate that this just *might* be John Brunner's Web of Everywhere, although I have absolutely no memory of it - has anyone read it and if so, do the plot points match up at all? Help!

 

[mellotronman]

Bought the Brunner - nope, wrong book :-( Good, but wrong. Could this be a short story? Perhaps I should re-post, getting rid of the misleading header? Perhaps I should give up? :-/

 

[PaulMmn]

The living in isolation and communicating by screens are two of the plot points of "The Naked Sun," by Isaac Asimov. It's the sequel to his "Caves of Steel." No teleportation and no dying in the snow, however.

--Paul E Musselman

 

[mellotronman]

Thanks, Paul - know Asimov's stuff well, but thanks anyway! Well spotted re.plot points Beginning to think I'll never trace this one without remembering more about it :-(