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The Venus Virus by Christopher Dunning

Pius Harris, a would-be priest in England, is sent to Canada to marry his pregnant former girlfriend. There he revises insurance policy wordings, and his sexual fantasies begin to take on a life of their own.

About the book

Christopher Dunning's first novel is a whimsical exploration of what could happen if a young man's sexual fantasies escaped into reality:

Pius ("Pi") Harris, his religious vocation crumbling under the pressure of a virile sex drive, allows himself to be seduced in an English barn by Martha, his born-again former Canadian girlfriend.

When pregnant, she announces he is the father of her unborn child, a son she believes destined to be the second messiah. Persuaded by his mother (his father lives in absentia in Ecuador) to go to Canada to marry Martha, Pi is employed revising policy wordings for a new computer system by his future father-in-law, an insurance company VP.

Dreading the celibate marriage, Pi amuses himself creating sexual fantasies out of the titles of property wordings he's revising. One in particular -- a Consequential Loss wording he's named Connie Loss -- becomes his special fantasy girl. She not only refuses to be amended but tells him so on the computer screen.

Following her instructions, an astonished Pi discovers he can realize his Venuses lucidly in his dreams at night. The secret however gets out and competition is fierce for Pi's "golden egg". Caught in a web of international intrigue, he finds himself in turn kidnapped in Canada, enslaved in the US and doomed for sacrifice in Mexico before the Venus Virus is ultimately exorcised from his computer.

Saved at the altar from marrying Martha by the eleventh hour appearance of his father with proof that Pi is not the father of her child, Pi finds through a strange synchrony of events that he is marrying Connie Loss, his dream girl, instead -- and in the flesh!

About the author

Christopher Dunning was born and raised in Manchester, England. After a boarding school education in the south of England he served two years with the military in Germany before beginning business life in the already shrinking textile export trade. Switching to commercial insurance, he worked first for a company in Manchester and then for a broker in south-western England.

Unconvinced Britain was to be their final home, he and his wife along with their two young daughters emigrated to Canada. There, in Toronto, he began his insurance career all over again, working for a company, then for a broker before finding his niche as a wording consultant with a large British insurer.

He has been writing in one manner or another for much of his working life. Before becoming a wording expert in Canada -- some of the more bizarre aspects of which appear in his first novel, The Venus Virus -- he wrote a weekly humorous article on family life for a provincial newspaper in the United Kingdom.

While working full-time in Canada, he took evening classes in creative writing and joined a local writers' group. He was ultimately accepted into a Toronto writers' workshop where he worked with published authors of both fiction and non-fiction, including Elizabeth Abbott (author of A History of Celibacy) and Paulette Bourgeois (creator of the internationally successful children's story character Franklin).

His work has been published in the following Canadian literary magazines: The Antigonish Review; the Windsor Review; The Great Canadian Anecdote Contest (alongside Margaret Atwood and the late Timothy Findley); and in Compenions. Currently, he has completed his first novel, The Venus Virus, and finished a sequel named The Chain of Huascar, a tale of high adventure in the Andes.

Recently retired, he lives in Mississauga, Ontario, where, as well as fermenting writing ideas, he makes his own wine and beer. He also reads widely, gardens, and, if there's time at the end of the day, plays classical piano and guitar. He and his wife enjoy traveling, especially via the Elderhostel organization -- their fly fishing courses being a favorite. They new have three daughters and three grandchildren.

Archived from the Harris Literary Agency website. The agency's listing is reproduced as published, with contact details removed.

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