Imagine a world where a typeface has the power to affect us physically. Where the mere sight or thought of the text on a billboard or flier can provoke bliss or an allergic reaction. Where words can wound in a visceral, physical sense. This is the vision Ever Dundas sets out to explore in her imaginative and enthralling novel, HellSans.

While HellSans, the eponymous typeface, was inspired by much-maligned styles such as Comic Sans and Helvetica, Dundas believes that there’s no problem with those typefaces per se; it’s their misuse that rubs people up the wrong way. Dundas was working in an office when a colleague sent an email in Comic Sans. Another soon followed suit, prompting the writer to remark to her husband, ‘it’s spreading like a disease’. In that instant, HellSans was born.

This hellish typeface isn’t the only innovative element to the novel. Its first two sections can be read in either order and, as the book progresses, the questioning of conventional narrative storytelling becomes an intriguing strand. ‘I’m very interested in the way people tell stories, why they tell them that way, the power dynamics involved,’ Dundas explains. ‘But it’s also just how my brain works. Mainstream narrative conventions are assumed to be the norm and the starting point for everyone, but that’s not the case. It’s also a presumptive and limiting assumption.’ This is an area which has provoked recent commentary from neurodiverse storytellers and people of the global majority, who are questioning and problematising the norms of white, neurotypical, western storytelling conventions.

HellSans is not for the fainthearted; the body horror element is strong and prominent, and its dystopian (and utopian) themes are a welcome addition to the canon. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World gets a mention and Nicola Barker’s H(A)PPY is a favourite of the author. Dundas’ filmic influences are wide-ranging too, from James Cameron’s The Terminator and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner to Julia Ducournau’s Raw and David Cronenberg’s oeuvre. ‘I’d love a HellSans film adaptation; all that body horror splattered across the big screen . . . ’

Dundas also acknowledges her admiration for performance artist Jacqueline Traide. ‘Dystopia is often anthropocentric but Traide confronted us with the hidden dystopia of non-human animals in labs when she was tortured for hours in a shop window in front of a shocked public. Agustina Bazterrica’s novel Tender Is The Flesh has a similar impact, but focuses on the horrors of the meat industry. Both hold up a mirror. Dystopia isn’t elsewhere, it isn’t an imagined future; it’s now.’

The characters in HellSans all have their own personal doll-like cyborg personal assistant, called an Inex, which is both a helpmeet and a constant monitor. These devices highlight the dichotomy between utopia and dystopia perfectly. When asked if she would accept an Inex if it was offered to her right now, Dundas replies with an emphatic yes.

As with typefaces, she sees no problem with the technology, only the application. She believes an Inex would be particularly useful for chronically ill people; they could monitor health and give instant access to medical information without the mediation of a doctor, diagnose immediately, do admin and banking, and fetch things. A potential future? Dundas thinks it’s a possibility: ‘Any bio-engineers reading this, over to you . . . but no non-human animal testing, please.’

HellSans is published by Angry Robot on Tuesday 11 October.