M.D. Coverley’s Fibonacci’s Daughter (2000) is a hypertext narrative employing journalistic vignettes through the lens of the omniscient narrator “Yours Truly”. The narrator is investigating the murders of Hunting Beach’s high school football players Jason Lanning and Kurt Anaka. Most of the investigation takes place in the Hunting Beach Mall, where newcomer Annabelle Tompson has established her Bet Your Life store. At Bet Your Life, characters can buy insurance for poor outcomes in their lives, like how teenager Nikki places a $100 bet to make head cheerleader, and receives a $500 credit when she does not get the position. Annabelle gauges her customer’s prices based on algorithms created by Fibonacci numbers, which is the sequence of adding the previous two numbers to create the next (i.e. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34…). The Fibonacci numbers also provide the structure of Coverley’s narrative through hyperlinked numbers accessing news articles and the reporter’s findings and personal notes. Navigation through the work relies on either the accessible directory, where readers can pursue any part of the story at any time, or by clicking on words, names, and titles within the narrative which link to other sections.
Visually, Fibonacci’s Daughter flips between dark backgrounds with contrasted neon colored text and white or patterned backgrounds with black text. The patterned backgrounds are often repeated images of spirals, trees, flowers, and other naturally occurring Fibonacci sequences. A mysterious jazz tune also plays automatically over certain sections, marking them often as outside the narrative, like the work’s introduction page or a page of random quotes by Annabelle Thompson. The prose is captivating and creates a whimsical mystery that the reader must unravel. Readers must decide for themselves if Annabelle Thompson’s Bet Your Life store can truly and ethically determine a customer’s fate based on the legend of the Fibonacci numbers.
This entry was produced as a part of Dr. Melinda White’s Digital Literature course (University of New Hampshire, Spring 2026).
