To what desperate lengths will an android go to fit in? How will we cope with boredom after the machines solve all our problems? Can a robot go insane? Is Artificial Intelligence an existential threat? Are thinking machines our friends? Our enemies? Or both? In these pages, you will encounter machines that laugh and cry and kill and make love and write bad poetry. You will meet robots that dwell in that uncanny valley wherein humans and machines share a common, existential crisis.
Books similar to Beautiful Machines: Tales Of The Uncanny
Reidon Ward’s first semester at the Galens Institute hasn't been without reward. In just over half a year he’s gone from the weakest cadet at school to one of the strongest in his class, and there’s no one left who would argue that his Device, Shido, isn’t the most terrifying CAD they’ve ever laid eyes on. Still, Rei knows that his climb has barely begun, like he knows that the true fight is only just starting.
After all… The Sectionals tournament has arrived.
Rei, along with Aria, Viv, Catcher, and a couple unexpected squadmates, are about to face the first real battle of their careers. Squaring off with some of the best Users in the Astra System, they’re going to have to put everything they have—as individuals and as a team—into their coming fights if they want to ultimately end up standing at the top. As ever, though, their journey is hardly bound to be a smooth one.
Especially not when Rei and Aria begin to suspect that Shido may be even more formidable than it appears, much less as the powerful entities who've already taken notice of the ‘Iron Prince of Galens' begin to make their moves, some casting their hands in his favor, others very much against…
He doesn't know it yet, of course. Reidon was born weak, sickly and small. Afflicted with a painful disease and abandoned by his parents because of it, he has had to fight tooth and nail for every minor advantage life has allowed him.
His perseverance has not gone unnoticed, however, and when the most powerful artificial intelligence in human history takes an interest in him, things began to change quickly. Granted a CAD—a Combat Assistance Device—with awful specs but an infinite potential for growth, Reidon finds himself at the bottom of his class at the Galens Institute, one of the top military academies in the Collective. Along with his best friend, Viviana Arada, Reidon will have to start his long climb through the school rankings, and on to the combat tournament circuits that have become humanity's greatest source of excitement and entertainment.
So begins the rise of a god. So begins the ascent of the Stormweaver.
It calls itself Murderbot, but only when no one can hear.
It worries about the fragile human crew who've grown to trust it, but only where no one can see.
It tells itself that they're only a professional obligation, but when they're captured and an old friend from the past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.
The World Boss is defeated, but Ryan’s troubles are far from over.
Transported to a new world, Ryan and his friends must figure out how to save their home city of Citadel, while learning to survive in a game world where death is now all too real.
But first, Ryan must keep his promise to Val Helena, and sets out on a dangerous quest to the Vale of Sorrows to defeat the Shadow King. With an enemy ten times stronger than a world boss, Ryan will have to do some serious leveling up as a Dodge Tank to be fit for task.
But when he encounters a fellow gamer with an agenda of his own, Ryan finds his plans not only derailed but his very life threatened by an enemy of his own making!
Ryan will have to grow in both level and maturity to face the difficult struggles ahead. But the game has more secrets to reveal and the enemy lying just below the surface, may be more terrifying than anything he could have imagined.
WARNING: Contains RPG mechanics, detailed party combat and giant boss fights. If these things do not interest you, then this is not the book for you!
The long awaited sequel to Gene Wolfe’s four-volume classic, The Book of the New Sun. We return to the world of Severian, now the Autarch of Urth, as he leaves the planet on one of the huge spaceships of the alien Hierodules to travel across time and space to face his greatest test, to become the legendary New Sun or die. The strange, rich, original spaceship scenes give way to travels in time, wherein Severian revisits times and places which fill in parts of the background of the four-volume work, that will thrill and intrigue particularly all readers of the earlier books. But The Urth of the New Sun is an independent structure all of a piece, an integral masterpiece to shelve beside the classics, one itself.
In the third book of the legendary Revelation Space trilogy, the last remnants of humanity realize that forging an alliance with a greater and even more mysterious alien force may be their only chance for survival.The Inhibitors were designed to eliminate any life form reaching a certain level of intelligence -- and they've targeted Humanity. War veteran Clavain and a ragtag group of refugees have fled into hiding. Their leadership is faltering, and their situation is growing more desperate. But their little colony has just received an unexpected an avenging angel with the power to lead mankind to safety -- or draw down its darkest enemy.And as she leads them to an apparently insignificant moon light-years away, it begins to dawn on Clavain and his companions that to beat one enemy, it may be necessary to forge an alliance with something much worse . . ."Absolution Gap is a good as it gets, and should solidify Alastair Reynolds' reputation as one of the best hard SF writers in the field." -- SF Site
Until the arrival of Aiken Drum, the 100,000 humans who had fled backward in time to Pliocene exile on Earth knew little but slavery to the Tanu, the humanoid aliens who came from another galaxy. But King Aiken's rule is precarious, for the Tanu's twisted brethren are secretly maneuvering to bring about his downfall. Worse, Aiken is about to confront a man of incredibly powerful talents who nearly overthrew a galactic rule. He is Marc Remillard. Call him...The Adversary.
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