"That science-fiction future in which technology would make everything very good—or very bad—has not yet arrived. From our vantage point at least, no age appears to have had a deeper faith in the inevitability and imminence of such a total technological transformation than the early twentieth century. Russia was no exception."—from the introduction In the Soviet Union, it seems, armoring oneself against the world did not suffice—it was best to become metal itself. In his engaging and accessible book, Rolf Hellebust explores the aesthetic and ideological function of the metallization of the revolutionary body as revealed in Soviet literature, art, and politics. His book shows how the significance of this modern myth goes far beyond the immediate issue of the enthusiasm with which the Bolsheviks welcomed such a symbolic transfiguration and that of our own uneasy attraction to the images of metal flesh and machine-men. Hellebust's literary examples range from the famous (Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago) to the forgotten (early Soviet proletarian poets). To these he adds a mix of non-Russian references, from creation myths to comic book superheroes, medieval alchemy to Moby-Dick. He includes readings of posters, sculpture, and political discourse as well as cross-cultural comparisons to revolutionary France, industrial-age America, and Nazi Germany. The result is a fascinating portrait of the ultimate symbols of dehumanizing modernity, as refracted through the prism of utopian humanism.

A poetic exploration of the new world created by the collision of the biological body with technology and culture. For more than 3,000 years, humans have explored uncharted geographic and spiritual realms. Present-day explorers face new territories born from the coupling of living tissue and metal, strange lifeforms that are intelligent but unconscious, neither completely alive nor dead. Our bodies are now made of machines, images, and information. We are becoming cultural bodies in a world inhabited by cyborgs, clones, genetically modified animals, and innumerable species of human/information symbionts. Ollivier Dyens's Metal and Flesh is about two closely related phenomena: the technologically induced transformation of our perceptions of the world and the emergence of a cultural biology. Culture, according to Dyens, is taking control of the biosphere. Focusing on the twentieth century—which will be remembered as the century in which the living body was blurred, molded, and transformed by technology and culture—Dyens ruminates on the undeniable and irreversible human/machine entanglement that is changing the very nature of our lives.

"In a not too distant future, cyborgs rule the earth in a society filled with vice, corruption and murder, the powerful few exploiting the masses of humans. Knowing which is which is not easy, however, and the seduction of the perfect dream bodies of the humanoid robots is very strong indeed. Man vs. machine in a sex showdown!"--Cover.

Great Warhammer Crime novel, set in the sprawling Warhammer 40,000 metropolis of Varangantua... Born into riches, Probator Symeon Noctis attempts to atone for his past sins by championing the powerless of Nearsteel district. But the sprawling city of Varangantua is uncaring of its masses, and when a bisected corpse is discovered in the neutral zone between Nearsteel and the Adeptus Mechanicus enclave of Steelmound, Noctis finds himself cast into his most dangerous case yet. Partnering with the tech-priest Rho-1 Lux of the Collegiate Extremis, Noctis is drawn into a murky world of tech-heresy, illegal servitors and exploitation that could end his career, or his life.

Downtrodden and powerless, Planeswalker Tezzeret must do everything he can to return to his former glory—even if it means relying on old enemies From the ashes of defeat, Tezzeret rises again. Beaten to within an inch of his life and left for dead by the psychic sorcerer Jace Beleren, Tezzeret has lost control of the Infinite Consortium—an interplanar cabal he commanded with a power and influence few in the Multiverse have ever achieved. Now he must turn to a former enemy for help: the dragon Nicol Bolas, perhaps the only Planeswalker in the Multiverse powerful enough to get him back on his feet. Bolas, however, has his reservations. What can Tezzeret give him that he doesn’t already have? So begins Tezzeret’s search for the secret of etherium—a magical alloy infused with all the power of the Blind Eternities—thought to have been lost with the disappearance of the great sphinx, Crucius the Mad. Tezzeret’s quest is clear, but his thirst for revenge clouds his decisions. Will he achieve his goal, or will he be bested by his own ambition?

In an age of cloning, cyborgs, and biotechnology, the line between bodies and bytes seems to be disappearing. DataMade Flesh is the first collection to address the increasingly important links between information and embodiment, at a moment when we are routinely tempted, in the words of Donna Haraway, "to be raptured out of the bodies that matter in the lust for information," whether in the rush to complete the Human Genome Project or in the race to clone a human being.

Vamipre book