Although they entered the world as pure science fiction, robots are now very much a fact of everyday life. Whether a space-age cyborg, a chess-playing automaton, or simply the smartphone in our pocket, robots have long been a symbol of the fraught and fearful relationship between ourselves and our creations. Though we tend to think of them as products of twentieth-century technology—the word “robot” itself dates to only 1921—as a concept, they have colored US society and culture for far longer, as Dustin A. Abnet shows to dazzling effect in The American Robot. In tracing the history of the idea of robots in US culture, Abnet draws on intellectual history, religion, literature, film, and television. He explores how robots and their many kin have not only conceptually connected but literally embodied some of the most critical questions in modern culture. He also investigates how the discourse around robots has reinforced social and economic inequalities, as well as fantasies of mass domination—chilling thoughts that the recent increase in job automation has done little to quell. The American Robot argues that the deep history of robots has abetted both the literal replacement of humans by machines and the figurative transformation of humans into machines, connecting advances in technology and capitalism to individual and societal change. Look beneath the fears that fracture our society, Abnet tells us, and you’re likely to find a robot lurking there.

In the years after World War II, Westerners and Japanese alike elevated Zen to the quintessence of spirituality in Japan. Pursuing the sources of Zen as a Japanese ideal, Shoji Yamada uncovers the surprising role of two cultural touchstones: Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery and the Ryoanji dry-landscape rock garden. Yamada shows how both became facile conduits for exporting and importing Japanese culture. First published in German in 1948 and translated into Japanese in 1956, Herrigel’s book popularized ideas of Zen both in the West and in Japan. Yamada traces the prewar history of Japanese archery, reveals how Herrigel mistakenly came to understand it as a traditional practice, and explains why the Japanese themselves embraced his interpretation as spiritual discipline. Turning to Ryoanji, Yamada argues that this epitome of Zen in fact bears little relation to Buddhism and is best understood in relation to Chinese myth. For much of its modern history, Ryoanji was a weedy, neglected plot; only after its allegorical role in a 1949 Ozu film was it popularly linked to Zen. Westerners have had a part in redefining Ryoanji, but as in the case of archery, Yamada’s interest is primarily in how the Japanese themselves have invested this cultural site with new value through a spurious association with Zen.

"This is quintessential Merton."--The Catholic Review.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant comes a twisting story of love and deceit: an American man vanishes on a rural road in Vietnam, and his girlfriend follows a path that leads her home to the very hospital where they met. Alexis and Austin don’t have a typical “meet cute”—their first encounter involves Alexis, an emergency room doctor, suturing a bullet wound in Austin’s arm. Six months later, they’re on a romantic getaway in Vietnam: a bike tour on which Austin can show Alexis his passion for cycling, and can pay his respects to the place where his father and uncle fought in the war. But then Austin fails to return from a solo ride. Alexis’s boyfriend has vanished, the only clue left behind a bright yellow energy gel dropped on the road. As Alexis grapples with this bewildering loss, she starts to uncover a series of strange lies that force her to wonder: Where did Austin go? Why did he really bring her to Vietnam? And how much danger has he left her in? Set amidst the adrenaline-fueled world of the emergency room, The Red Lotus is a global thriller about those who dedicate their lives to saving people—and those who peddle death to the highest bidder. Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!

Hugo Award–winning author Elizabeth Bear returns to the epic fantasy world of the Lotus Kingdoms with The Red-Stained Wings, the sequel to The Stone in the Skull, taking the Gage into desert lands under a deadly sky to answer the riddle of the Stone in the Skull. io9—New Sci-Fi and Fantasy for May The Verge—13 New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels for May The Gage and the Dead Man brought a message from the greatest wizard of Messaline to the ruling queen of Sarathai, one of the Lotus Kingdoms. But the message was a riddle, and the Lotus Kingdoms are at war. Elizabeth Bear created her secondary world of the Eternal Sky in her highly praised novel The Range of Ghosts and its sequels. The Lotus Kingdoms #1 The Stone in the Skull #2 The Red-Stained Wings The Eternal Sky Trilogy #1 Range of Ghosts #2 Shattered Pillars #3 Steles of the Sky At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An exploration of the utopias and dystopias that could develop from present society Peter Frase argues that increasing automation and a growing scarcity of resources, thanks to climate change, will bring it all tumbling down. In Four Futures, Frase imagines how this post-capitalist world might look, deploying the tools of both social science and speculative fiction to explore what communism, rentism and extermininsm might actually entail. Could the current rise of the real-life robocops usher in a world that resembles Ender's Game? And sure, communism will bring an end to material scarcities and inequalities of wealth—but there's no guarantee that social hierarchies, governed by an economy of "likes," wouldn't rise to take their place. A whirlwind tour through science fiction, social theory and the new technologies are already shaping our lives, Four Futures is a balance sheet of the socialisms we may reach if a resurgent Left is successful, and the barbarisms we may be consigned to if those movements fail.

From famed automotive journalist Jason Torchinsky, of Jalopnik and Jay Leno's Garage, comes a witty insider's guide to make sense of self-driving cars and predict the road ahead. Self-driving cars sound fantastical and futuristic and yet they'll soon be on every street in America. Whether it's Tesla's Autopilot, Google's Waymo, Mercedes's Distronic, or Uber's modified Volvos, companies around the world are developing autonomous cars. But why? And what will they mean for the auto industry and humanity at large? In Robot, Take the Wheel, Torchinsky gives a colorful account of the development of autonomous vehicles and their likely implications. He encourages us to think of self-driving cars as an entirely new machine, something beyond cars as we understand them today, and considers how humans will get along with these robots that will take over our cars' jobs, what they will look like, what sorts of jobs they may do, what we can expect of them, how they should act, ethically, how we can have fun with them, and how we can make sure there's still a place for those of us who love to drive, especially with a manual transmission. This vibrant volume explores what's ahead and what we can do now to shape the automated future.

A group of misfit humans and machines fight to stop a conspiracy to exterminate humanity in a future Chicago ruled by a brutal artificial intelligence. The future is ruled by intelligent machines. After a brutal war leaving at least one quarter of the United States still under occupation, the remnants of the American government are negotiating for a permanent peace with a coalition of sophisticated but fascist machines that have besieged the country. Barry Simcoe, a businessman from Canada, is in occupied Chicago when his hotel is attacked by a rogue, thirty-foot-tall war drone. In the aftermath, he meets a Russian medic and a badly damaged robot called 19 Black Winter. Together, the trio stumble on a deep conspiracy driven by America’s conquerors that reveal a vicious plan, setting them in a race against time to protect the nation from a fate worse than subjugation. Praise for The Robots of Gotham “This debut novel beautifully combines a postapocalyptic man-versus-machine conflict and a medical thriller . . . This is thrilling, epic SF.” —New York Times “An epic novel . . . full of action, political intrigue, and unexpected twists. Todd McAulty has given us a fresh, compelling take on life during a robot apocalypse.” —Jeff Abbott, New York Times–bestselling author of Blame “A page-turner that kept me riveted from the opening lines to the final chapter. Highly recommended!” —David B. Coe, author of The Case Files of Justis Fearsson series