The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course.But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldn't be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society.

    Scramble suits. Poison tongue darts. Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) may have invented more wildly imaginative creations per novel than any of his peers. An eccentric whose mind danced on the blurry edge between illusion and reality, madness and metaphysics, he produced a body of work that no science fiction reader should ignore. Lacked with humor, compassion, irony and paranoia, the four novels n Counterfeit Unrealities are among his best work.Contains Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep [aka Blade Runner], The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

    Convicted of a crime she did not commit, former Hope child Jackal serves a terrible solitary imprisonment sentence and is eventually abandoned in a strange country where other people like herself help her learn the truth about her imprisonment.

    This second volume in the series focuses on the work of one of the fastest-rising young artists in Japan, Junko Mizuno, whose instantly recognizable "cute but deadly" art style was featured in the recent Junko Mizuno's Cinderella graphic novel, also published by Viz.

    Reload offers an alternative picture of cyberspace as a complex and contradictory place where there is oppression as well as liberation. It shows how cyberpunk's revolutionary claims conceal its ultimate conservatism on matters of class, gender, and race. The cyberfeminists writing here view cyberculture as a social experiment with an as-yet-unfulfilled potential to create new identities, relationships, and cultures. The book brings together women's cyberfiction--fiction that explores the relationship between people and virtual technologies--and feminist theoretical and critical investigations of gender and technoculture. From a variety of viewpoints, the writers consider the effects of rapid and profound technological change on culture, in particular both the revolutionary and reactionary effects of cyberculture on women's lives. They also explore the feminist implications of the cyborg, a human-machine hybrid. The writers challenge the conceptual and institutional rifts between high and low culture, which are embedded in the texts and artifacts of cyberculture.

    The book collects essays and images, in colour and black-and-white, presenting the image of the cyborg in all its imaginative guises. The title is from a 1919 essay by Sigmund Freud (and included in the book), which deals with the sensation of "uncanniness" as being strange and familiar at the same time. The idea of the cyborg has been in existence for decades, and is one of the most persistent cultural images of the past century. The cyborg is a cypher—an enigmatic image of figure that is human but not human, a machine but not a machine. It exists at the intersection of science, technology, and culture. For some, the cyborg is evident in the massive presence of technology; we are constantly aided by machines, whether they are computers, vehicles, or military weapons that extend and amplify our presence in the natural world, or by medical prosthetics, such as pacemakers, artificial limbs, and eyeglasses, that maintain and reinforce our existing physical body. How is one to understand the persistence of this image in the visual arts and popular culture, in science and literature, medicine and cultural theory? This book, in its essays and images, presents the cyborg as an "uncanny" image that reflects our shared fascination and dread of the machine and its presence in our daily lives. The Uncanny complemented a major exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The book suggests a significant link between the visual arts and popular culture in the evolving representation of the cyborg, beginning as early is the 19th century. A copublication with the Vancouver Art Gallery, The Uncanny is a thoughtful and beautifully presented examination of cyborg culture that will help to define our sense of self as we forge ahead into the uncertain future. Essays by: Sigmund Freud ("The Uncanny"), William Gibson (an excerpt from "Neuromancer"), Donna Haraway ("A Manifesto For Cyborgs"), and Toshiya Ueno ("Japanimation and Techno-Orientalism"). Includes 32 full-color photographs and numerous black and white images. Winner, Canadian Museum Association Award, Best Publication.