Menace of the Machine

About the Book

'It's a hazardous experiment,' they all said, 'putting in new and untried machinery'

Caution beware the menace of the machine: a man is murdered by an automaton built for playing chess; a computer system designed to arbitrate justice develops a taste for iron-fisted, fatal rulings; an AI wreaks havoc on society after removing all censorship from an early form of the internet.

Assembled with pieces by SF giants such as Isaac Asimov and Brian W Aldiss as well as the less familiar but no less influential input of earlier science fiction pioneers, this new collection of classic tales contains telling lessons for humankind's gradual march towards life alongside the thinking machine.

Get the book Buy or listen
Links open a search for this book at the selected store. Availability may vary.
British Library Science Fiction Classics

The series

Full series details →
Risingshadow

Readers Also Enjoyed

Meet the author

Mike Ashley

Mike Ashley is the author and editor of more than 100 books, and is one of the foremost historians of popular fiction. His books include Adventures in The Strand (British Library, 2016), Out of This World, a brief illustrated history of science fiction (British Library, 2011), and The Age of Storytellers: British…

Explore the author