Axel and BEAST: Castle of Cyborgs


Book Description

Axel is an awesome gamer who needs a friend, and BEAST is a huge robot on the run from the nasty Grabbem Industries. Together, Axel and BEAST will take on the bad guys and try to the save the world from their evil money-making schemes! In Castle of Cyborgs, Axel and BEAST must journey to the Neuron Institute, where the evil Professor Payne is fusing man with machines. Can they fight off cyberwolves, robotic angels and the dreaded monster in the dungeon to complete their biggest mission yet: saving Axel’s dad? Packed with exciting action, awesome apps and the greatest friends ever, this series is perfect for kids who are eager to start reading, but prone to dropping off. With hilarious characters and high-tech adventure, Axel and BEAST will propel 7+ readers over the finish line as easily as their favourite cartoon series!




Monstrous Nature


Book Description

Godzilla, a traditional natural monster and representation of cinema’s subgenre of natural attack, also provides a cautionary symbol of the dangerous consequences of mistreating the natural world—monstrous nature on the attack. Horror films such as Godzilla invite an exploration of the complexities of a monstrous nature that humanity both creates and embodies. Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann demonstrate how the horror film and its offshoots can often be understood in relation to a monstrous nature that has evolved either deliberately or by accident and that generates fear in humanity as both character and audience. This connection between fear and the natural world opens up possibilities for ecocritical readings often missing from research on monstrous nature, the environment, and the horror film. Organized in relation to four recurring environmental themes in films that construct nature as a monster—anthropomorphism, human ecology, evolution, and gendered landscapes—the authors apply ecocritical perspectives to reveal the multiple ways nature is constructed as monstrous or in which the natural world itself constructs monsters. This interdisciplinary approach to film studies fuses cultural, theological, and scientific critiques to explore when and why nature becomes monstrous.




Bluestar


Book Description

Bluestar By: Sammy Jo Pendergrast In a galaxy of turmoil after the end of the Great Civil War and the royal Nightstar family’s reign, an orphan thief finds himself stealing from Lord Brohain, ruler of the galaxy and Androids. Jase Bluestar soon finds himself aiding one of the last Nightstar Princesses in order for her to escape Lord Brohain’s revenge and return to the Resistance. Traveling to different planets and meeting unlikely friends, Jase Bluestar realizes that a mere thief can have a bigger destiny than one can imagine.




Royal Cyborgs


Book Description

A Royal Collection of SciFi Romance Novellas Book 1: The Cyborg's Princess I'm supposed to marry a proper human princess to secure the peace between cyborgs and humans on Asaverra. The innocent look on Princess Eden's face is no match for her sassy mouth and her fondness for sneaking out of the palace at night. It was probably a stupid idea to pose as her new bodyguard so I can get to know my bride a little better. The princess is way more trouble than I can handle. Sweet, delicious trouble. Did I mention how much I enjoy trouble? Book 2: The Cyborg's Runaway My father is angry with me for having a brain and not wanting to marry the first man he introduces me to. When he finally has enough of me being difficult—his words, not mine—he chooses a husband for me, and for some reason, he picks a cyborg. I smile and nod... and then bail the first chance I get. I'm not going to get married off like a good little wifey whose only job it is to look pretty. And to make sure that this wedding really doesn't happen, I'm going to ruin myself in the ecstasy districts of Asaverra. I really thought this through, and there's nothing that could go wrong with this plan. Absolutely nothing! Book 3: The Cyborg's Queen While my friends have been forced to marry cyborgs, my father has prepared me to take the throne alone—no husband needed. Unfortunately, that quickly changes when my father falls victim to an assassination attempt. To hold on to power, I need a husband, and I need him now. Preferably someone who is big, strong, and—ideally—ruthless. The cyborg named Killer seems like the perfect candidate, but he hates humans with every fiber, screw, and circuit board of his being... Book 4: The Cyborg's Rebel It was never my plan to get married. Not to mention that I certainly wouldn't have chosen a human bride. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to take Sara Asquith as my wife due to family commitments. I could probably get used to her curvy body and her surprisingly sharp tongue, but my future wife doesn't want to get married at all and is—unsurprisingly—not exactly willing to compromise... Historical romance meets space.* Princess meets cyborg. Completely over-the-top with all the best champagne flutes, fanciest ball gowns, and shiniest crowns you could wish for. (*No actual history or science involved.)




Cyborg Saints


Book Description

Saints are currently undergoing a resurrection in middle grade and young adult fiction, as recent prominent novels by Socorro Acioli, Julie Berry, Adam Gidwitz, Rachel Hartman, Merrie Haskell, Gene Luen Yang, and others demonstrate. Cyborg Saints: Religion and Posthumanism in Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction makes the radical claim that these holy medieval figures are actually the new cyborgs in that they dethrone the autonomous subject of humanist modernity. While young people navigate political and personal forces, as well as technologies, that threaten to fragment and thingify them, saints show that agency is still possible outside of the humanist construct of subjectivity. The saints of these neomedievalist novels, through living a life vulnerable to the other, attain a distributed agency that accomplishes miracles through bodies and places and things (relics, icons, pilgrimage sites, and ultimately the hagiographic text and its reader) spread across time. Cyborg Saints analyzes MG and YA fiction through the triple lens of posthumanism, neomedievalism, and postsecularism. Cyborg Saints charts new ground in joining religion and posthumanism to represent the creativity and diversity of young people’s fiction.




New Romantic Cyborgs


Book Description

An account of the complex relationship between technology and romanticism that links nineteenth-century monsters, automata, and mesmerism with twenty-first-century technology's magic devices and romantic cyborgs. Romanticism and technology are widely assumed to be opposed to each other. Romanticism—understood as a reaction against rationalism and objectivity—is perhaps the last thing users and developers of information and communication technology (ICT) think about when they engage with computer programs and electronic devices. And yet, as Mark Coeckelbergh argues in this book, this way of thinking about technology is itself shaped by romanticism and obscures a better and deeper understanding of our relationship to technology. Coeckelbergh describes the complex relationship between technology and romanticism that links nineteenth-century monsters, automata, and mesmerism with twenty-first-century technology's magic devices and romantic cyborgs. Coeckelbergh argues that current uses of ICT can be interpreted as attempting a marriage of Enlightenment rationalism and romanticism. He describes the “romantic dialectic,” when this new kind of material romanticism, particularly in the form of the cyborg as romantic figure, seems to turn into its opposite. He shows that both material romanticism and the objections to it are still part of modern thinking, and part of the romantic dialectic. Reflecting on what he calls “the end of the machine,” Coeckelbergh argues that to achieve a more profound critique of contemporary technologies and culture, we need to explore not only different ways of thinking but also different technologies—and that to accomplish the former we require the latter.




Psi' Ops and the Battle of Minds


Book Description

Rijil survives his ascension day (twenty-one). He is on the run. The thought police almost kill him for being gifted in psi ability, an American taboo. He receives a commission from the Royal Navy. He meets Keke. Rijil is a fighter pilot before their psi ability is discovered. Once they belong to the Alpha Psi Ops team, they use their telepathy (psi) to hunt down Trapizoids. They get assaulted by them but discover they are a slave race to the Tolms. The Ancients intervene in the capacity of police to stop the war. The Trapizoids refuse to cooperate, and the Ancients are forced to clear the League of Planets of any wrongdoing. But the Tolms were the real enemy. The Ancients make use of Rijil and Keke, as they go about their main business of destroying Tolm target minds. The Trapizoids want to help eradicate the Tolms. They are allies. Both Rijil and Keke are put through the process of regeneration in case they die. After Keke dies, she is given an honorable discharge when she cant remember Rijil. He goes to Aquafloa, her home planet, and she remembers almost all their relationship. They find true and abiding love.




Famous Robots and Cyborgs


Book Description

Famous Robots and Cyborgs is a high-octane voyage through the history of our metallic friends and foes. Dan Roberts narrates the history, strengths, weaknesses, quirks, and foibles of a plethora of fictional robots, cyborgs, and mechanical races—taking in the pronouncements of sci-fi visionaries and eminent robotics scientists along the way. Roberts guides us through the evolution of the deadly Cylons of Battlestar Gallactica in its various forms to movie classics like the mysterious Gort of The Day the Earth Stood Still, the iconic C-3PO, and of course the Terminator. We encounter crazed cybernetic killers, megalomaniac computers, living spaceships, beautiful androids, human brains in metal bodies, and ultracompetitive robot gladiators. Along the way, find answers to such questions as: Are robots capable of love? Which were the least convincing and most laughable movie robots of all time? Can robots harm humans to save themselves? And can you really destroy a deadly cyborg assassin with the force of an exploding oil tanker? Famous Robots and Cyborgs is a joyful, eclectic, informative, celebratory journey through the hi-tech world of the mechanical man (and woman). Packed full of trivia, robo-facts, controversy, history, and information on robot toys, games, films, TV, and books, it will delight the dedicated robot aficionado and the interested newcomer alike.




Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Cinema


Book Description

In the years since Georges Méliès’s Le voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) was released in 1902, more than 1000 science fiction films have been made by filmmakers around the world. The versatility of science fiction cinema has allowed it to expand into a variety of different markets, appealing to age groups from small children to adults. The technical advances in filmmaking technology have enabled a new sophistication in visual effects. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Cinema contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, films, companies, techniques, themes, and subgenres. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about science fiction cinema.




Robots!


Book Description

Lively text and fun illustrations describe how to draw robots.