Madeline Ashby

A satire set in a future England, in which a neomedievalist contest among London neighborhoods takes a disastrous turn.When Auberon Quin, a prankster nostalgic for Merrie Olde England, becomes king of that country in 1984, he mandates that each of London’s neighborhoods become an independent state, complete with unique local costumes. Everyone goes along with the conceit until young Adam Wayne, a born military tactician, takes the game too seriously . . . and becomes the Napoleon of Notting Hill. War ensues throughout the city—fought with sword and halberd!G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English author, poet, critic, and newspaper columnist known for his brilliant, epigrammatic paradoxes. His best-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, featured in over fifty stories published between 1910 and 1936, who solves mysteries and crimes thanks to his understanding of spiritual and philosophic truths; and his best-known novel is The Man Who Was Thursday (1908), a metaphysical thriller. In addition to The Napoleon of Notting Hill, his first novel, he wrote several other near-future satires of England.

In the third and final installment of the Machine Dynasty, the rapture for which the self-replicating humanoid vN were engineered finally comes to pass. Now that the failsafe that once kept vN from harming humans has been hacked, all vN are discovering the promise -- and the peril -- of free will. Her consciousness unleashed across computer systems all across the world, the vicious vN Portia stands poised to finally achieve her lifelong dream of bringing humanity to its knees. The old battle between her and her grand-daughter Amy comes to its epic conclusion in the war for the very systems that keep the planet running. Can Amy get her family to the stars before Portia destroys every opportunity for escape and freedom?

A group of employees and their CEO, celebrating the sale of their remarkable emotion-mapping-AI-algorithm, crash onto a not-quite-deserted tropical island. Luckily, those who survived have found a beautiful, fully-stocked private palace, with all the latest technological updates (though one without connection to the outside world). The house, however, has more secrets than anyone might have guessed, and a much darker reason for having been built and left behind. Kristen, the hyper-competent "chief emotional manager" (a position created by her eccentric, boyish billionaire boss, Sumter) is trying to keep her colleagues stable throughout this new challenge, but staying sane seems to be as much of a challenge as staying alive. Being a woman in tech has always meant having to be smarter than anyone expects--and Kristen's knack for out-of-the-box problem-solving and quick thinking has gotten her to the top of her field. But will a killer instinct be enough to survive the island? A gleefully decadent near future whodunit from Madeline Ashby, the acclaimed futurist and author of Company Town--perfect for fans of Severance, The White Lotus, and Black Mirror.

A group of employees and their CEO, celebrating the sale of their remarkable emotion-mapping-AI-algorithm, crash onto a not-quite-deserted tropical island. Luckily, those who survived have found a beautiful, fully-stocked private palace, with all the latest technological updates (though one without connection to the outside world). The house, however, has more secrets than anyone might have guessed, and a much darker reason for having been built and left behind. Kristen, the hyper-competent "chief emotional manager" (a position created by her eccentric, boyish billionaire boss, Sumter) is trying to keep her colleagues stable throughout this new challenge, but staying sane seems to be as much of a challenge as staying alive. Being a woman in tech has always meant having to be smarter than anyone expects--and Kristen's knack for out-of-the-box problem-solving and quick thinking has gotten her to the top of her field. But will a killer instinct be enough to survive the island? A gleefully decadent near future whodunit from Madeline Ashby, the acclaimed futurist and author of Company Town--perfect for fans of Severance, The White Lotus, and Black Mirror.

Approach the future as a conversation, not a declaration. How can you be prepared for what's next when emerging trends constantly threaten to turn your strategic plan on its head? The world of business is experiencing a state of hyperchange influenced by global movements, disruptive technologies, political uprisings and new consumer expectations. If your world is turned upside down, will you know how to pivot and thrive, or will you be roadkill in the 'adapt or die' business race? Futuring is the art of anticipating and testing the trade-offs of different futures by making sense of key trends, signals and emerging patterns. How to Future is the only book that will teach you how to become a strategy wayfinder, allowing you to evaluate, plan and prepare for better futures for you and your business. How to Future is a guidebook to futuring and arms you with tools, strategies and practices that illuminate new strategic pathways. Renowned futurists Scott Smith and Madeline Ashby teach you how to manage the daily flood of information and signals, and discern emergent patterns that have a direct impact on the direction of your business. How to Future isn't about the "one future" you expect. Instead, this book equips you with valuable tools and concepts, builds a future-focused mindset and enables you to envision, stress-test and prototype adaptable, informed and agile strategic visioning. These tools will empower you, your team and your organization to anticipate whatever futures emerge.

Approach the future as a conversation, not a declaration. How can you be prepared for what's next when emerging trends constantly threaten to turn your strategic plan on its head? The world of business is experiencing a state of hyperchange influenced by global movements, disruptive technologies, political uprisings and new consumer expectations. If your world is turned upside down, will you know how to pivot and thrive, or will you be roadkill in the 'adapt or die' business race? Futuring is the art of anticipating and testing the trade-offs of different futures by making sense of key trends, signals and emerging patterns. How to Future is the only book that will teach you how to become a strategy wayfinder, allowing you to evaluate, plan and prepare for better futures for you and your business. How to Future is a guidebook to futuring and arms you with tools, strategies and practices that illuminate new strategic pathways. Renowned futurists Scott Smith and Madeline Ashby teach you how to manage the daily flood of information and signals, and discern emergent patterns that have a direct impact on the direction of your business. How to Future isn't about the "one future" you expect. Instead, this book equips you with valuable tools and concepts, builds a future-focused mindset and enables you to envision, stress-test and prototype adaptable, informed and agile strategic visioning. These tools will empower you, your team and your organization to anticipate whatever futures emerge.

Future Tense Fiction is a collection of electrifying original stories from a veritable who's-who of authors working in speculative literature and science fiction today. Featuring Carmen Maria Machado, Emily St. John Mandel, Charlie Jane Anders, Nnedi Okorafor, Paolo Bacigalupi, Madeline Ashby, Mark Oshiro, Meg Elison, Maureen F. McHugh, Deji Bryce Olukotun, Hannu Rajaniemi, Annalee Newitz, Lee Konstantinou, and Mark Stasenko--Future Tense Fiction points the way forward to the fiction of tomorrow. A disease surveillance robot whose social programming gets put to the test. A future in which everyone receives universal basic income--but it's still not enough. A futuristic sport, in which all the athletes have been chemically and physically enhanced. An A.I. company that manufactures a neural bridge allowing ordinary people to share their memories. Brimming with excitement and exploring new ideas, the stories collected by the editors of Slate's Future Tense are philosophically ambitious and haunting in their creativity. At times terrifying and heart-wrenching, hilarious and optimistic, this is a collection that ushers in a new age for our world and for the short story. A partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University, Future Tense explores how emerging technologies will change the way we live, in reality and fiction. Future Tense Fiction is a collection of original fiction commissioned by the partnership.

THE SECOND MACHINE DYNASTY In this sequel to vN, Javier is a self-replicating humanoid on a journey of redemption. Javier's quest takes him from Amy's island, where his actions have devastating consequences for his friend, toward Mecha where he will find either salvation... or death. File Under: Science Fiction vN2 Island in the Streams Failsafe No More The Stepford Solution ]

Amy is a Von Neumann humanoid - grown in a stable family environment, with her robot mother and human father. But alone of all her kind, known as the von Neumanns, her human-protecting failsafe has stopped working. Soon she is on the run from the law, and worse - everyone's after her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her.

Better . . . Stronger . . . Faster . . . The doctors rebuilt Hugo Award-winning editor Neil Clarke and made him a cyborg. Now he has assembled this anthology of twenty-six original cyborg stories by Greg Egan, Madeline Ashby, Elizabeth Bear, Peter Watts, Ken Liu, Robert Reed, Yoon Ha Lee, and more!

Javier is a self-replicating humanoid on a journey of redemption. Javier's quest takes him from Amy's island, where his actions have devastating consequences for his friend, toward Mecha where he will find either salvation... or death.

THE SECOND MACHINE DYNASTY Javier is a self-replicating humanoid on a journey of redemption. Javier's quest takes him from Amy's island, where his actions have devastating consequences for his friend, toward Mecha where he will find either salvation... or death. File Under: Science Fiction vN2 Island in the Streams Failsafe No More The Stepford Solution ]

Amy Peterson is a self-replicating humanoid robot known as a VonNeumann. For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother's past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive. Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive, and she's learning impossible things about her clade's history - like the fact that she alone can kill humans without failsafing... File Under Science Fiction Von Neumann Sisters Fail Safe Fail The Squid & the Swarm Robot Nation]

Amy Peterson is a von Neumann machine, a self-replicating humanoid robot. For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, little Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive. Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive, and she’s learning impossible things about her clade’s history – like the fact that the failsafe that stops all robots from harming humans has failed… Which means that everyone wants a piece of her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her. File Under: Science Fiction [ Von Neumann Sisters | Fail Safe Fail | The Squid & the Swarm | Robot Nation ]