This would be my favorite genre, with a range of authors such as:

Terry Brooks
David Eddings
R.A Salvatore
Steven Erikson
Robin Hobb

Also comedy fantasy in the form of the amazingly productive Terry Pratcheet and his dicsworld series (he produces and avarage of 2 books in this series a year!!!)

I will exand on some of these on a n ongoing basis

This is my fav sub-genre of sci-fi.

If you've not heard of him, try Jeff Noon. In his first book, Vurt, he plays with the idea of different orders of being. Human, Robo, Vurt. And all the combinations.
A tail all mixed up with feathers and virtual trips. Beware the 'English Voodoo' feather.

You will not have read anything quite like this.

"Too beautiful for bikers, too harsh for hippies."

Robo sapiens: Evolution of a Species - Peter Menzel, Faith D'Aluisio

Around the world, scientists and engineers are participating in a high-stakes race to build the first intelligent robot. Many robots already exist -- automobile factories are full of them. But the new generation of robots will be something else: smart machines that act like living creatures. When they are brought into existence, science fiction will have become fact.What will happen then? With our prosthetic limbs, titanium hips, and artificial eyes, we are already beginning to resemble our machines. Equally important, our machines are beginning to resemble us. Robots already walk, talk, and dance; they can react to our facial expressions and obey verbal commands. When they take the next step and become fully autonomous, what will they do? Will we be partners or rivals? Could we meld into a single species -- Robo sapiens?In Robo sapiens, Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio present the next generation of intelligent robots and their makers. Accompanying brilliant photographs of more than one hundred robots is an account of the little-known, yet vitally important scientific competition to build an autonomous robot. Containing extensive interviews with robotics pioneers, anecdotal "field notes" with behind-the-scenes information, and easy-to-understand technical data about the machines, Robo sapiens is a field guide to our mechanical future.



Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids - Sidney Perkowitz
Robots, androids, and bionic people pervade popular culture, from classics like Frankenstein and R.U.R. to modern tales such as The Six Million Dollar Man, The Terminator, and A.I.. Our fascination is obvious and the technology is quickly moving from books and films to real life. In a lab at MIT, scientists and technicians have created an artificial being named COG. To watch COG interact with the environment to recognize that this machine has actual body language is to experience a hair-raising, gut-level reaction. Because just as we connect to artificial people in fiction, the merest hint of human-like action or appearance invariably engages us. Digital People examines the ways in which technology is inexorably driving us to a new and different level of humanity. As scientists draw on nanotechnology, molecular biology, artificial intelligence, and materials science, they are learning how to create beings that move, think, and look like people. Others are routinely using sophisticated surgical techniques to implant computer chips and drug-dispensing devices into our bodies, designing fully functional man-made body parts, and linking human brains with computers to make people healthier, smarter, and stronger. In short, we are going beyond what was once only science fiction to create bionic people with fully integrated artificial components and it will not be long before we reach the ultimate goal of constructing a completely synthetic human-like being. It seems quintessentially human to...

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Robocalypse - Daniel H. Wilson

They are in your house. They are in your car. They are in the skies...Now they're coming for you.

In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans – a single mother disconcerted by her daughter's menacing "smart" toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a 'pacification unit' go haywire – but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.

When the Robot War ignites -- at a moment known later as Zero Hour -- humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us...and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.




Moral Machines- Wendel Wallach , Colin Allen

Moral Machines is the first book to examine the challenge of building artificial moral agents, probing deeply into the nature of human decision making and ethics.

Computers are already approving financial transactions, controlling electrical supplies, and driving trains. Soon, service robots will be taking care of the elderly in their homes, and military robots will have their own targeting and firing protocols. Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach argue that as robots take on more and more responsibility, they must be programmed with moral decision-making abilities, for our own safety. Taking a fast paced tour through the latest thinking about philosophical ethics and artificial intelligence, the authors argue that even if full moral agency for machines is a long way off, it is already necessary to start building a kind of functional morality, in which artificial moral agents have some basic ethical sensitivity. But the standard ethical theories don't seem adequate, and more socially engaged and engaging robots will be needed. As the authors show, the quest to build machines that are capable of telling right from wrong has begun.




The Emotion Machine-; Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind. - Marvin Minsky

In this mind-expanding book, scientific pioneer Marvin Minsky continues his groundbreaking research, offering a fascinating new model for how our minds work. He argues persuasively that emotions, intuitions, and feelings are not distinct things, but different ways of thinking.

By examining these different forms of mind activity, Minsky says, we can explain why our thought sometimes...

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Computer chair legs broke today, just thought I would share that with all my friends. Time to get a new one, to bad things were not built to last like in the olden days. R.I.P. computer chair.

Just had to do that and also got the distinct honor of being the first contributor!! Yehaw!!

Thanks Data - You da best!!

For most of my books, I have purchased them from Amazon's USED BOOK SECTION!! They have great books with hardly a scratch yet they can be had for pennies on the dollar!!

OK...Have read several really good books during the past year so I'll toss a few titles out for you.
Dan Brown's Digital Fortress - A really good techno-thriller set in modern times and told as only Dan can. A real page turner and relatively easy to follow. A great read for technically minded people.

More to follow....

...is in place in the UK to help supplement one's retirement?

Here in the USA we have Social Security which was initially set up to help assist people as a supplement toward their personal savings / nest egg for retirement. Now people save hardly anything and depend on the government to provide a decent level of care during their retirement years! Funny how that got turned around!!

Just curious about what you chaps have, does it or does it not work and if not what's wrong with it. Spill it guys!! Thanks!!