Against the Machine Trilogy
Against the Machine Trilogy
By Brian Van Norman
This Trilogy includes the following books:
Against the Machine: Luddites (Book 1)
At war against Napoleon near bankrupt English mill-masters experiment with a new factory system acquiring machines to replace men. A young worker leads the Luddites attacking mills and smashing machines. With increased assaults and even murder North England feels the grip of terrorism. Government agents attempt to suppress the rebellion. In 1812 there are more British troops in North England than fighting Napoleon in Europe. Against the Machine relates the story of the diverse characters caught in this conflict. It unveils the rank exploitation which marked the Industrial Revolution. Timely, intense and reflective of another, technological revolution: our own.
Against the Machine: Manifesto (Book 2)
Mel Buckworth, dependable family man, loses his manufacturing job through recession. Having lost his sense of purpose his pride sidelines him as he discerns his lack of digital skills so apparent in his children’s generation. He is galled by his daughter Dani’s university friend, Stanley Best, who is about to achieve fame in the fields of nano technology and artificial intelligence. As Mel desperately attempts to find equilibrium he estranges his family, leaves his wife and enlists the help of a greedy grad student. Will Baker teaches Mel the skills he will need to wreak revenge on a system seemingly discarding him. As his aptitudes grow he begins to use the internet, the very thing he despised, as a weapon to inflict his reprisals. Slowly he turns terrorist to deliver his message: that humans will succumb to machines and the social system controlling them. As his acts grow more lethal, Mel knows he must make an indelible declaration. A “manifesto” to be remembered.
Against the Machine: Evolution (Book 3)
Earth, 2212: The novel, third in the Against The Machine trilogy, yet free standing on its own, tells of a dystopian society in the midst of catastrophic climate change. Billions have died. The minority of people remaining inhabit the MEGs, former cities transformed by technology into huge protective domes; outside is the MASS living by subsistence. All seems well for those in the CORPORATE. It is not. With worsening climate, the MASS increasingly restive and their AI Silicons becoming sentient, those at the top have concocted a final solution: to leave Earth for Alpha Centauri, destroying the planet in their wake. Four protagonists, each from separate segments of this world, come together to attempt to prevent the plan. By the end they have managed to alter the human/machine interface, so changing human evolution.
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Guernica Editions (Essential Prose)
9781771834797, 9781771836951, 9781771838443
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About the author
Once a teacher, theatre director and adjudicator, Brian Van Norman left those worlds behind to travel the planet with his wife, Susan, and take up writing as a full-time pursuit. He is the author of four previous novels: The Betrayal Path, Immortal Water, Against the Machine: Luddites and Against the Machine: Manifesto. Against the Machine: Evolution is the third book in his human/machine interface trilogy. He has journeyed to every continent and sailed nearly every sea on the planet. His base is Waterloo, Ontario, Canada though he is seldom found there.