Mechanical Animals: Tales at the Crux of Creatures and Tech

A speculative fiction safari that riffs on the traditional ideals of automata to explore our strange and competitive relationship with the natural world. Biomimicry is no stranger to literature, with canonical authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hans Christian Anderson, and Jules Verne setting the tone for a trope that has expounded and expanded upon what exactly separates humans from the animal kingdom as well as the boundary between machines and living beings. Featuring 15 original stories by today’s top science fiction and fantasy authors and contextual mecha-fauna essays by artist and Insect Lab Studio maker, Mike Libby, and SF encyclopedist and author Jess Nevins, Mechanical Animals presents a biomimicry menagerie of animalistic machines that will blur the lines between what is and isn’t nature’s design. Edited by Selena Chambers and Jason Heller Featuring: Mike Libby Jess Nevins Tessa Kum Delia Sherman Maurice Broaddus Sarah Hans Lauren Beukes Jesse Bullington An Owomoyela Stephen Graham Jones Hans Christian Andersen Molly Tanzer Aliette de Bodard Nick Mamatas Nathaniel Hawthorne Kat Howard Michael Cisco Adrian Van Young Robert T. Toombs Joseph S. Pulver, Jr. Alistair Rennie Jules Verne Caroline Yoachim Carrie Vaughn