It's the twenty-first century and let's be honest-things are a little disappointing. Despite every World's Fair prediction, every futuristic ride at Disneyland, and the advertisements on the last page of every comic book, we are not living the future we were promised. By now, life was supposed to be a fully automated, atomic-powered, germ-free Utopia, a place where a grown man could wear a velvet spandex unitard and not be laughed at. Where are the ray guns, the flying cars, and the hoverboards that we expected? What happened to our promised moon colonies? Our servant robots? In Where's My Jetpack?, roboticist Daniel H. Wilson takes a hilarious look at the future we always imagined for ourselves. He exposes technology, spotlights existing prototypes, and reveals drawing-board plans. You will learn which technologies are already available, who made them, and where to find them. If the technology is not public, you will learn how to build, buy, or steal it. And if doesn't yet exist, you will learn what stands in the way of making it real. With thirty entries spanning everything from teleportation to self-contained skyscraper cities, and superbly illustrated by Richard Horne (101 Things to Do Before You Die), Where's My Jetpack? is an endlessly entertaining, one-of-a-kind look at the world that we always wanted. Daniel H. Wilson, Ph.D, has a degree in Robotics from Carnegie-Mellon. He is the author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

It's the twenty-first century and let's be honest-things are a little disappointing. Despite every World's Fair prediction, every futuristic ride at Disneyland, and the advertisements on the last page of every comic book, we are not living the future we were promised. By now, life was supposed to be a fully automated, atomic-powered, germ-free Utopia, a place where a grown man could wear a velvet spandex unitard and not be laughed at. Where are the ray guns, the flying cars, and the hoverboards that we expected? What happened to our promised moon colonies? Our servant robots? In Where's My Jetpack?, roboticist Daniel H. Wilson takes a hilarious look at the future we always imagined for ourselves. He exposes technology, spotlights existing prototypes, and reveals drawing-board plans. You will learn which technologies are already available, who made them, and where to find them. If the technology is not public, you will learn how to build, buy, or steal it. And if doesn't yet exist, you will learn what stands in the way of making it real. With thirty entries spanning everything from teleportation to self-contained skyscraper cities, and superbly illustrated by Richard Horne (101 Things to Do Before You Die), Where's My Jetpack? is an endlessly entertaining, one-of-a-kind look at the world that we always wanted. Daniel H. Wilson, Ph.D, has a degree in Robotics from Carnegie-Mellon. He is the author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

One of The Telegraph's Best Music Books 2011 We live in a pop age gone loco for retro and crazy for commemoration. Band re-formations and reunion tours, expanded reissues of classic albums and outtake-crammed box sets, remakes and sequels, tribute albums and mash-ups . . . But what happens when we run out of past? Are we heading toward a sort of culturalecological catastrophe where the archival stream of pop history has been exhausted? Simon Reynolds, one of the finest music writers of his generation, argues that we have indeed reached a tipping point, and that although earlier eras had their own obsessions with antiquity—the Renaissance with its admiration for Roman and Greek classicism, the Gothic movement's invocations of medievalism—never has there been a society so obsessed with the cultural artifacts of its own immediate past. Retromania is the first book to examine the retro industry and ask the question: Is this retromania a death knell for any originality and distinctiveness of our own?

A hilarious pop-socio-cultural history of the greatest invention that never was, the jetpack, and a participatory journey through the bizarre subculture of jetpack enthusiasts in search of a working model

Think you know vehicles? Think again! Unconventional Vehicles is a nonfiction collection of 45 of the strangest, most unconventional vehicles that have ever existed. Vehicles include an underwater battery-powered scooter, a carriage pulled by ostriches, a hot air balloon shaped like the Cathedral of Saint Gall, and five different jet packs. • Filled with history, science, technology, engineering, and interesting bits of trivia, all in one kid-appealing package • Part of the Uncommon Compendiums series • Vehicles range from submersibles to dirigibles. Unconventional Vehicles explores very strange modes of transportation for vehicle fans, rocket inventors, budding space-and-aeronautics experts, and anyone who's ever thought, "Why can't I ride a motorized suitcase through the airport?" Brimming with fascinating facts and diagrams presented with wit and humor, this book is sure to enthrall vehicle enthusiasts of every age. • Ideal for children ages 8 to 12 years old, especially those interested in vehicles and engineering • Author Michael Hearst brings his signature verve and humor to this fascinating read. • Young readers will devour all the substantive and silly content in this book, proving definitively that nonfiction is anything but dry. • A great pick for teachers, parents, grandparents, and caregivers • You'll love this book if you love books like Cars, Trains, Ships, and Planes: A Visual Encyclopedia of Every Vehicle by DK; Stephen Biesty's Incredible Cross-Sections by Stephen Biesty; and Cool Cars by Quentin Willson.

Thin Grey Lines are a band at war with the web, and consequently the whole wide world. They do not want to be your friend. They want to warn you about this brave new world, with its deceptive surface layer of kittens, burying a darker vacuum which will suck us all in. They've also got an album out. Buy it? Please? Kaleidoscope is a story about people, technology, passion, and poetry. It has almost nothing to do with children's toys.

In the new millennium, what secrets lay beyond the far reaches of the universe? What mysteries belie the truths we once held to be self evident? The world of science fiction has long been a porthole into the realities of tomorrow, blurring the line between life and art. Now, in The Year's Best Science Fiction Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection the very best SF authors explore ideas of a new world. This venerable collection of short stories brings together award winning authors and masters of the field such as Robert Reed, Ian McDonald, Stephen Baxter, Michael Swanwick, Paolo Bacigalupi, Kage Baker, Walter Jon Williams, Alastair Reynolds, and Charles Stross. And with an extensive recommended reading guide and a summation of the year in science fiction, this annual compilation has become the definitive must read anthology for all science fiction fans and readers interested in breaking into the genre. "This venerable annual’s twenty-fifth edition represents a milestone for editor Dozois. He has kept faith with the series for a quarter-century without ever shortchanging, or even showing any signs of shortchanging, readers on either quality or abundance of selections."--Booklist