The MANIAC

A thematic continuation of his earlier book on “the ecstasy and agony of scientific breakthroughs,” Benjamin Labatut’s The Maniac unfolds its historical philosophical (science) fiction by portraying a triptych of characters from the 20th Century, shaped by its excesses of reason. The book portents the vertiginous irony of our anthropocentric predicament—to go on breaking the “natural world” while worshiping AI as the latest and last deity on our “inexorably logical” path to oblivion.

2023; hardcover; 6.2 x 9.3 inches; 368 pages; IBSN: 9780593654477.