The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life.The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and morally urgent. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture - a motivational system based on heritable grad...

Drawing on the latest research, this brilliantly argued, elegantly written book examines belief, myth and society in the Neolithic period, arguably the most significant turning point in human history, when the society we know was born. Linking consciousness, imagery and belief systems the authors create a bridge to the thought-lives of the past.

Can Biotechnology Abolish Suffering? is a collection of essays by utilitarian philosopher David Pearce. The essays deal with a variety of subjects, including the abolition of suffering through biotechnology, negative utilitarianism, our obligations toward non-human animals, the nature of consciousness, and the future of intelligent life.

Were they invited, or did they gate-crash the party to end all parties – The Party at the End of Time? Henry's mother feared they might arrive and arrive they did, fresh from the sea and rarin' to go, Thor the Viking and Nigel, the pirate and do they know how to party! Little old ladies clamour for their services before booze and burning and leaping over snapping crocodiles exhaust their energy. They thrust and parry with the best of them. They eat and drink and sing rude songs and they ar...

Timed with precision to ease the pain of your commute "the case of the punt gunner's bollards" is a short story set in the wild sea coast of eastern England. You will be spell-bound. Your journey will evaporate as the tide comes in. The punt gunner focuses on a flock of ducks. He fires his mighty cannon. The ducks and undergraduates in distant Cambridge panic - could this be World War lll? But what does the recoil expose? What has the gunner used to anchor his punt? What will his canny wif...

A pistol shot shatters the early morning silence of the Great Hall. A lead ball flies to its target. A miss? The man lowering his pistol has never been known to miss.Decades later Bernard Mollison, master restorer, examines a hole in a family portrait – a hole where the heart is. Beside him stands Graham, a young Englishman. It is a long way from the veggie restaurant above Plymouth Arts Cinema where Graham met and fell in love with Mollison's son to the Mollison atelier in Prague w...

Just what my doctor might have ordered – an adventure of my very own. How else could I have interpreted that gesture, the hand drawn across the throat, menacing and made in my direction. They were out to get me. Nothing for it but a headlong dash across Europe, hounds snapping at my heels. No sooner were they shaken off than the assassins, ruthless after dark throat slitters, silent, stealthy Asiatics out to get me and no sooner evaded than overboard I go. Nights bobbing on the Mediterrane...

This is my story me, Katherine Fountain, Jon's wife, Olivia's mum. Grandparents are involved and Sabre.Granny Angel told me, "Your daughter talks to horses."Olivia was indignant, "Not any old horse, only Sabre."Why not me?The war was over but Jon, Germanophile, fluent in the language and an expert in the field had remained involved in the aftermath. Olivia was ten when he came back to us permanently, a man nursing a wounded soul after his experience of the death...

Just what my doctor might have ordered - an adventure.How to interpret that gesture, more subtle than the flat of the hand across the throat but menacing and made in my direction?Nothing for it but a headlong dash across Europe, hounds snapping at my heels - (delete "headlong", novelistic, clichéd), and not hounds - assassins, Asiatic, ruthless after dark throat slitters, the snipers and bombers of the Mafia - all out to get me.Nights bobbing on the Med. - a leading...

A daveshortstory written with commuters in mind; time for the commute. The Bomber was an ace helicopter pilot with a passion for dropping things. Frank was a chief executive officer with surplus executives. It was a beautiful marriage of necessities but it could not last. Can there ever be a good time to quarrel with your pilot - especially your helicopter pilot - especially one with a passion for dropping things?

An important contribution to the literature of the West written in the vernacular. This is the authentic West, raw and dangerous

This is the official book accompanying the major exhibition at the Royal Academy in May and June 1989, organised by the oyal Fine Art Commission. The exhibition, which is sponsored by The Wolfson Foundation, will follow its London opening with a travelling exhibit to the major British cities and to 13 European countries under the auspices of the British Council. The issue of conserving the 'built environment' is now no longer a problem for architects and planners alone; European Architectu...