{"product_id":"the-mirror-of-present-events-paperback","title":"The Mirror of Present Events - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eBrian Stableford\u003c\/b\u003e (Editor), \u003cb\u003eHenri Lanos\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eE. M. Laumann\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Mirror of Present Events (1790) is an irreverent political allegory in which a Syracusan beauty, following Archimedes' death, offers her hand in marriage to the inventor who can produce the most innovative homage to the great man's mechanical genius. A series of suitors comes forward, each offering a mechanical device ostensibly more marvelous than the last. Also included are an 1887collection of six futuristic stories by Jean Rameau featuring electric guns, automata and a striking vision of a future Paris in which people have become dependent on industrial pollution; The Immortal (1908) extrapolates the notion of immortality to a conclusion that might not be inevitable, but is no less symbolically dramatic; a hilarious 1910 feuilleton describing the career of an automaton racehorse; and L'Aerobagne 32 (1920), about a French engineer hired by a German company who discovers that its industrial operations are a cover for a rearmament scheme, and who refuses to surrender the formula for a new poison gas. He is then incarcerated in a vast airborne prison. This is the fourteenth in a series of anthologies of exemplary texts in the evolution of the French genre of roman scientifique.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 380\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.85 x 8 x 5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 01, 2016\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42112948961415,"sku":"9781612274867","price":38.81,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0601\/2623\/2711\/files\/f0d586a8c1732d6d8c300cd17ebd70ce.webp?v=1732484856","url":"https:\/\/booksby.splitshops.com\/products\/the-mirror-of-present-events-paperback","provider":"Books by splitShops","version":"1.0","type":"link"}