Long before the development of AI, humans created automatons in their own image.

These sixteen weird tales explore magical and mechanical representations of humankind drawn from history and myth - from Odin carving humans from wood to Pygmalion's living statue Galatea, from Julius Caesar's animated wax effigy to the chess-playing Mechanical Turk, from the first humanoid robot on the International Space Station to online deepfakes.

Includes 'The Brazen Head of Westinghouse', winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction, 2024.