My first book of nonfiction, The Devil’s Toy Box: Exposing and Defusing Promethean Terrorists, is out from Potomac Books, an imprint of University of Nebraska Press. It features a chapter on the unique suitability of science fiction writers to be part of a Promethean Spyglass forecasting team and also contains five detailed terror scenarios (essentially horrific short stories from the perpetrators’ view). Here’s a description from the publisher:
“A Promethean technology is one that allows someone of average resources, skills, and intelligence to carry out actions that were once only doable by governments, militaries, or institutions with considerable resources. Essentially, Promethean technologies allow users to create their own weapons of mass destruction.
“These emerging technologies are increasingly affordable and accessible—and are no more complicated to operate than a satellite TV control box or a smart phone. Although these technologies are a terrifying prospect, the more we know about these dangers, the better we can prepare to head them off.
“In The Devil’s Toy Box, Andrew Fox lays out seven decades of preemptive analysis and shows that while homeland security has explored, in depth, the possible Promethean threats the world faces, it has failed to forecast the most likely attacks. Using fictional scenarios Fox teaches how to predict future threats and how to forecast which ones are likely to be used by bad actors within the next five to ten years. Combining the skills of homeland security experts and the imaginations of speculative fiction writers, he then offers an analytical method to deter, counter, or abate these threats, rather than adopting an attitude of resigned fatalism.”
The publisher has made it available in hardcover and as an ebook; unfortunately, they chose to price the physical hardback and the ebook the same, which doesn’t make much sense to me (I complained but to no avail), and which has resulted in — surprise, surprise! — approximately ZERO copies of the ebook being sold. Dare you be the first to buy the ebook version for (gasp) $26.49? (Okay, Amazon took some pity on their Kindle customers and lowered the price from an even more unreasonable $32.95.) Or will you fork out $29.37 for the handsome and durable hardcover?
