The Kingdom of Hell is Inside You

(Cover and Release Date Coming Soon)

Don’t forgive me if I hate you: there aren’t

enough slices on the cake of clemency

when the world comes to tea.

            Appearing for the first time in this collection, “The Solar Powered Man Goes to Bed” exposes the horror beneath the skin, even beyond the bone and gristle. “Running the Mind (Emulation)” explores the hatred a biomedical engineer feels towards his clients as he maps their brain into cyberspace. “A Singular Death” depicts lightspeed used for self-annihilation rather than travel and “I Carried a Brain Under My Arm,” the struggle for existence in a simulated universe. “The Kingdom of Hell is Inside You,” which lends its name to this collection, shaves closest to the present day. In the midst of a dystopian housing crisis, where privacy is expensive, its narrator offers an insidious alternative… 

Eyes recalibrated, receptors drunk, polyglot as single interpreter,

nobody leaves and the sky falls lovingly.

“James Machell’s first poetry collection explores transhumanist concerns with a light, precise touch and a genuine feel for language. This is free verse with a formal elegance, displaying the universe in a grain of sand and hell in an algorithm.”

Kyla Ward, Aurealis Award Winner

“Essential reading for any cyberpunk fan.”

Casey Aimer, Radon Journal Editor-in-Chief