This month, we’re publishing THE CURVE OF THE EARTH (UK|US|ANZ) by Philip K. Dick award-winning author Simon Morden. It stars one of the best and baddest cybernetically-modified Russians around.

If you’ve not met him yet, super-genius Samuil Petrovitch sits on that fine line between man and machine. He is essentially still human, but having been rather blown to sh*t by an endless succession of people trying to kill him, he’s had more or less every body part replaced with robo-limbs. Not to mention his brain is awesome because he has an artificially intelligent, all-knowing computer uploaded into it. Pretty cool.

Being both a hero to the Freezone and public enemy number one to Reconstruction America, it’s sometimes hard to tell whether we should trust cyborgs to be our überstrong protectors, or melt their parts down for scrap metal before they destroy the human race. We took a look at some well-known cyborgs to find out.

Samuil Petrovitch: Angry; Russian; prone to swearing; has saved the world at least twice and is Reconstruction America’s enemy of the state. He has instant access to the Freezone information network that spans the globe, and can fly pretty much any highly complex aircraft the US military can create.

Plus, when his adopted daughter goes missing (yes, adopted, that’s how much of a good guy he is), he puts his own life in the firing line to save her. As long as you don’t mind sentences punctuated by expletives, we think Petrovitch is one of the good ones.
Verdict: Hero

Robocop: Soon to be re-made starring Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson, there is nothing not good about a partially-wounded cop being kitted out with full body armour to fight crime.
Verdict: Hero (more…)