Great Sky River
Author: Gregory Benford
 
In the far distant future the universe has become a battleground between organic and inorganic lifeforms - and the machines are winning  . . .
MANTIS!
The family had never seen a manhunter like it. And when its machine-mind engulfed their captain, they knew Mantis was no simple killing-mech. A collector of human minds, a plunderer of living personalities, Mantis was a weaver of complex, murderous illusions. But why, Killeen wondered, did it indulge in such elaborate variations of slaughter when it could destroy the last remnants of mankind in a single blast?
His answer lay in the heart of Mantis, in the museum of living ghosts and defiled spirits which drove the machine . . .
 
VGSF REISSUE 1995
ISBN: 9780575058316