Today, the planet Venus is a literal hell of furnace-like temperatures and dense, poisonous atmosphere. But millions of years in its past, Venus teemed with life and with a civilization far advanced to our own. The Nemisis supercomputer controls government functions, with bioroid "executors" created to carry out the system's utopian edicts. But trouble brews even in paradise, as different executors vie for control of Nemesis, forcing the governing system to secretly create Duna Typhon, a super-bioroid "sleeper," raised among the human populace, ready to use her awesome powers should Nemesis be co-opted to turn paradise into paradise last. From the imagination of Ghost in the Shell creator Shirow Masamune comes his first published series, Black Magic, a sweeping science-fiction epic that introduces many of the themes and ideas that inform all of Shirow's work: the merging of man and machine, the limitless possibilities and potential misuses of technology, the blurring line between human and computer consiousness.

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