Speculative modernists-that is, British and American writers of science fiction, fantasy and horror during the late 19th and early 20th centuries-successfully grappled with the same forces that would drive their better-known literary counterparts to existential despair. Building on the ideas of the 19th-century Gothic and utopian movements, these speculative writers anticipated literary Modernism and blazed alternative literary trails in science, religion, ecology and sociology. Such authors as H.G. Wells and H.P. Lovecraft gained widespread recognition-budding from them, other speculative authors published fascinating tales of individuals trapped in dystopias, of anti-society attitudes, post-apocalyptic worlds and the rapidly expanding knowledge of the limitless universe. This book documents the Gothic and utopian roots of speculative fiction and explores how these authors played a crucial role in shaping the culture of the new century with their darker, more evolved themes.

The simplest method of transferring data through the inputs or outputs of a silicon chip is to directly connect each bit of the datapath from one chip to the next chip. Once upon a time this was an acceptable approach. However, one aspect (and perhaps the only aspect) of chip design which has not changed during the career of the authors is Moore's Law, which has dictated substantial increases in the number of circuits that can be manufactured on a chip. The pin densities of chip packaging technologies have not increased at the same pace as has silicon density, and this has led to a prevalence of High Speed Serdes (HSS) devices as an inherent part of almost any chip design. HSS devices are the dominant form of input/output for many (if not most) high-integration chips, moving serial data between chips at speeds up to 10 Gbps and beyond. Chip designers with a background in digital logic design tend to view HSS devices as simply complex digital input/output cells. This view ignores the complexity associated with serially moving billions of bits of data per second. At these data rates, the assumptions associated with digital signals break down and analog factors demand consideration. The chip designer who oversimplifies the problem does so at his or her own peril.

The simplest method of transferring data through the inputs or outputs of a silicon chip is to directly connect each bit of the datapath from one chip to the next chip. Once upon a time this was an acceptable approach. However, one aspect (and perhaps the only aspect) of chip design which has not changed during the career of the authors is Moore's Law, which has dictated substantial increases in the number of circuits that can be manufactured on a chip. The pin densities of chip packaging technologies have not increased at the same pace as has silicon density, and this has led to a prevalence of High Speed Serdes (HSS) devices as an inherent part of almost any chip design. HSS devices are the dominant form of input/output for many (if not most) high-integration chips, moving serial data between chips at speeds up to 10 Gbps and beyond. Chip designers with a background in digital logic design tend to view HSS devices as simply complex digital input/output cells. This view ignores the complexity associated with serially moving billions of bits of data per second. At these data rates, the assumptions associated with digital signals break down and analog factors demand consideration. The chip designer who oversimplifies the problem does so at his or her own peril.

Between the years of 1886 and 1939, the world saw the first automobiles, rapid urbanization, the decay of empires, vast economic inequality, the first airplanes and the terrifying secrets of the atom. It was a time of cataclysmic cultural and technological transformation in both the United States and the United Kingdom, and spawned the rise of the literary genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror. This work assembles gems of late nineteenth and early twentieth century genre literature, including stories by literary giants such as H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, A. Merritt and E. M. Forster, as well as smaller authors like Clare Winger Harris, Marie Corelli, William Hope Hodgson and others. An array of incisive nonfiction pieces on cultural and scientific advances of the time period provides context for the anthology's stories.