{"product_id":"2026200013854-secondhand-the-soft-machine","title":"The Soft Machine","description":"\u003cp\u003eEdition: Revised first ed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eMarkings: Previous owner,Ex-library with usual markings\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA hallucinatory journey through fractured time, colonized bodies, and the machinery of control, The Soft Machine is William Burroughs' visceral assault on language itself, following a cast of morphine-addled, shape-shifting figures across a nightmarish landscape where past, present, and future collapse into one another. The novel, the first in Burroughs' Nova Trilogy, chronicles a war waged not with weapons but with words, images, and biological programming — a world where flesh is software and addiction is the ultimate instrument of subjugation.\n\nBurroughs constructs his narrative using his infamous cut-up technique, pioneered alongside artist Brion Gysin, slicing and reassembling text to mirror the disorientation of a mind under siege. The result is a work of radical, confrontational modernism that argues language is a virus — a parasitic control system imposed on human consciousness. Seminal, transgressive, and deeply unsettling, The Soft Machine remains a cornerstone of the Beat Generation's literary legacy, challenging every reader to question the very medium through which they receive the story — will you still trust the words on the page?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49160956117211,"sku":"2026200013854-SECONDHAND","price":30.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/35e321ab-146f-48c4-94c1-9aaa7ef6cfed.png?v=1787188498","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200013854-secondhand-the-soft-machine","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}