A collection of poetry sprinkled with striking illustrations, Dawn of the Algorithm offers a technologically slanted and playfully prophetic spin on traditional verse.

Dawn of the Algorithm, Yann Rousselot’s debut collection of poetry, is a bestiary of octosharks and dinosaurs, zombies and pathogens, mecha robots and common mortals.

These monsters were raised on a diet of TV tropes, movie clichés, book snippets, and video game storylines. Some have beating hearts, others interlocking mechanical parts. They are forces of human nature, genetically engineered with a single purpose: to herald the apocalypse.

Building on user-friendly motif and imagery, Rousselot draws acute, playful but painful conclusions about twenty-first century Earth. He paints a darkly comical portrait of humankind, a species plagued by heartbreak and alienation, yet driven by hope and, at the very core, a burning desire to connect.

Illustration credits: Brian James Murphy, Osman Gani, Jihan Kikhia, Emma Strangwayes-Booth, Laura Stevens (photography), Sabine Dundure (photography), Lucile Taillade, Keith McDougall, Juliana Galbraith, Christiana Spens, Samantha Wong, Alex Manthei, Delphine Duprat, Mathieu Sourisse, Jordan Glass, Jérémie Paret, Aaron Lopez-Barrantes, Fan Aha, Eugenia Loli, Yann Rousselot.