Found in the book exchange box at Basingstoke train station. From the price label on the back it looks like it made its way over here from Japan. The book was published in 1997, so the technologies discussed are out of date, but is still an interesting read and much of it is still relevant today.

Blurb:
"A bot is a software version of a mechanical robot ... Bots entertain, annoy, work, and play." Thus writes the author of this fascinating taxonomy of cyberspace's first indigenous species, related by circumstance, by example, and by habitat. In this book Leonard recounts the saga of these software robots in all its quirkiness: from the trials and tribulations of artificial intelligence to the hilarious lifestyle of the first bots and the havoc they set in motion.

Bots also constructs a playful history of the Internet, tracking it from the free-form ASCII-text playground of clipheads, researchers, and scientists to the sprawling, advertising-laden cultural entity it has become. Accessibly written with great foresight, Bots not only makes understandable a highly confusing phenomenon, it also explores and expertly analyzes the psychology and anthropology of popular technology.

Planning to leave in the ECS building if I can get in, as I've heard there is a book sharing shelf in there somewhere. If not, then somewhere else on the Highfield campus.

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