The Revolt of the Machines, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford, features eight stories written between 1865 and 1918, providing a cross-section of the early development of what the editor of the 19th century magazine La Science Ilustrée, Louis Figuier, called roman scientifique [scientific fiction].

Expanding upon the scientific speculations of the day, the stories in this volume often adopt philosophical or moral tones when conceptualizing the consequences of the discovery of anti-gravity, the breakthrough finding that life is possible after death, the mass suicide of technology, a cautionary tale of the dangers of telepathy, humans being dominated by a sub-species, a man who gets lost in history, and the exploration of Earth's newest moon, the wandering planetoid Anthea. In every case, these scientific romances use scientific conjecture to tackle the eternal theme of what it means to be human.