Notes
First published by Gollancz in 1973.

Publisher’s Blurb – Page One
"The Spthra make the following offer for what we want to buy. We will tell you the location of the closest unused world known to us, habitable by you. The location of the nearest intelligent species known to us ready to engage in interstellar communication. Finally, offer you an improvement on your current technology for spaceflight within your solar system-"

"In return for which you want more tapes and grammar books on microfilm?"

"No. That has been your mistake all along. We need working brains competent in six linguistically diverse languages."

"You mean human volunteers, to go back home to your planet with you?”

"No," Ph’theri retorted sharply. "That isn’t reasonable."

"Then what do you mean if not live human beings!"

"What we say-language-programmed brains. In working order. Machine-maintained. Separated from the body."

Publisher’s Blurb – Lower Cover
"It gave one the sense of being led very near to the brink of profundity, even revelation"
- Martin Amis

"Intellectually, The Embedding is tint most spectacular thing in science fiction since the astounding Solaris by Stanislaw Lem"
- The Spectator

"Fast, invigorating . . . anthropology, linguistics, despoliation of the environment, consciousness-raising drugs, space travel, alien contact, Latin-American liberation movements, the CIA, you name it Watson writes with energy and panache . . . an all-too-real world of the near future."
- Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels

"Brilliantly attempts to communicate a precarious truth about what we think is actuality. The effect is quite hallucinating"
- The Times

"A strange and patchily brilliant book . . . a grimly ironic climax"
- Sunday Times

"One of the most thought-provoking shudders of the year"
- The Times

"Ambitious and compelling."
- Daily Telegraph