July 10, 2001 For more information: Frank Scatoni 619-807-1887 frank@ventureliterary.com "No Kill Date" Venture Literary sells North American rights for Gearheads to Simon & Schuster On July 10, 2001, Frank Scatoni and Greg Dinkin, representing veteran Newsweek correspondent Brad Stone, sold the North American rights to Gearheads: The Geeks, the History, and the Killer Machines Behind the New Sport of Robot Combat to Jeff Neuman at Simon & Schuster. Professional wrestling meets Star Wars. There’s really no other way to describe the mind-blowing phenomenon of robot combat that is sweeping the nation. From NASA control rooms to high-school gyms, from U.S. military bases to software barons’ basements, obsessive technophiles are toiling away their spare time—and then some—to build the next generation of robots that square off inside the ring in rampantly popular television shows like Battlebots and Robot Wars. In Gearheads, Brad Stone offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the bizarre world of robot building—from high school competitions like FIRST, created by inventor Dean Kamen (of mysterious "Ginger" fame), to robotic sumo in Japan and the popular gladiator-style Battlebots events televised today. He profiles the ingenious creators of the robots and explains the emergence of a sport that is following the path into pop culture taken by "sports" like NASCAR and professional wrestling. But Gearheads is not only about the history of robot combat, it’s also about the technology and the ingenuity that goes into building a machine that is capable of doing anything. Steven Levy, author of Hackers, already had this to say about Stone’s project: "The emergence of robot combat as a sport is a significant phenomenon, perhaps a signifier that we're letting our machines entertain us. It's also a hell of a lot of fun—and while the action involves wild devices slashing, pushing, and hammering at each other, there are fantastic stories of the human beings who have created them. Brad Stone not only chronicles the spectacle on the Battlebots floor, but knows the weird, compelling, and sometimes heartbreaking stories of those people." For more information on Venture Literary, visit: www.ventureliterary.com. For more information about Simon & Schuster, visit www.simonsays.com.