Levi Bryant's Onto-Cartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media is the second book in the Speculative Realism series at Edinburgh University Press. It is a remarkable effort by an author who has established himself as an irreplaceable figure in contemporary philosophy. Bryant's early work was strongly influenced by Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan, and the lessons learned from these figures still animate Bryant's thinking today. In an age when better and worse philosophy blogs proliferate, Bryant's widely read "Larval Subjects" blog remains the most formidable gathering-point for younger philosophers in the Continental tradition. Every post on the blog reflects Bryant's omnivorous reading, his willingness to let his position evolve in the face of new evidence, his boundless appetite for dialogue with readers, and even his colorful autobiography, rare among academic authors. One of the most exceptional (and amusing) features of Bryant's life history, as lucidly retold on his blog, is the fact that he wrote his PhD dissertation before his MA thesis – since his advisors at Loyola University in Chicago felt that the MA was too substantial a piece of work to be wasted on a non-terminal degree, and thus asked him to write a shorter work before resubmitting the initial thesis for his doctorate. Bryant's candor and his lively style have led to famous polemical disputes with detractors, but have also earned him thousands of admirers across the globe. He is also an active international lecturer, increasingly influential in fields well beyond the discipline of philosophy.

Bryant has published two books prior to this one. The first was his highly regarded book on Deleuze, Difference and Givenness: Deleuze's Transcendental Empiricism and the Ontology of Immanence (2008). Many readers regard this as the best available work on Deleuze's masterpiece Difference and Repetition, despite the crowd of worthy contenders for that honor.