jdd@allegra.UUCP (10/13/83)
As I read Stephen Perelgut's announcement of van Vogt's upcoming
"Computerworld", I was reminded of an earlier book by the same name but by
some truly wretched author, which may qualify as some of the worst SF (or
Sci-Fi) ever written (but probably not; I'm sure there's been much worse).
The plot includes a new town where everything is controlled by a giant
computer: streetlights, washing machines, you name it. A visitor gets shown
around, remarks that it certainly seems like a nice computer, gets told it's
quite smart too; it gets fed news from the New York Times every morning.
The visitor asks how the machine can read English; they explain that it
doesn't need to because there are technicians who translate the New York
Times into Fortran.
Eventually the visitor wonders that the computer is a bit too smart, because
it's murdering people by overflowing their washing machines in order to
electrocute them. The technicians consider shutting down the computer but
decide not to, because the deaths could all be coincidences. Some more
"plot" ensues, and our hero discovers that the computer is not evil after
all, but is merely being controlled by a bad guy high up in the project who
had some secret motive. The bad guy gets exposed and everyone lives happily
ever after.
Good one.
Cheers,
John ("Read Any Good Sci-Fi Lately?") DeTreville
Bell Labs, Murray Hill