The Cosmic Computer

Me gusta. The characters are strong and individual, the story is fascinating, and the lengths they have to go to to get things working are amazing. Conn's dilemma is really nasty - he can tell the truth and basically kill the men he respects, or he can lie to everyone. The lies are actually worth it - and then they turn out not to be lies! Very rich. I also read the short story that was the seed for this - Graveyard of Dreams in Federation - and even given the larger space to tell the story, Cosmic Computer is better. Not a hope for the future - or not only - but something built right now.
Oddly enough, Jerry Pournelle in the foreword of Federation talks about how there's a gap between this and Space Viking, and no one knows what show more happened in there. The last couple chapters tell that story pretty clearly to my eye - there's never a suggestion that they could escape the collapse, just that they could make it less than terrible. Though I suppose the fact that there's no mention of Poictesme in Space Viking is a little odd - if they went down gently they should have been able to come back reasonably easily. I don't know. As usual, Piper tells a great story with broad implications, and the more you think about it the more there is to think about. Piper is wonderful.
And BTW, there are two lines of the poem in the book - there's considerably more of it in the short story. show less

The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper is a solid, mostly planet-bound, space opera. A colony struggles to recover from the ancient System States war. They scavenge old military hardware and dream of finding a supercomputer called Merlin. Piper often raided human history for space opera themes. In this case, the colonists suffer from what looks like a cargo cult. Give it 3.5 old mainframes.

Great space opera. A further study of the H. Beam Piper universe with the planet Poictesme full of left over military after the aftermath of the System States war (think the US Civil War in Space). There is a myth of a hidden super computer that has been left on the planet (i.e.e the title) and the book revolves around the race to find it. Great detail, somewhat dated, with the use of slide rules and other anachronism, but still a great read.

Substance: A reasonably good example of 1960s science fiction, with somewhat more depth in political awareness and psychological shrewdness. Still in the Heinlein-libertarian mode, with vastly over-simplified perceptions of the technical difficulties in building space vehicles. A decent "mystery" concerning the whereabouts of the "missing" computer. It is interesting to contrast the scientific and sociological extrapolations with what actually occurred in the intervening centuries (none of the classic sf writers foresaw the obliteration of public smoking, for instance, or the extent of the use of personal computers, although many predicted "computerized" societies).
Mark Twain also explored the basic conundrum of whether a compassionate show more lie trumped bald truth, but Piper extends the question: what if our current perception of the truth isn't true?

Style: Narrative style suits the subject, light humor and reasonable fidelity to physics. One notch above the basic cardboard / stereotype characters, in the tv / movie range. I enjoyed some of the wry comments of the protagonist's father. show less

A surprisingly perceptive story about the economic, social, and personal consequences of a search for a supercomputer that can predict the future. Just the belief in the computer has huge effects.

Yes, a few bits haven't aged well in the years since 1963, but even the Poictesme melon brandy might be losing its edge after fifty years. But I do wish he'd chosen something else for the "Seshan" accent that the serving robot has. That was way too close to Black English. Yuk.

I read this in the Standard Ebooks edition, which was very nicely produced.

Short and worth a read, if you are into that era of SF.

An enjoyable read. The end borrows a bit from Asimov, but I did enjoy this book. Pretty typical in style of the SF of its time. Essentially no important female characters, etc. After reading a bit about Piper I see where he very much injected his own political leanings into the novel, which I suppose is also common.

Typical H. Beam Piper. This book has a similar feel to other Piper books in that our hero is a young idealistic man on a different world.

This book did not age well as it feels a little too 1950s. As with many early SF writers Piper made some guesses about the future which appear naive in retrospect. Normally I forgive these because he was writing for his day and who among us would have guessed better. There are a couple of places where he just went stupid. Even he should have foreseen that you can't use nukes in a war to seize territory.

He does show some clever inventiveness in his universe and took advantage of people always being people. There are a few good plot twist to keep it entertaining and the reader guessing about the show more ending.

Over all it's decent SF from the 50s-60s period. It's science based space opera that works but is not special. show less