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The Cosmic Computer
H. Beam Piper
Book Overview:
Conn Maxwell returns from Terra to his poverty-stricken home planet of Poictesme, “The Junkyard Planet”, with news of the possible location of Merlin, a military super-computer rumored to have been abandoned there after the last war. The inhabitants hope to find Merlin, which they think will be their ticket to wealth and prosperity. But is Merlin real, or just an old rumor? And if they find it will it save them, or tear them apart?
Conn Maxwell returns from Terra to his poverty-stricken home planet of Poictesme, “The Junkyard Planet”, with news of the possible location of Merlin, a military super-computer rumored to have been abandoned there after the last war. The inhabitants hope to find Merlin, which they think will be their ticket to wealth and prosperity. But is Merlin real, or just an old rumor? And if they find it will it save them, or tear them apart?
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"I want to find Merlin as much as any of you," he said. "More. Merlin was the only thing I was trained for. We'll look there first."
Somebody asked where, approximately, this underground Force Command headquarters was.
"Why, it's in the Badlands, over between the Blaubergs and the east coast."
"Great Ghu! We'll need an army to go in there?" Tom Brangwyn said. "That's where all these outlaws have been coming from, Blackie Perales and all."
"Then we'll get an army together," Klem Zareff said happily. "Might make a little of that reward money that's been offered."
"We'll need more than that. Well need excavation equipment, and labor. Lots of labor," Conn said. "It's a couple of. . . Read More
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Community Reviews
Short and almost pointless. Not the best example of H. Beam Piper.
It was just barely okay.
The Cosmic Computer is basically a story about economic development. It features the same sorts of hardy capable men as Four Day Planet did. It also includes a hardy capable woman. It's set in the same fictional galaxy, as well.
The adventure isn't quite as rollicking as in Four Day Planet. But no...more
3.5 stars. A solid sci-fi yarn about a backwater planet with access to huge stores of salvageable war surplus teetering on the edge of economic collapse and their search for a long forgotten super computer that they hope can help turn their fate around. Fairly well written, the elements of the st...more
Set on a world struggling to lift themselves out of economic collapse, it tells the story of the enterprising Conn Maxwell, who returns from a university stint on Earth and tells his compatriots that a long-rumoured super-computer known as MERLIN does, in fact, exist, and is buried along with muc...more
The book takes place in a "universe" that is a forerunner to the "Firefly" universe. There was a big war of unification/consolidation, and after the war the backwater planets are poor while the core planets remain wealthy. The residents of one of the backwater planets intend to better their situa...more
The Cosmic Computer is set in a post inter-galactic war society. The economy of the planet the story centers around is in the midst of a depression, and things are only getting worse. During and after the war rumors circulated about a super computer that could solve the problems of mankind, and r...more
You know that asshole friend of a friend who is always going around telling people to read The Fountainhead or, heaven forbid, Atlas Shrugged as a way to really get excited about capitalism? And it always turns out that the only things those books do is to produce another asshole who blames his...more
1979 grade unknown
2018 grade B
This full novel is a fast easy read but not 100% engrossing. This is partly because there is quite a bit of technobabble in the second half and the conclusion is a small let down. But it is also because the story is complex and covers a lot of ground causing some tro...more