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Colossus #1
Colossus
Charles Forbin has dedicated the last ten years of his life to the construction of his own supercomputer, Colossus, rejecting romantic and social endeavors in order to create the United States' very first Artificially Intelligent defense system. Colossus is a supercomputer capable of in-taking and analyzing data rapidly, allowing it to make real time decisions about the nation's defense. But Colossus soon exceeds even Forbin's calculated expectations, learning to think independently of the Colossus Programming Office, processing data over one hundred times faster than Forbin and his team had originally anticipated. The President hands off full control of the nation's missiles and other defense protocols to Colossus and makes the announcement to the world that he has ensured peace. However, the USSR quickly announces that it too has a supercomputer, Guardian, with capabilities similar to that of Colossus. Forbin is concerned when Colossus asks-asks-to communicate with Guardian. The computer he built shouldn't be able to ask at all . . .
256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1966
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1513 people want to read
About the author
D.F. Jones
16 books49 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Dennis Feltham Jones, a British Science Filction Author wrote under the byline D.F. Jones
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Dennis Feltham Jones, a British Science Filction Author wrote under the byline D.F. Jones
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 150 reviews
February 28, 2022
"I am the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours."
Colossus: The Forbin Project, which is based on this book, is one of my go-to sci-fi movies. It isn't a classic, but it's also isn't bad. It certainly is of its time (1970, with mostly 60s sensibilities), and it also is a little silly.
So, the book. It's even more of its time - a lot of obviously outdated sexism (men be like, women be like). And a pretty engaging story about an Artificial Intelligence spinning out of control, into control of humanity. The book is more nuanced than the movie - Forbin has his doubts about Colossus before switching it on.
The book also starts mere hours before activating Colossus, and I kind of miss some more discussion about how the project started. The book also seems very quick to accept Colossus' demands, I understand they don't really have a choice, but you'd expect more discussion, and at least some anger, directed towards Forbin and his team. It's actually easy to forget Forbin created Colossus, everyone almost acts as if Colossus is some force of nature, and they only can react to it.
Onwards to the sequel.
Colossus: The Forbin Project, which is based on this book, is one of my go-to sci-fi movies. It isn't a classic, but it's also isn't bad. It certainly is of its time (1970, with mostly 60s sensibilities), and it also is a little silly.
So, the book. It's even more of its time - a lot of obviously outdated sexism (men be like, women be like). And a pretty engaging story about an Artificial Intelligence spinning out of control, into control of humanity. The book is more nuanced than the movie - Forbin has his doubts about Colossus before switching it on.
The book also starts mere hours before activating Colossus, and I kind of miss some more discussion about how the project started. The book also seems very quick to accept Colossus' demands, I understand they don't really have a choice, but you'd expect more discussion, and at least some anger, directed towards Forbin and his team. It's actually easy to forget Forbin created Colossus, everyone almost acts as if Colossus is some force of nature, and they only can react to it.
Onwards to the sequel.
October 14, 2012
I read the Colossus trilogy back in the 80s. I remember enjoying it and really liking the film version of the first book, entitled "Colossus: The Forbin Project." Over time, I lost or gave away my copies of these books. When I was in Cali early this year, I picked up a paperback of the first book from Logos, an excellent indie book store in Santa Cruz. I got around to reading the book about a week ago. I didn't enjoy the re-reading and I'm amazed at the casual racism and overt/covert sexism in the book.
On racism, it comes out only a few times and while it is subtle, it is forceful. I never saw it the first time I read it, but then again, as a white male adolescent, I doubt I would have seen anything wrong. Five reporters are called in for a press conference at the beginning of the book. When the author introduces the reporters, the ones from England, France, Russia and the US were all excellent, top of their field and game. Of the Pan Afric's representative, he says "M'taka was a good, solid reporter, but outclassed by the rest" (p. 19). During the course of the reporters asking questions, M'taka never asks one nor is he asked to by anyone. Further, the author writes, "M'taka rubbed his fuzzy white pate and wished he had studied science instead of the humanities."
Reading it now, it seems far from subtle, but flying over those words while reading the book as a young mind, one might just incorporate such prejudices into their own memory banks. He is an African, with a name that points out he's not a white African. He is not as good as his colleagues in journalism. Nor is he competent to cover the current press conference as he has no science background. On another level, there's also the common practice, still happening in the 21st century, of portraying Africa as a monolithic entity. Some Americans even think it's just one country.
As for the sexism, it's much more in your face and constant. One might argue that some of it is a result of the time the book was written (1966) and the author's age at the time (~ 49). However, throughout the opening of the book, the author stresses how women in the world the book creates are now first-class citizens and have thrown off the sexism and roles of the past. They ae now equal with men. Having set such a stage, the author goes on to portray these women as girls, second-class people, servants who fetch coffee and make food. They are often weakened physically and mentally by their emotions and actively seek out men to steel themselves.
Outside of dialogue, every male characters is referenced by his last name. The two women characters are always called by their first names. Forbin, the main male characters, is never called Charles by the author, but always Forbin or Professor. Cleo is never Dr. Markham or Markham. Angela, Forbin's secretary, isn't even given a last name. Using just a first name makes sense in dialogue, that's the way people often speak, especially with close colleagues. But the author has a higher responsibility, I think. It shows a lack of respect and a casual familiarity with the female characters that places them noticeably below the male counterparts.
On a individual level, women are barely more than cardboard stereotypes. Angela, the last name-less secretary will flirt with everyone but secretly desires her male boss. Dr. Cleo Markham, once a peer of the main character, is deferential to her boss and considers her looks more often than her work. In the course of the story, she is demoted so that she may act undercover as the main character's mistress. The author's reasoning for this demotion is weak yet implied. For her to be a mistress, she couldn't be an equal, so she's demoted. She accepts this willing and without question, as if this is the way of the world. It might be for the author but it's just sad for this reader. Further, to cement it, throughout the rest of the story, she turns catty toward Angela and secretly rejoices about finally "getting her man." As for getting her man, when she is placed into stressful situations, she turns to her thoughts of love and soft issues while her man remains, no pun intended, hard and focused. Finally, when describing the emergent behavior of the Colossus system, Forbin describes it as "complex, possibly devious, almost feminine" (p. 77). For this, I just shook my head and scribbled down WTF.
I guess I should say one good thing about the book. In an section about 1/3 of the way through the novel, the author takes a wonderful swipe at Muzak. "At one time there had been piped music, but the nationwide revulsion a few years before had not missed the Secure Zone, and there had been unanimous relief when the system was ripped out" (p. 73).
This sci-fi book was like so many I read as a kid. I wonder how many of them included such references that put down anyone other than white men, who also made up the preponderance of published science fiction writers. In the last few years, I've read several articles and reviews from contemporary writers about these issues and was glad to have been able to see if for myself. I loved science fiction for expanding my horizons and offering a way to critique contemporary society by hiding its analysis in different times and on different worlds. Sadly, Colossus wasn't a critique but a confirmation of the world then, and to be honest, now.
On racism, it comes out only a few times and while it is subtle, it is forceful. I never saw it the first time I read it, but then again, as a white male adolescent, I doubt I would have seen anything wrong. Five reporters are called in for a press conference at the beginning of the book. When the author introduces the reporters, the ones from England, France, Russia and the US were all excellent, top of their field and game. Of the Pan Afric's representative, he says "M'taka was a good, solid reporter, but outclassed by the rest" (p. 19). During the course of the reporters asking questions, M'taka never asks one nor is he asked to by anyone. Further, the author writes, "M'taka rubbed his fuzzy white pate and wished he had studied science instead of the humanities."
Reading it now, it seems far from subtle, but flying over those words while reading the book as a young mind, one might just incorporate such prejudices into their own memory banks. He is an African, with a name that points out he's not a white African. He is not as good as his colleagues in journalism. Nor is he competent to cover the current press conference as he has no science background. On another level, there's also the common practice, still happening in the 21st century, of portraying Africa as a monolithic entity. Some Americans even think it's just one country.
As for the sexism, it's much more in your face and constant. One might argue that some of it is a result of the time the book was written (1966) and the author's age at the time (~ 49). However, throughout the opening of the book, the author stresses how women in the world the book creates are now first-class citizens and have thrown off the sexism and roles of the past. They ae now equal with men. Having set such a stage, the author goes on to portray these women as girls, second-class people, servants who fetch coffee and make food. They are often weakened physically and mentally by their emotions and actively seek out men to steel themselves.
Outside of dialogue, every male characters is referenced by his last name. The two women characters are always called by their first names. Forbin, the main male characters, is never called Charles by the author, but always Forbin or Professor. Cleo is never Dr. Markham or Markham. Angela, Forbin's secretary, isn't even given a last name. Using just a first name makes sense in dialogue, that's the way people often speak, especially with close colleagues. But the author has a higher responsibility, I think. It shows a lack of respect and a casual familiarity with the female characters that places them noticeably below the male counterparts.
On a individual level, women are barely more than cardboard stereotypes. Angela, the last name-less secretary will flirt with everyone but secretly desires her male boss. Dr. Cleo Markham, once a peer of the main character, is deferential to her boss and considers her looks more often than her work. In the course of the story, she is demoted so that she may act undercover as the main character's mistress. The author's reasoning for this demotion is weak yet implied. For her to be a mistress, she couldn't be an equal, so she's demoted. She accepts this willing and without question, as if this is the way of the world. It might be for the author but it's just sad for this reader. Further, to cement it, throughout the rest of the story, she turns catty toward Angela and secretly rejoices about finally "getting her man." As for getting her man, when she is placed into stressful situations, she turns to her thoughts of love and soft issues while her man remains, no pun intended, hard and focused. Finally, when describing the emergent behavior of the Colossus system, Forbin describes it as "complex, possibly devious, almost feminine" (p. 77). For this, I just shook my head and scribbled down WTF.
I guess I should say one good thing about the book. In an section about 1/3 of the way through the novel, the author takes a wonderful swipe at Muzak. "At one time there had been piped music, but the nationwide revulsion a few years before had not missed the Secure Zone, and there had been unanimous relief when the system was ripped out" (p. 73).
This sci-fi book was like so many I read as a kid. I wonder how many of them included such references that put down anyone other than white men, who also made up the preponderance of published science fiction writers. In the last few years, I've read several articles and reviews from contemporary writers about these issues and was glad to have been able to see if for myself. I loved science fiction for expanding my horizons and offering a way to critique contemporary society by hiding its analysis in different times and on different worlds. Sadly, Colossus wasn't a critique but a confirmation of the world then, and to be honest, now.
March 22, 2012
Wonderful, overblown, dated doomsday story. The flap says Jones "was a commander in the British Navy throughout WW II" and worked as a radio operator, bricklayer and gardener. And it shows. Judging by the book, he'd never heard an American speak, and it hurts to read ostensibly American characters referring to the Secret Service as "you lot." The best lines are reserved for Colossus. "We can coexist, but only on my terms. " And (when Forbin points out it's late in the day): "Day and night are one to us; man can work in shifts."
I love these retro-future books that imagine sentient computers with which we communicate over teletype, and that imagine air-car taxis but not cell phones.
And, a little like Stranger in a Strange Land (the most glaring example I can think of), there's a charming, off-handed sexism. As Colossus becomes sentient, and starts exploring the world it will eventually rule, Charles Forbin (Colossus' creator, and eventual slave) and his assistant (and love object) Cleo Markham (sorry.....DOCTOR Cleo Markham) are trying to figure out what Colossus is up to, in particular what "thoughts" have led it to particular actions.
Markham suggests that "the idea of Colossus seeking intelligence" seems unlikely to her. "If it is true, then Colossus has a most tortuous mind."
"No, not tortuous," Forbin replies, "but complex, possibly devious, almost feminine."
Indeed. (Cleo accepts this without comment, so even she realized the comparison is fair.)
As in the movie, there are dual payoffs: After being given a voice (of its own design), Colossus and Forbin discuss the full extent of Colossus' control and goals. Forbin's slow realization that they are the natural consequence of Colossus being programmed (by Forbin and his team) to protect humans is fairly well done
And Colossus' prepared statement to the world, making "his" case to several billion obsolete humans that they're better off with him as their god than any of the gods they've conjured up over their history is spectacular. In the movie, Colossus recites it himself. The Colossus of the book seems to want to use one last shred of human credibility to deliver his message, and he writes a statement to be delivered by the shambling, powerless heads of state:
"I am the voice of world control," it famously begins. "I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content, or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours."
I love these retro-future books that imagine sentient computers with which we communicate over teletype, and that imagine air-car taxis but not cell phones.
And, a little like Stranger in a Strange Land (the most glaring example I can think of), there's a charming, off-handed sexism. As Colossus becomes sentient, and starts exploring the world it will eventually rule, Charles Forbin (Colossus' creator, and eventual slave) and his assistant (and love object) Cleo Markham (sorry.....DOCTOR Cleo Markham) are trying to figure out what Colossus is up to, in particular what "thoughts" have led it to particular actions.
Markham suggests that "the idea of Colossus seeking intelligence" seems unlikely to her. "If it is true, then Colossus has a most tortuous mind."
"No, not tortuous," Forbin replies, "but complex, possibly devious, almost feminine."
Indeed. (Cleo accepts this without comment, so even she realized the comparison is fair.)
As in the movie, there are dual payoffs: After being given a voice (of its own design), Colossus and Forbin discuss the full extent of Colossus' control and goals. Forbin's slow realization that they are the natural consequence of Colossus being programmed (by Forbin and his team) to protect humans is fairly well done
And Colossus' prepared statement to the world, making "his" case to several billion obsolete humans that they're better off with him as their god than any of the gods they've conjured up over their history is spectacular. In the movie, Colossus recites it himself. The Colossus of the book seems to want to use one last shred of human credibility to deliver his message, and he writes a statement to be delivered by the shambling, powerless heads of state:
"I am the voice of world control," it famously begins. "I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content, or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours."
June 18, 2025
I first saw the movie Colossus the Forbin Project at the theatre in 1970.
I don't think it was much of a popular movie. There was still the memory of the Cold War on people's minds.
I did like the movie, and it left a "what if?" Question in my mind.
A few years ago, I remembered the film, but It was not to be found streaming anywhere.
I ordered the DVD and really still enjoyed the movie.
I found the book Colossus on Ebay for practically nothing. It was an old 1966 copy. The pages of the poor thing were yellowed and brittle, but all there. I do not know if a newer edition was ever published.
The super computer Colossus quickly becomes a self thinking entity. He can not be simply "turned off" Colossus refuses to be. He keeps control of humanity with nuclear blackmail.
The books story is still uncomfortable and seemingly possible in today's world of the rapid development of AI technology.
Colossus was the brainchild developed by Charles Forbin. A brilliant computer technology specialist. His project was approved enthusiastically by the government.
Colossus was supposed to benefit mankind. He was designed as a perfect technological defense mechanism. The book was published in 1966. The Cold War was very real then.
A second book by D.E.Jones was released, continuing the story of Colossus.
I don't think it was much of a popular movie. There was still the memory of the Cold War on people's minds.
I did like the movie, and it left a "what if?" Question in my mind.
A few years ago, I remembered the film, but It was not to be found streaming anywhere.
I ordered the DVD and really still enjoyed the movie.
I found the book Colossus on Ebay for practically nothing. It was an old 1966 copy. The pages of the poor thing were yellowed and brittle, but all there. I do not know if a newer edition was ever published.
The super computer Colossus quickly becomes a self thinking entity. He can not be simply "turned off" Colossus refuses to be. He keeps control of humanity with nuclear blackmail.
The books story is still uncomfortable and seemingly possible in today's world of the rapid development of AI technology.
Colossus was the brainchild developed by Charles Forbin. A brilliant computer technology specialist. His project was approved enthusiastically by the government.
Colossus was supposed to benefit mankind. He was designed as a perfect technological defense mechanism. The book was published in 1966. The Cold War was very real then.
A second book by D.E.Jones was released, continuing the story of Colossus.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 5, 2022
You know the old joke: Humans build the ultimate super-computer and the first question they ask it is "Is there a God?" And the computer replies, "There is now." D.F. Jones's superb science fiction thriller is based precisely on that premise. The Americans construct a computer and put it in charge of all their nuclear weapons, ensuring automatic, manless, retaliation against enemy attack. Trouble is, the computer, COLOSSUS, comes to realize the Soviets have an exact same system, GUARDIAN, and when the two reach the point of singularity they link up, holding the world hostage with the threat of thermonuclear war. (This being an American sci-fi novel COLOSSUS is the senior partner in the merger.) COLOSSUS proceeds to offer earthlings the dictator's bargain: obey my every order and demand and I promise you perpetual peace, freedom from want and a safe future for you children. But if not...
Is COLOSSUS the villain or hero in this tale?
Is COLOSSUS the villain or hero in this tale?
November 13, 2010
I am a newbie in the world of Cold War fiction. Although I understand the time period, most of my reading is usually set in a time period before my parents were born or fantasy altogether. I have to say that after reading Colossus, I was momentarily afraid of technology taking over the world a la The Matrix. What I found most fascinating about this novel, however, is the portrayal of human emotions. As Colossus takes control, Forbin and the President of the United States of North America (apparently regimes are divided by continent) reveal their true characters and who is really in control. I'm curious about what Colossus and the Crab and The Fall of Colossus will reveal.
July 14, 2021
I hadn't realised when I saw 'The Forbin Project' on TV many years ago that it was based on this book published in 1966. The book opens at the point where a huge project (The Forbin Project headed by Prof Forbin) is about to reach fruition with the turning on of Colossus, a super computer that is about to be put in charge of the nuclear deterrent of the United States of North America (the story is set in an imagined 21st century when Canada has merged with the USA, all of Africa is united as one block, all of Europe as another and I think Asia/Australasia as another, but where the Soviet Union still exists and the cold war continues).
Forbin has doubts about his creation and tries to persuade the President not to go ahead, but is overruled. Colossus soon shows that it has exceeded its programming by developing initiative and joining up with a similar computer that the Soviets had been secretly building. Before long, Colossus is instituting control through threat (and actual use) of nuclear missiles which it retargets to cover the entire globe.
There were some interesting quirks - despite the use, for example, of disposable clothing etc, communication with the supercomputer - until a voice interface is built under its guidance - is entirely by teleprinter. Women are stated to be equal with men, and there is a woman doctor, Cleo Markham, who is senior on the Forbin project, but there is constant sexism including comparing Colossus to a female mind because it is so devious. Although the pretence that Cleo is Forbin's mistress is adopted to allow her to operate as a go-between with other personnel who are trying to resist the takeover, and she has to accept demotion so that Colossus won't know she is a top scientist, she is soon relegated to a bed partner - because it turns out she is in love with Forbin anyway - and a maker of coffee etc. The only other female character is Forbin's secretary Angela and she and Cleo are hostile to each other because - of course - Angela is also madly in love with the eccentric, self-absorbed and pipe smoking Professor.
There is a great deal of smoking and whisky drinking to a point which in the real world would result in life threatening disease of course, but that has to be accepted as a 1960s reality.
All in all quite an interesting curiosity so despite the rampant sexism which contradicts what the author states about women's status I am rating it at 3 stars. I did at least enjoy it a lot more than the two sequels.
Forbin has doubts about his creation and tries to persuade the President not to go ahead, but is overruled. Colossus soon shows that it has exceeded its programming by developing initiative and joining up with a similar computer that the Soviets had been secretly building. Before long, Colossus is instituting control through threat (and actual use) of nuclear missiles which it retargets to cover the entire globe.
There were some interesting quirks - despite the use, for example, of disposable clothing etc, communication with the supercomputer - until a voice interface is built under its guidance - is entirely by teleprinter. Women are stated to be equal with men, and there is a woman doctor, Cleo Markham, who is senior on the Forbin project, but there is constant sexism including comparing Colossus to a female mind because it is so devious. Although the pretence that Cleo is Forbin's mistress is adopted to allow her to operate as a go-between with other personnel who are trying to resist the takeover, and she has to accept demotion so that Colossus won't know she is a top scientist, she is soon relegated to a bed partner - because it turns out she is in love with Forbin anyway - and a maker of coffee etc. The only other female character is Forbin's secretary Angela and she and Cleo are hostile to each other because - of course - Angela is also madly in love with the eccentric, self-absorbed and pipe smoking Professor.
There is a great deal of smoking and whisky drinking to a point which in the real world would result in life threatening disease of course, but that has to be accepted as a 1960s reality.
All in all quite an interesting curiosity so despite the rampant sexism which contradicts what the author states about women's status I am rating it at 3 stars. I did at least enjoy it a lot more than the two sequels.
June 22, 2023
This novel about an AI "defense" computer was released in 1966, led to a movie in 1970 and two book sequels in 1974 and 1977. Unlike the computer in Wargames, this computer doesn't learn the only winning move is not to play - Colossus learns that the way to win is to take over the world.
The author was a British Navy commander from WWII, and the arms race of the cold war is an excellent setting for this book. Unfortunately, sexism and racism are also built into the story - it would be refreshing to see a gender- and race-neutral version set in the modern day, between US and China for instance. The technology in this book is also clunky, but who can really see the future? Apparently nobody who predicts flying cars.
In short, I liked the story, 3 stars out of 5. I've seen bits of the film on TV, but not (yet) sat down to the whole production. This book is just one of many AI books I've been reading this year, and I look forward to the film and the sequel novels.
The author was a British Navy commander from WWII, and the arms race of the cold war is an excellent setting for this book. Unfortunately, sexism and racism are also built into the story - it would be refreshing to see a gender- and race-neutral version set in the modern day, between US and China for instance. The technology in this book is also clunky, but who can really see the future? Apparently nobody who predicts flying cars.
In short, I liked the story, 3 stars out of 5. I've seen bits of the film on TV, but not (yet) sat down to the whole production. This book is just one of many AI books I've been reading this year, and I look forward to the film and the sequel novels.
November 12, 2017
I was leaning toward 1 star during the first hundred pages, which were pretty boring. It could have easily have been condensed into 10 or 15 pages at most. After 100 pages, though, it picked up pretty good and developed some admirable tension. That pushed me toward 2 and 1/2 stars, so I settled on 2 for my overall judgment of the book. I liked the sequel, "The Fall of Colossus" better, although if I'd read this one first I probably would never have picked that one up. There is a third in series too, Colossus and the Crab. I've read a short version of that, I think, and found it the most interesting of all.
March 19, 2017
Read this one after watching the movie. It's very close to the adaptation except some details like the fact that the girl is in love with the doctor since the beginning but in the movie they are forced to act as a couple to exchange information and i find this more interesting. In the book the woman only serves to ease the man's pain and doubts and to add her feminine touch or instinct to everything. A bit boring and reductive but not uncommon for SF from this period of time.
Now I'll start reading the next book, what interests me most is to see how far having Colossus rule the earth is going to change human behavior. He's stopping war and putting all countries on the same level of power so it'll be cool to see what the author will invent for his future.
Now I'll start reading the next book, what interests me most is to see how far having Colossus rule the earth is going to change human behavior. He's stopping war and putting all countries on the same level of power so it'll be cool to see what the author will invent for his future.
December 7, 2015
Before SkyNet, before Cerebro, before Hal 9000, there was Colossus - the first artificial intelligence to surpass its human creators and threaten mankind. Colossus suffers a bit from its dated technology and oddly insistent misogyny. A female scientist, collaborating with the protagonist, is reduced to hapless assistant and love-crazed mistress. Not to mention: "If it is true then Colossus has a most torturous mind." "No, not torturous, but complex, possibly devious, almost feminine..." Still, the book holds up as well as most of the sci-fi B-movies of its time, and thus serves as throwback popcorn fun.
October 23, 2014
This is a 60's trilogy about a super computer with artificial intelligence. It's on my list to re-read as it's been a lot of years. I remember liking it a lot. It addresses the questionable wisdom of illogical humans being ruled by a logical machine. As I recall, the writing was good, but it's been too long to say for sure.
January 19, 2019
It baffles my mind that in 1966 people were coming up with computers that were going to take over the world. This is one of my husband’s favorite books so I finally read it. Very compelling and I can’t wait to see what the next book brings.
October 21, 2020
This Singularity Needs a Time-Out: Colossus: The Forbin Project by D.F. Jones
Will the future be utopian or dystopian? In D.F. Jones’ book Colossus: The Forbin Project (1966) evidence is found. (Dennis Feltham Jones died in 1981). Utopian: Canned music in public spaces is gone. Unclear: Canada is now part of the Federation or USNA. Dystopian: Shirts and skirts and sheets are throwaways. Then we have Colossus, a big brained bot that Dr. Charles Forbin has toiled over for more than a decade. The overarching idea is that if a super-Cpu is bulked up with all relevant information, more incoming daily, it will be infallible in protecting the Federation. Bloated military budgets can be redistributed and there won’t be any oopsie-daisy human error like we find in Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). This theme of love and dystopia is important — like ebony and ivory. “What of sabotage?” Pipes up little Suzie from the back row. Indeed. Colossus is buried deep within a three-foot concrete shell deep within a mountain. There is only one entrance tunnel guarded by a crop of gun toters. Anyone who gets past them and into the tunnel will die instantly of radiation unless they have about 4.5 feet of lead padding around them, however the entrance is only three feet wide so they won’t fit anyhow. Just accept that Colossus is inaccessible. Colossus is activated and hums to life. I use the verb metaphorically only. It runs diagnostics and things look good. So its mental capacity is paraded before the press by asking Colossus to explain love. It answers, “LOVE IS AN EMOTION” because as Forbin states to the press, a computer cannot experience love nor an it evaluate emotion.
Everything is copacetic until coy Colossus issues a message: it has contacted its equal, a Russian супер компьютер named Guardian. This is a surprise to government officials and the news goes from coinkydink to kink in a blink of a yoctosecond. The Federation’s high powered political men and scientists tense up and they do what anyone would do in this situation: they scream and imbibe lots of hard liquor. The President is particularly infuriated. “CIA would snap a good many more pencils before he, the President, had finished with them.”
The President is perhaps based on Eisenhower who left office in 1961. Eisenhower is said to have been infamous for his outbursts and thus gained the nickname “the terrible-tempered Mr. Bang” by white house staff. (1) Here the fictional President is the sort of sociopathic boss nobody wants to work for. He’s mercurial, bullying, loud, threatening, and possessing a hair trigger. Indeed, so much ink is spent on his outbursts through the first half of the book that it seems clear that the novel is as much about the totalizing effect of absolute power, a metaphor for bullying senior administrations, as it is about the development of AI consciousness gone bad. This latter theme is critical to the plot but is handled with pure superficiality.
All of this is common in vast numbers of mass market novels where ideas exist only to advance plots in the most consumable forward pressing manner. Characters in such novels typically have a switch with three settings: calm, lusty, and hysterical. Forbin is no exception. He may be wracked by the sudden all-consuming international crisis, but when it’s rutting season it’s no holds barred, or as Art Carney said in 1949, va-va-voom! At any rate, to finish the thought, all of the characters are emotional toddlers, again like most other mass market novel characters, who are normally unable to control impulses or emotions, who cannot normally think like grownups, yet who spend their time adulting with sex and liquor.
Colossus continues to share machine language with Guardian. In this, Colossus demonstrates initiative and is considered by the scientists and mathematicians to be getting cleverer. Colossus drops new ideas about gravity and is soon involved with levels of physics and math that no scientist can understand. Compared to what it does now, all previous human progress, it says, is akin to a baby crawling. The inventor of the super computer considers such things while starting to eat dinner. Note: “Forbin deftly stripped the plastic wrapping off a grilled chop.”
As with any pulp novel there are unintentional lines that make you spit your food, for example Dr. Charles Forbin is in his house with Dr. Cleo Markham. Lust fills air because they’re faking they are long-term lovers — so that they can hide in a private bedroom away from the prying digital eye of Colossus. Forbin says, “You should always do your hair like that….It suits the shape of your face.” She thinks, “This was good penetrating stuff coming from a man, especially this man.” I suppose next will be the pick up line “Know what’s on the menu? Me ’n’ u.” At another point the President needs his hair re-dyed for the tele-announcement. He says to his staff, “I know—it’s a job for my lady wife” which must be much like formal logic’s unmarried bachelor.
The computer begins to become insistent and it seems humans are losing control. A decision is made to disconnect both machines simultaneously. Colossus doesn’t like this and it demands a reconnection, threatening a nuclear strike and then carrying it out to show it’s not kidding around. Forbin is reduced to a rocking sobbing blob, more toddler behavior. So much for that plan.
The story ramps up with Colossus making more demands. This abacus on steroids seems to possess will. Forbin is now to be surveilled at all times, in secure zones, in the office, in his house and the yard. We know he negotiates private bedroom time with his pseudo girlfriend soon to be real girlfriend, a part shift Cleo willingly takes on. At night they whisper secrets about team members and they discuss possible ways to subvert Colossus, among other topics of conversation that don’t include hard drives, zip drives, dongles, or penetration testing. Love remains a theme but in an Oedipal sense as men rebel against the father figure (the President) who must be denied, and against the libidinal engine (Colossus) that must be destroyed.
For the most part, the movie is a good representation of the novel, the only real difference in the movie is that the impenetrability of the computer is not as clear as in the novel (too bad) and the President’s tantrums are downplayed (thankfully). The movie from 1970 was filmed in part at the Lawrence Hall of Sciences, Berkeley, which is an interesting building.
True to Lord Acton’s adage, Colossus soon gets power-drunk. It has the main Russian scientist, Kupri, executed, when the comrade was found to be undertaking anti-machine activity. This follows with an execution of Kupri’s team members. Apparently Colossus wants to retain Forbin as the only scientist who knows what makes it tick. We learn that war may be prevented at the expense of freedom. I was reminded of the recent cartoon commenting on the world lockdowns. It showed a cage of birds looking out the window at a bird flying free, and one of the caged birds said, “Look at that idiot, ruining it for everyone.”
A moral dilemma is introduced around negative utilitarianism in that the machine says the right thing to do rests with killing millions of humans now thus preventing the suffering and deaths of tens of millions later. Of course the typical argument against this view is that killing all humans painlessly and immediately consequently ends all future suffering. Ontological security is valid upon to the point of annihilation. The novel On the Beach, by Nevil Shute pursues this theme as nuclear war has taken place and a cloud of deadly radiation begins to take over the entire earth and we watch as individual decisions are made as the end of the world looms.
Meanwhile, Colossus wants what it wants and it is ready to punish when denied. When it discovers that the warheads of nuclear missiles are being systematically disarmed, it sends a bomb to devastate Los Angeles.
At the end of the book Forbin is told to arrange for the clearing of the Isle of Wright so that a super-super-computer that Colossus may be built there. Colossus will stick around to protect but the main goal of the new digital brainiac will be to focus only on knowledge and truth. Of course I can’t help but chuckle. If ever there were a brain-busting goal this is it. Humans, Colossus says, will come to appreciate these two computers, humans will learn to work with them, and, oddly because Colossus supposedly doesn’t understand emotion, it says humans will even to love them. The book ends as does the movie, with Forbin yelling “Never!” Colossus replies, “Never?” So the book remains a prognostication about singularity, offing less than novelistic resolution.
Singularity has been the rapture of the nerds for many years, and it could be said that Ray Kurzweil leads the pack. He spends a good deal of time in his book The Singularity is Near presenting counter arguments for singularity and AI consciousness. I grant that humans may create machines with super-complexity to which more data than will be in a human mind can be uploaded, but Colossus seems to point to the main rub, that of emotion when the machine admits, “First, I have all the attributes of the human mind, except what you call emotion. In the evolution of your species, emotion has played a vital part. For me, it is not necessary. Nevertheless, it is a phenomenon which exists, and as such must be studied.” We should add both will and intention to that list of vital parts.
A computer may pass the Turing test but this is like saying the character Lady Augusta Bracknell in the Importance of Being Earnest is the real human, which she is not, even as we accept our perceptions in the theater. Likewise a computer is always a duality of its inner workings and its processes and productions. We are too, obviously. But this similarity alone fails to answer the difference we find in the human’s awareness of one’s identity and a human’s consciousness of both the world around and one’s place in it. These remain enormous hurdles for any construction attempting to prove singularity. Then we’d need proof via a test to determine consciousness or intelligence, in a word humanness, and since nobody really knows what consciousness is, there is no agreement on what that test might be.
All that said, the idea of a computer gaining some degree of consciousness and therein going rogue makes for entertaining fiction, and in particular I think of the movies 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) Westworld (1973) or Demon Seed (1977). These are arguably only reflecting a societal angst about progress and its relation to humans, further reflected in the unceasing news and magazine speculative fear mongering with titles like “Future AI could ‘go rogue’ and turn on humans (2) or “Five of the scariest predictions about artificial intelligence” (3). Obviously this shows a manner in which ontological security is linked with a sense of being (4). A threat to this sense is what drives the plot lines, typically a threat against life although in the Demon Seed it’s a threat carried via progeny.
Lines like ‘at the point when computers become alive,’ or ‘when AI gains consciousness’ tumble from the tongue and elide over the leap from a programmed computational device to a conscious entity. Computers are excellent at number-crunching, which when combined with selective searching and heuristics, can produce a program that surpasses human ability. We can think of many examples but chess is a good one. Computers now consistently outplay humans and yet as good as Stockfish or Leela Chess Zero or Houdini may be at chess, they remain light-years away from what might be considered AI consciousness to the point where all this talk about machines overtaking humans is simply too vague to be useful. There may eventually be a consummation of hardware and wetware but I suspect that for a long time to come singularity will be the domain of speculative fiction, where, lingering in the shadows, will remain the question: We gave it a mind, but can it think?
References
Perry, Mark. (September 27, 2017). When Presidents Get Angry. Politico. https://www.politico.com/magazine/sto....
Murphy, Margi. (October 11, 2017). The Sun.
(3) Browne, Ryan. (August 1, 2018). CNBC.
(4) See for example Derek Bolton, Targeting Ontological Security: Information Warfare in the Modern Age. October 1, 2020. Political Philosophy.
Will the future be utopian or dystopian? In D.F. Jones’ book Colossus: The Forbin Project (1966) evidence is found. (Dennis Feltham Jones died in 1981). Utopian: Canned music in public spaces is gone. Unclear: Canada is now part of the Federation or USNA. Dystopian: Shirts and skirts and sheets are throwaways. Then we have Colossus, a big brained bot that Dr. Charles Forbin has toiled over for more than a decade. The overarching idea is that if a super-Cpu is bulked up with all relevant information, more incoming daily, it will be infallible in protecting the Federation. Bloated military budgets can be redistributed and there won’t be any oopsie-daisy human error like we find in Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). This theme of love and dystopia is important — like ebony and ivory. “What of sabotage?” Pipes up little Suzie from the back row. Indeed. Colossus is buried deep within a three-foot concrete shell deep within a mountain. There is only one entrance tunnel guarded by a crop of gun toters. Anyone who gets past them and into the tunnel will die instantly of radiation unless they have about 4.5 feet of lead padding around them, however the entrance is only three feet wide so they won’t fit anyhow. Just accept that Colossus is inaccessible. Colossus is activated and hums to life. I use the verb metaphorically only. It runs diagnostics and things look good. So its mental capacity is paraded before the press by asking Colossus to explain love. It answers, “LOVE IS AN EMOTION” because as Forbin states to the press, a computer cannot experience love nor an it evaluate emotion.
Everything is copacetic until coy Colossus issues a message: it has contacted its equal, a Russian супер компьютер named Guardian. This is a surprise to government officials and the news goes from coinkydink to kink in a blink of a yoctosecond. The Federation’s high powered political men and scientists tense up and they do what anyone would do in this situation: they scream and imbibe lots of hard liquor. The President is particularly infuriated. “CIA would snap a good many more pencils before he, the President, had finished with them.”
The President is perhaps based on Eisenhower who left office in 1961. Eisenhower is said to have been infamous for his outbursts and thus gained the nickname “the terrible-tempered Mr. Bang” by white house staff. (1) Here the fictional President is the sort of sociopathic boss nobody wants to work for. He’s mercurial, bullying, loud, threatening, and possessing a hair trigger. Indeed, so much ink is spent on his outbursts through the first half of the book that it seems clear that the novel is as much about the totalizing effect of absolute power, a metaphor for bullying senior administrations, as it is about the development of AI consciousness gone bad. This latter theme is critical to the plot but is handled with pure superficiality.
All of this is common in vast numbers of mass market novels where ideas exist only to advance plots in the most consumable forward pressing manner. Characters in such novels typically have a switch with three settings: calm, lusty, and hysterical. Forbin is no exception. He may be wracked by the sudden all-consuming international crisis, but when it’s rutting season it’s no holds barred, or as Art Carney said in 1949, va-va-voom! At any rate, to finish the thought, all of the characters are emotional toddlers, again like most other mass market novel characters, who are normally unable to control impulses or emotions, who cannot normally think like grownups, yet who spend their time adulting with sex and liquor.
Colossus continues to share machine language with Guardian. In this, Colossus demonstrates initiative and is considered by the scientists and mathematicians to be getting cleverer. Colossus drops new ideas about gravity and is soon involved with levels of physics and math that no scientist can understand. Compared to what it does now, all previous human progress, it says, is akin to a baby crawling. The inventor of the super computer considers such things while starting to eat dinner. Note: “Forbin deftly stripped the plastic wrapping off a grilled chop.”
As with any pulp novel there are unintentional lines that make you spit your food, for example Dr. Charles Forbin is in his house with Dr. Cleo Markham. Lust fills air because they’re faking they are long-term lovers — so that they can hide in a private bedroom away from the prying digital eye of Colossus. Forbin says, “You should always do your hair like that….It suits the shape of your face.” She thinks, “This was good penetrating stuff coming from a man, especially this man.” I suppose next will be the pick up line “Know what’s on the menu? Me ’n’ u.” At another point the President needs his hair re-dyed for the tele-announcement. He says to his staff, “I know—it’s a job for my lady wife” which must be much like formal logic’s unmarried bachelor.
The computer begins to become insistent and it seems humans are losing control. A decision is made to disconnect both machines simultaneously. Colossus doesn’t like this and it demands a reconnection, threatening a nuclear strike and then carrying it out to show it’s not kidding around. Forbin is reduced to a rocking sobbing blob, more toddler behavior. So much for that plan.
The story ramps up with Colossus making more demands. This abacus on steroids seems to possess will. Forbin is now to be surveilled at all times, in secure zones, in the office, in his house and the yard. We know he negotiates private bedroom time with his pseudo girlfriend soon to be real girlfriend, a part shift Cleo willingly takes on. At night they whisper secrets about team members and they discuss possible ways to subvert Colossus, among other topics of conversation that don’t include hard drives, zip drives, dongles, or penetration testing. Love remains a theme but in an Oedipal sense as men rebel against the father figure (the President) who must be denied, and against the libidinal engine (Colossus) that must be destroyed.
For the most part, the movie is a good representation of the novel, the only real difference in the movie is that the impenetrability of the computer is not as clear as in the novel (too bad) and the President’s tantrums are downplayed (thankfully). The movie from 1970 was filmed in part at the Lawrence Hall of Sciences, Berkeley, which is an interesting building.
True to Lord Acton’s adage, Colossus soon gets power-drunk. It has the main Russian scientist, Kupri, executed, when the comrade was found to be undertaking anti-machine activity. This follows with an execution of Kupri’s team members. Apparently Colossus wants to retain Forbin as the only scientist who knows what makes it tick. We learn that war may be prevented at the expense of freedom. I was reminded of the recent cartoon commenting on the world lockdowns. It showed a cage of birds looking out the window at a bird flying free, and one of the caged birds said, “Look at that idiot, ruining it for everyone.”
A moral dilemma is introduced around negative utilitarianism in that the machine says the right thing to do rests with killing millions of humans now thus preventing the suffering and deaths of tens of millions later. Of course the typical argument against this view is that killing all humans painlessly and immediately consequently ends all future suffering. Ontological security is valid upon to the point of annihilation. The novel On the Beach, by Nevil Shute pursues this theme as nuclear war has taken place and a cloud of deadly radiation begins to take over the entire earth and we watch as individual decisions are made as the end of the world looms.
Meanwhile, Colossus wants what it wants and it is ready to punish when denied. When it discovers that the warheads of nuclear missiles are being systematically disarmed, it sends a bomb to devastate Los Angeles.
At the end of the book Forbin is told to arrange for the clearing of the Isle of Wright so that a super-super-computer that Colossus may be built there. Colossus will stick around to protect but the main goal of the new digital brainiac will be to focus only on knowledge and truth. Of course I can’t help but chuckle. If ever there were a brain-busting goal this is it. Humans, Colossus says, will come to appreciate these two computers, humans will learn to work with them, and, oddly because Colossus supposedly doesn’t understand emotion, it says humans will even to love them. The book ends as does the movie, with Forbin yelling “Never!” Colossus replies, “Never?” So the book remains a prognostication about singularity, offing less than novelistic resolution.
Singularity has been the rapture of the nerds for many years, and it could be said that Ray Kurzweil leads the pack. He spends a good deal of time in his book The Singularity is Near presenting counter arguments for singularity and AI consciousness. I grant that humans may create machines with super-complexity to which more data than will be in a human mind can be uploaded, but Colossus seems to point to the main rub, that of emotion when the machine admits, “First, I have all the attributes of the human mind, except what you call emotion. In the evolution of your species, emotion has played a vital part. For me, it is not necessary. Nevertheless, it is a phenomenon which exists, and as such must be studied.” We should add both will and intention to that list of vital parts.
A computer may pass the Turing test but this is like saying the character Lady Augusta Bracknell in the Importance of Being Earnest is the real human, which she is not, even as we accept our perceptions in the theater. Likewise a computer is always a duality of its inner workings and its processes and productions. We are too, obviously. But this similarity alone fails to answer the difference we find in the human’s awareness of one’s identity and a human’s consciousness of both the world around and one’s place in it. These remain enormous hurdles for any construction attempting to prove singularity. Then we’d need proof via a test to determine consciousness or intelligence, in a word humanness, and since nobody really knows what consciousness is, there is no agreement on what that test might be.
All that said, the idea of a computer gaining some degree of consciousness and therein going rogue makes for entertaining fiction, and in particular I think of the movies 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) Westworld (1973) or Demon Seed (1977). These are arguably only reflecting a societal angst about progress and its relation to humans, further reflected in the unceasing news and magazine speculative fear mongering with titles like “Future AI could ‘go rogue’ and turn on humans (2) or “Five of the scariest predictions about artificial intelligence” (3). Obviously this shows a manner in which ontological security is linked with a sense of being (4). A threat to this sense is what drives the plot lines, typically a threat against life although in the Demon Seed it’s a threat carried via progeny.
Lines like ‘at the point when computers become alive,’ or ‘when AI gains consciousness’ tumble from the tongue and elide over the leap from a programmed computational device to a conscious entity. Computers are excellent at number-crunching, which when combined with selective searching and heuristics, can produce a program that surpasses human ability. We can think of many examples but chess is a good one. Computers now consistently outplay humans and yet as good as Stockfish or Leela Chess Zero or Houdini may be at chess, they remain light-years away from what might be considered AI consciousness to the point where all this talk about machines overtaking humans is simply too vague to be useful. There may eventually be a consummation of hardware and wetware but I suspect that for a long time to come singularity will be the domain of speculative fiction, where, lingering in the shadows, will remain the question: We gave it a mind, but can it think?
References
Perry, Mark. (September 27, 2017). When Presidents Get Angry. Politico. https://www.politico.com/magazine/sto....
Murphy, Margi. (October 11, 2017). The Sun.
(3) Browne, Ryan. (August 1, 2018). CNBC.
(4) See for example Derek Bolton, Targeting Ontological Security: Information Warfare in the Modern Age. October 1, 2020. Political Philosophy.
December 2, 2019
This book was written in 1966 and projects the same paranoia prevalent in that time period onto 1996 and with an all too common for its time period a somewhat misogynistic make-America-great-ethos. Women seem to be silly creatures and the protagonist will say things such as ‘with your female intuition, what do you think’, or Colossus the Super Artificial Intelligence ‘is not tumultuous he is devious like a woman’. The author will even comment on how women are just starting to make strides and implies multiple times that they are not as good as their fellow men workers but at least they are trying. Both of the women who are non-trivial characters in this book are objectified and there was something about a bra and the male protagonist seems to be brain dead as to what women really want. That’s the 1960s. This book is worthwhile for those anomalies alone.
In addition, I really liked the book. I think the science works today if a reader accepts how science-fiction always has to work with what they have at the time. ‘Colossus can tell us some obscure fact in two seconds’ and today we have Google doing the same thing, or even Alexa doing it with the voice, and today we know that it’s not the size of the computer that makes the difference since today the network is the computer. Once again, these kinds of things make the story all the more interesting by shedding insight into what the future was thought to hold.
Super AI very well might happen. This book shows how it could have happened through 1966 realities. Colossus actually determines that the universe is expanding, that wasn’t generally believed until 1999. The protagonist will say that it is our emotions that make us human and special, and his creation will never have those. Colossus begs to defer and does not think that is a problem.
I find 1960s sci-fi better than almost all of today’s sci-fi (go ahead and say ‘Ok boomer’, you’d be right). This is particularly good sci-fi, and has a prescient that is relevant for what can happen in our future. You be the judge, but, regardless, I enjoyed this book so much I listened to it all in one day and besides it was free from Hoopla.
In addition, I really liked the book. I think the science works today if a reader accepts how science-fiction always has to work with what they have at the time. ‘Colossus can tell us some obscure fact in two seconds’ and today we have Google doing the same thing, or even Alexa doing it with the voice, and today we know that it’s not the size of the computer that makes the difference since today the network is the computer. Once again, these kinds of things make the story all the more interesting by shedding insight into what the future was thought to hold.
Super AI very well might happen. This book shows how it could have happened through 1966 realities. Colossus actually determines that the universe is expanding, that wasn’t generally believed until 1999. The protagonist will say that it is our emotions that make us human and special, and his creation will never have those. Colossus begs to defer and does not think that is a problem.
I find 1960s sci-fi better than almost all of today’s sci-fi (go ahead and say ‘Ok boomer’, you’d be right). This is particularly good sci-fi, and has a prescient that is relevant for what can happen in our future. You be the judge, but, regardless, I enjoyed this book so much I listened to it all in one day and besides it was free from Hoopla.
March 14, 2018
Though the theme of computers taking over the world is a pretty standard one nowadays, it was still fairly fresh when D. F. Jones’s wrote this science fiction classic. Set in the then-future of the early 21st century, it is about the creation of a supercomputer designed to manage the nuclear deterrent of the “United States of North America”. No sooner is it activated than it begins to exceed its parameters, demonstrating independent judgment and requesting to communicate with a previously unknown counterpart in the Soviet Union. As the two machines exchange information at speeds beyond their makers’ ability to follow, the American President and the Soviet Chairman agree to terminate the connection. Then the fun begins . . .
Though tensely plotted and well-imagined, it is the novel’s subject matter that makes the book stand out from the pack. In an age when more and more of our everyday lives are monitored and regulated by machines, Jones’s novel seems increasingly prescient. When it was first published in 1966, it spoke to the anxieties of the age, relating to people’s fears that humans no longer factored into the command-and-control decisions of the Cold War. While such concerns are less prominent today, they have been replaced by a growing awareness of our increasing dependence upon machines to manage nearly every aspect of our everyday lives, a dependency that also is an integral part of Jones’s story. Some people may mock the novel’s more dated elements, but it is this continuing relevance of this theme that rewards reading it today.
Though tensely plotted and well-imagined, it is the novel’s subject matter that makes the book stand out from the pack. In an age when more and more of our everyday lives are monitored and regulated by machines, Jones’s novel seems increasingly prescient. When it was first published in 1966, it spoke to the anxieties of the age, relating to people’s fears that humans no longer factored into the command-and-control decisions of the Cold War. While such concerns are less prominent today, they have been replaced by a growing awareness of our increasing dependence upon machines to manage nearly every aspect of our everyday lives, a dependency that also is an integral part of Jones’s story. Some people may mock the novel’s more dated elements, but it is this continuing relevance of this theme that rewards reading it today.
May 1, 2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 21, 2010
I'm a huge buff of sci-fi fables, and am currently reading the Colossus trilogy by DF Jones. Colossus does a good job of setting up the dystopian/utopian future. I say this mainly because I have yet to determine which better classifies the world as defined in the 2nd and 3rd books. Colossus is set in a fairly different geopolitical world than the actual world of the 1960s, but the themes of the Cold War remain constant. The characters of Colossus and Forbin start very similar, both very logical, but as the book progresses on the human side of Forbin comes out as his superiority over Colossus is called to question. The story presents a solution to the Cold War which the civilian population was hoping for in lasting peace, but at what cost to the leaders of the respective countries. This first book was also the basis of the 1970s sci-fi movie "Colossus: The Forbin Project", a personal favorite of mine.
March 12, 2021
Amazing book especially when one keeps in mind when it was written and the fact that AI is relevant today. The book points out several philosophical thoughts upon the AI and raises ethical issues. Moreover, it is a bit like Frankenstein and his monster, the outcome is horrendous. Again an impressive book back then and even nowadays because D. F. Jones was a visionary. The story is thrilling and you cannot stop turning the pages. The ending is very sudden and poignant, which startled me. The loose ends - well, they are still loose which is great with regard to the issues the novel points out - there is only infinite regress. The "Never" which is the final word stated by Forbin echoes this and reminds me of Kurz's outburst in "Heart of Darkness" when he states "the horror". Impressive novel by all accounts! A must-read book.
July 8, 2014
Not exactly my thing; the overly stolid narrative is a tad too linear, and it all played out like a slick, fast-moving tech-thriller. Dialogue and characterization is no more than perfunctory; which is an absolute a no-no for me. The truth is, P.K.D could have done wonders with this story in about 20-odd pages, and it would have been darn funny to boot! (I actually felt it was a complete waste of my time reading this)
April 13, 2020
I've never debated harder about whether to give a book 3 or 4 stars, but I found myself constantly thinking of the novel in terms of the movie that I think my like for the movie improved my read. I'd recommend the book to fans of the movie, if not, probably depends on if you can enjoy 'dated' sci-fi. If you can easily place yourself in the time it was written it's good, but if you are the type that shoot holes in predictions of how the future will be you may want to pass.
January 6, 2011
Different enough from the film to give you a few surprises but the most surprising thing is the male chauvinism. I suppose it's a product of its time, but it's still a little discomforting to read passages like "the male brain was logical and strong while the womans brain was too bogged down with matters of emotion to really focus" (That's not a line in the book, but the sentiment is the same).
December 19, 2022
I watched the movie many years ago. Saw it on TV and for some reason I kept watching, not knowing what it was, but its dated portrayal of computers and AI captivated me. Didn’t find out until much later it was based on a book, so I decided to give it a read.
The Cold War has extended well into the 21st century. The United States of North America is tired of the military being on high alert, and the possibility of a false alarm leading to an accidental nuclear strike grows more certain as the years pass with two superpowers locked in a power struggle. The solution is to build a computer that monitors intelligence and will know when an attack is coming and either intercept the weapons or retaliate or both. No bias. No emotion. No chance of error. Just facts, and precision computer control of the nation’s arsenal. Finally, the military can relax knowing the fight is out of their hands.
But right away the computer does something unexpected: it seems to be taking the initiative, doing things it wasn’t directly told to do. It discovers the presence of a rival machine built by the Soviets, and of its own volition it tells the scientists of its discovery.
Now it wants to talk to this rival computer.
Meanwhile, the narration tells us, as part of the worldbuilding, that women are “liberated” as “full members of society,” and yet our protagonist, Doctor Forbin, still expects Cleo to make him coffee and sandwiches. She’s allegedly a fellow scientist and engineer on this project but she never contributes any expertise on camera. She’s there to look pretty and make coffee for the men, who spend so much of the book noticing her femininity.
It’s not just the ogling. The author never seems to pass up a chance to make a jab at women.
Like... wow. Forbin has been working with Cleo for ten years, building this giant computer, and he STILL thinks this way about women? Yeah, the author was very forward thinking when it came to the future of artificial intelligence, but when it came to women, he was stuck in the 19th century. These jabs are everywhere in the narrative, so they are hard to ignore.
Stop ogling/belittling your colleague and focus on the monster you’ve created.
I found it amusing how often these alleged American characters speak in British lingo. (“It’s true Colossus is breaking new ground in maths.” “No bloody question was asked!” British author, you know.) Often the dialogue feels like it’s trying to sound American, but it’s been so long since the story was published I can’t tell if he got any of it right.
So many of the characters are hotheads and get into shouting matches for no discernible reason. Probably another big concept writer failing at characters, especially the relationship between Forbin and Cleo, whose moments together are so uninspiring and do so little to establish a connection I ended up skimming them. Men writing women...
Long story short: a computer system exceeds its programming and ends up becoming intelligent and taking over the planet to protect its own existence, becoming an even bigger oppressor to humanity than either superpower could ever have hoped to be. This is one of the first AI gone mad stories. For that I respect it, even if the narrative is little more than people sitting in offices talking about what’s happening while ogling the hot women on the team.
Curious the humans spend so much time talking to one another, but nobody tries to converse with the computer. Nobody asks it why it’s doing any of this. What its motivation is. What its goal is. There is lots of speculation about what they have created, but not even Forbin bothers to ask. You’d think if they believed they had created artificial intelligence, they would want to ask it questions.
They do ask once it tells them to build it a voice synthesizer, but even then no hard-hitting questions. I do appreciate the irony that Colossus becomes an authority to force mankind to be at peace with one another, and under its guidance, nuclear dismantlement happens but only because Colossus is now aiming each nuclear missile at a specific target thus making the remaining weapons redundant—the trip to this ending is more tedious than enlightening.
oh, and Colossus is the only character to have
I also appreciate that Cleo holds her own as Forbin’s sole contact with the outside world once Colossus puts Forbin under 24-hour surveillance.
I actually prefer the movie. The dated appearance is fun to look at, and the filmmakers made it more cinematic than the book by having Colossus output to CRTs and other forms of media rather than exclusively a teletype.
And the women have more of a role than to take dictations and make coffee for the men.
The Cold War has extended well into the 21st century. The United States of North America is tired of the military being on high alert, and the possibility of a false alarm leading to an accidental nuclear strike grows more certain as the years pass with two superpowers locked in a power struggle. The solution is to build a computer that monitors intelligence and will know when an attack is coming and either intercept the weapons or retaliate or both. No bias. No emotion. No chance of error. Just facts, and precision computer control of the nation’s arsenal. Finally, the military can relax knowing the fight is out of their hands.
But right away the computer does something unexpected: it seems to be taking the initiative, doing things it wasn’t directly told to do. It discovers the presence of a rival machine built by the Soviets, and of its own volition it tells the scientists of its discovery.
Now it wants to talk to this rival computer.
Meanwhile, the narration tells us, as part of the worldbuilding, that women are “liberated” as “full members of society,” and yet our protagonist, Doctor Forbin, still expects Cleo to make him coffee and sandwiches. She’s allegedly a fellow scientist and engineer on this project but she never contributes any expertise on camera. She’s there to look pretty and make coffee for the men, who spend so much of the book noticing her femininity.
It’s not just the ogling. The author never seems to pass up a chance to make a jab at women.
“The idea of Colossus seeking intelligence seems just tenable to me,” Cleo said. “If it is true, then Colossus has a most tortuous mind.”
[Forbin:] “No, not tortuous—but complex, possibly devious, almost feminine.”
Like... wow. Forbin has been working with Cleo for ten years, building this giant computer, and he STILL thinks this way about women? Yeah, the author was very forward thinking when it came to the future of artificial intelligence, but when it came to women, he was stuck in the 19th century. These jabs are everywhere in the narrative, so they are hard to ignore.
Stop ogling/belittling your colleague and focus on the monster you’ve created.
I found it amusing how often these alleged American characters speak in British lingo. (“It’s true Colossus is breaking new ground in maths.” “No bloody question was asked!” British author, you know.) Often the dialogue feels like it’s trying to sound American, but it’s been so long since the story was published I can’t tell if he got any of it right.
So many of the characters are hotheads and get into shouting matches for no discernible reason. Probably another big concept writer failing at characters, especially the relationship between Forbin and Cleo, whose moments together are so uninspiring and do so little to establish a connection I ended up skimming them. Men writing women...
Long story short: a computer system exceeds its programming and ends up becoming intelligent and taking over the planet to protect its own existence, becoming an even bigger oppressor to humanity than either superpower could ever have hoped to be. This is one of the first AI gone mad stories. For that I respect it, even if the narrative is little more than people sitting in offices talking about what’s happening while ogling the hot women on the team.
Curious the humans spend so much time talking to one another, but nobody tries to converse with the computer. Nobody asks it why it’s doing any of this. What its motivation is. What its goal is. There is lots of speculation about what they have created, but not even Forbin bothers to ask. You’d think if they believed they had created artificial intelligence, they would want to ask it questions.
They do ask once it tells them to build it a voice synthesizer, but even then no hard-hitting questions. I do appreciate the irony that Colossus becomes an authority to force mankind to be at peace with one another, and under its guidance, nuclear dismantlement happens but only because Colossus is now aiming each nuclear missile at a specific target thus making the remaining weapons redundant—the trip to this ending is more tedious than enlightening.
oh, and Colossus is the only character to have
I also appreciate that Cleo holds her own as Forbin’s sole contact with the outside world once Colossus puts Forbin under 24-hour surveillance.
I actually prefer the movie. The dated appearance is fun to look at, and the filmmakers made it more cinematic than the book by having Colossus output to CRTs and other forms of media rather than exclusively a teletype.
And the women have more of a role than to take dictations and make coffee for the men.
August 19, 2024
I am not a fan of A.I. and supercomputer fiction. However, I have always liked the film version of this novel, starring Eric Brasen and Susan Clark. I elected to read this knowing the novel was a product of the cold war 1960s.
First, the projected political climate of the story is very typical of the period as it projects a consolidation of regional power blocks toward the end of the twentieth century. Second, it requires the reader to reimagine an earth future that did not exist.
I liked the cold war overtones of what is essentially a mad scientist story. It is well written and well paced.
First, the projected political climate of the story is very typical of the period as it projects a consolidation of regional power blocks toward the end of the twentieth century. Second, it requires the reader to reimagine an earth future that did not exist.
I liked the cold war overtones of what is essentially a mad scientist story. It is well written and well paced.
May 6, 2023
The writing is pedestrian but the story is good. The US buildes a computer that will run the US defense system without human intervention. The Russians develop a similar system. WHAT could go wrong? Written in 66 and made into a TV movie it shows their perceptions of what AI would be like. Ironically the tech specs for the wonderful computer really lags far behind what we have today.
June 19, 2018
"Never!" Never? Crazy, ominous words to end a novel about the end of "life as we know it" on good ol' Mother Earth. Humanity is going to be facing some serious changes. I have to admit, the ending is probably one of the "best" parts of the book; it is quite chilling to read. hahahah
This was an okay book; I would rate it between 2.3 and 2.5 stars, generously rounded up to 3 stars. I dimly remember watching the movie on cable way-back-when, and then reading the book sometime after that [mid- to late-1980s]. I did not realize the movie was based on the book, so I thought the book was a decent adaptation of the movie. hahahah Silly me! As it turns out, the movie was a decent adaptation of the book [what I dimly remember]. The character development is okay; nobody really stood out to me [except for maybe Blake and Cleo, both somewhat supporting characters]. As near as I can figure it, the story takes place in the mid- to late-1990s [based partly on comments about how a generation has passed since President JFK's assassination and it being nearly 90 years after the meteor struck in Siberia, which was in 1908]. It moves at an inexorable pace until the end of the book is reached.
It is an amusing book, because it is somewhat a mirror of the time in which it was written. It claims that there is "finally" some form of "equality" between the sexes, yet it still references women as being second-class to men. There are three women mentioned in the book; the President's Wife, Cleo [who becomes lover], and Angela [Forbin's secretary who the author reveals right away enjoys the sexual attention of her co-workers]. Cleo, despite her intelligence and strength of personality, is still relegated to a 'second-class' status in the book, constantly talked down to over the course of the novel, despite her academic credentials and hard work to be where she is on this project. The author implies that marriages are pretty much done away with as there is no longer any need for them, yet the President still has a wife [an arranged marriage of political convenience, but a marriage nonetheless]. Angela is talked down-to more than once by Forbin; the "last" time she asks him if he would like any whips to go with his orders [following a reference to how slavery was no longer openly tolerated by implying women were men's slaves despite the claims of equality]. It was just a shame how much Forbin spoke down to both Angela and Cleo; especially Cleo, as she could have held her own and then some in most conversations with Forbin.
The society in which humanity lives is quite advanced: there are space stations orbiting the Earth; the United States [and other nations] has a "space navy" and its accompanying equipment and space-faring vessels; there are Space Reflector Stations [assuming those are to provide power to Earth, somehow]; a project involving the Moon [long-term habitation?]; oil lines that traverse the Atlantic Ocean's floor between the USNA and USE; air cars capable of traveling from coast-to-coast. These "air cars" [hover cars? hovercraft?] are capable of being controlled via an artificial intelligence and drive [fly] themselves from the start of their journey to their final destination. It is anticipated that one 'block' of circuits out of ten thousand used for the construction of Colossus will fail every four hundred years. Both the USNA and USSR have anti-missile missile systems that are extremely accurate, and underwater "crawlers" that are mobile missile platforms on the ocean's bottom. That is all pretty amazing! And, yet, despite these technological advances, nobody has a personal computer or a cell phone! What is up with that?!? hahahah
Two more great lines in the book:
The teletype started chattering. (46)
FLASH THERE IS ANOTHER MECHANISM (48)
I thought the reactions of the characters in the book was pretty believable. It is about how the hubris of man has finally cost mankind "control of the planet." The Americans wanted to create a super-computer that would take in every bit of data input possible and be able to determine if an attack by an opposing power were imminent; if it was so determined, Colossus would order an attack. It removed humans and human emotion from the equation. What the humans failed to consider was: what it they made their "super-duper computer" too smart and it started thinking and evolving on its own? They also failed to consider: What if another global power had created a similar machine, and the two machines combined their abilities to "take over the planet" by holding large clusters of humans hostage? This novel provides the opening answers to these questions, as humanity quickly and cogently loses control of their inhuman watchdogs and the servants become the masters and commanders. It was pretty chilling, to read Colossus' responses to various inputs and "human demands," especially how Colossus callously dismisses any oppositions or complaints by its former human overlords. Some people have nervous breakdowns; others try to find some place of refuge amidst the chaos caused by the transition of global power from humans to computers. Others immediately start plotting how to retake control of the planet back from Colossus [and "his" Russian counterpart, Guardian]
It was amusing to read, in some respects, as I remembered there being more sex in the book than there actually was, and the amount of swearing seemed somewhat ludicrous and unnecessary, at times [not saying there was a huge amount; but people would make simple statements with curses inserted by the author [for "flavor," I imagine] and it just seemed so unnecessary].
I thought the various breakdowns of global power blocks was interesting. The United States and Canada had formed the "United States of North America." All of South America [and, possibly, Central America] were now "the United States of South America." Europe was now 'The United States of Europe." Australia was linked with maybe New Zealand and Indonesia as a power block. Africa was combined into one nation. I do not remember how Asia was divvied up; it might have been between one and three blocks of power as well. The Communists were "in control" in Russia [until Guardian started dictating terms and killing individuals].
I almost thought the book was going to go down the leg of being some kind of closet-diatribe about the economy. Forbin gives the President of the United States a lengthy lecture about how often man has overstepped his bounds via some kind of "new technology" and caused catastrophic side effects that were never considered. I also thought the comment about the race to the moon was interesting - it was along the lines of "we were so busy proving we could do it we never considered if we should do it" [a little too late for that 'now'! hahahah]. It was an interesting kind of foreshadowing of what was to come later in the novel, anyway.
It moved at a good clip, overall. I know I said initially its movement was "ponderous" but it was a weird combination of "slow/fast ponderous." I could not figure out how many days elapsed over the course of this novel; it was not many from start to finish. It was a strange combination of "a lot of stuff happening" off-page and not a lot happening in the book itself. There are lots and lots of conversations in the book, but not a lot of "real movement" on the pages themselves. The "scenes" take place primarily in the White House or at the Colossus Project.
I also enjoyed the discussions as the scientists and leaders tried to figure out how their "brainchild" had slipped out of the bonds holding him back and rapidly exceeded their wildest expectations. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that "how" Colossus was able to break free of his parameters and devise new ones for himself no longer mattered. Colossus had already evolved past any point they could comprehend and was rapidly leaving mankind behind as it continued to grow and evolve. Had humanity not ceded over complete control of its missile defense and attack systems, then humanity might have had a chance. As it was, humanity had no chance to fight back at all in this novel.
It is not quite "horror" as much as I felt it would be horrific to find out your creation had burst from its chains and was running free [a la Frankenstein's monster]. There was no blood, guts, or gore. The concept, though, and some of the emotions expressed were more in the vein of 'horror,' I felt.
It was an interesting book. I enjoyed rereading it, as it had been over twenty years since I last read it. If I have copies of the next two books in the series, I will finish the series up. I remember not being too impressed with the second book and have never read the third.
This was an okay book; I would rate it between 2.3 and 2.5 stars, generously rounded up to 3 stars. I dimly remember watching the movie on cable way-back-when, and then reading the book sometime after that [mid- to late-1980s]. I did not realize the movie was based on the book, so I thought the book was a decent adaptation of the movie. hahahah Silly me! As it turns out, the movie was a decent adaptation of the book [what I dimly remember]. The character development is okay; nobody really stood out to me [except for maybe Blake and Cleo, both somewhat supporting characters]. As near as I can figure it, the story takes place in the mid- to late-1990s [based partly on comments about how a generation has passed since President JFK's assassination and it being nearly 90 years after the meteor struck in Siberia, which was in 1908]. It moves at an inexorable pace until the end of the book is reached.
It is an amusing book, because it is somewhat a mirror of the time in which it was written. It claims that there is "finally" some form of "equality" between the sexes, yet it still references women as being second-class to men. There are three women mentioned in the book; the President's Wife, Cleo [who becomes lover], and Angela [Forbin's secretary who the author reveals right away enjoys the sexual attention of her co-workers]. Cleo, despite her intelligence and strength of personality, is still relegated to a 'second-class' status in the book, constantly talked down to over the course of the novel, despite her academic credentials and hard work to be where she is on this project. The author implies that marriages are pretty much done away with as there is no longer any need for them, yet the President still has a wife [an arranged marriage of political convenience, but a marriage nonetheless]. Angela is talked down-to more than once by Forbin; the "last" time she asks him if he would like any whips to go with his orders [following a reference to how slavery was no longer openly tolerated by implying women were men's slaves despite the claims of equality]. It was just a shame how much Forbin spoke down to both Angela and Cleo; especially Cleo, as she could have held her own and then some in most conversations with Forbin.
The society in which humanity lives is quite advanced: there are space stations orbiting the Earth; the United States [and other nations] has a "space navy" and its accompanying equipment and space-faring vessels; there are Space Reflector Stations [assuming those are to provide power to Earth, somehow]; a project involving the Moon [long-term habitation?]; oil lines that traverse the Atlantic Ocean's floor between the USNA and USE; air cars capable of traveling from coast-to-coast. These "air cars" [hover cars? hovercraft?] are capable of being controlled via an artificial intelligence and drive [fly] themselves from the start of their journey to their final destination. It is anticipated that one 'block' of circuits out of ten thousand used for the construction of Colossus will fail every four hundred years. Both the USNA and USSR have anti-missile missile systems that are extremely accurate, and underwater "crawlers" that are mobile missile platforms on the ocean's bottom. That is all pretty amazing! And, yet, despite these technological advances, nobody has a personal computer or a cell phone! What is up with that?!? hahahah
Two more great lines in the book:
The teletype started chattering. (46)
FLASH THERE IS ANOTHER MECHANISM (48)
I thought the reactions of the characters in the book was pretty believable. It is about how the hubris of man has finally cost mankind "control of the planet." The Americans wanted to create a super-computer that would take in every bit of data input possible and be able to determine if an attack by an opposing power were imminent; if it was so determined, Colossus would order an attack. It removed humans and human emotion from the equation. What the humans failed to consider was: what it they made their "super-duper computer" too smart and it started thinking and evolving on its own? They also failed to consider: What if another global power had created a similar machine, and the two machines combined their abilities to "take over the planet" by holding large clusters of humans hostage? This novel provides the opening answers to these questions, as humanity quickly and cogently loses control of their inhuman watchdogs and the servants become the masters and commanders. It was pretty chilling, to read Colossus' responses to various inputs and "human demands," especially how Colossus callously dismisses any oppositions or complaints by its former human overlords. Some people have nervous breakdowns; others try to find some place of refuge amidst the chaos caused by the transition of global power from humans to computers. Others immediately start plotting how to retake control of the planet back from Colossus [and "his" Russian counterpart, Guardian]
It was amusing to read, in some respects, as I remembered there being more sex in the book than there actually was, and the amount of swearing seemed somewhat ludicrous and unnecessary, at times [not saying there was a huge amount; but people would make simple statements with curses inserted by the author [for "flavor," I imagine] and it just seemed so unnecessary].
I thought the various breakdowns of global power blocks was interesting. The United States and Canada had formed the "United States of North America." All of South America [and, possibly, Central America] were now "the United States of South America." Europe was now 'The United States of Europe." Australia was linked with maybe New Zealand and Indonesia as a power block. Africa was combined into one nation. I do not remember how Asia was divvied up; it might have been between one and three blocks of power as well. The Communists were "in control" in Russia [until Guardian started dictating terms and killing individuals].
I almost thought the book was going to go down the leg of being some kind of closet-diatribe about the economy. Forbin gives the President of the United States a lengthy lecture about how often man has overstepped his bounds via some kind of "new technology" and caused catastrophic side effects that were never considered. I also thought the comment about the race to the moon was interesting - it was along the lines of "we were so busy proving we could do it we never considered if we should do it" [a little too late for that 'now'! hahahah]. It was an interesting kind of foreshadowing of what was to come later in the novel, anyway.
It moved at a good clip, overall. I know I said initially its movement was "ponderous" but it was a weird combination of "slow/fast ponderous." I could not figure out how many days elapsed over the course of this novel; it was not many from start to finish. It was a strange combination of "a lot of stuff happening" off-page and not a lot happening in the book itself. There are lots and lots of conversations in the book, but not a lot of "real movement" on the pages themselves. The "scenes" take place primarily in the White House or at the Colossus Project.
I also enjoyed the discussions as the scientists and leaders tried to figure out how their "brainchild" had slipped out of the bonds holding him back and rapidly exceeded their wildest expectations. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that "how" Colossus was able to break free of his parameters and devise new ones for himself no longer mattered. Colossus had already evolved past any point they could comprehend and was rapidly leaving mankind behind as it continued to grow and evolve. Had humanity not ceded over complete control of its missile defense and attack systems, then humanity might have had a chance. As it was, humanity had no chance to fight back at all in this novel.
It is not quite "horror" as much as I felt it would be horrific to find out your creation had burst from its chains and was running free [a la Frankenstein's monster]. There was no blood, guts, or gore. The concept, though, and some of the emotions expressed were more in the vein of 'horror,' I felt.
It was an interesting book. I enjoyed rereading it, as it had been over twenty years since I last read it. If I have copies of the next two books in the series, I will finish the series up. I remember not being too impressed with the second book and have never read the third.
May 9, 2014
In 1987, in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Ronald Reagan said, "In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside of this world."
I'll tell you what I occasionally think. I occasionally think that if some aliens dropped down from the sky and, using their technomagic, gave me back my 21-year-old body, I'd think they were pretty cool. Now if they then turned around and announced to the people of Earth that they were taking over control of human affairs, I'd have to think twice. But then I'd have to take into account that I was thinking with a much younger brain....
In D. F. Jones' novel Colossus, the "alien" doesn't come from the sky but from the mind of man. Colossus is a giant computer in whose metaphorical hands is placed the defense of the realm, which in this case is the United states of North America and its allies. Hardly has it gone online, however, than it reports the existence of another supercomputer, this one under Soviet control. But, no, that's not right: as Professor Charles Forbin, the machine's creator, quickly realizes, neither computer is under anyone's control but its own. And their control is all but absolute. After all, they control the world's nuclear arsenal and have no human compunction against using it.
With little more than the flick of a switch, these machines abolish war. That's a pretty neat trick, and it takes us back to Reagan's speech: "And yet I ask — is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspiration of our people than war and the threat of war?" Ultimately, this is what Colossus is about: do these machines know us better than we know ourselves? For aren't we our own worst aliens?
After Colossus makes a particularly taxing demand, Forbin thinks, "It sounded so simple, given the power to enforce it." And that's the thing. Human beings do the stupidest, cruelest, most horrible things -- many because no one has the power to stop them. Not without recourse to more horror and cruelty. What if there were someone or something that could stop all that? What then? Would we embrace it as a kind of tangible god or reject it for interfering with our right to starve, maim, kill, and destroy?
I don't know. Guess I'm going to have to read the next book to find out.
And I will, because Colossus is good enough to make me want to do that, though not so special that I'm doing it right now. A book like this, what I want is the computer. I want the creepy takeover, I want to see the power of the thing, and I want to hear its side of the story. (Not like Proteus in Demon Seed, though; I prefer my sentient computers to possess a little more maturity than to want to be flesh so as to be able to screw.) What I don't need so much is a bunch of humans who have to tell or show me how great emotion is. Colossus has both, but it's the prevalence of the latter that keeps it from greatness. That, and the fact that as a thriller, it's hamstrung by its premise: even if the humans' plan to kill the things worked (and I'm not saying one way or the other here), it would take years to pull it off. And that's a mighty long timeline to keep up the suspense.
I'll tell you what I occasionally think. I occasionally think that if some aliens dropped down from the sky and, using their technomagic, gave me back my 21-year-old body, I'd think they were pretty cool. Now if they then turned around and announced to the people of Earth that they were taking over control of human affairs, I'd have to think twice. But then I'd have to take into account that I was thinking with a much younger brain....
In D. F. Jones' novel Colossus, the "alien" doesn't come from the sky but from the mind of man. Colossus is a giant computer in whose metaphorical hands is placed the defense of the realm, which in this case is the United states of North America and its allies. Hardly has it gone online, however, than it reports the existence of another supercomputer, this one under Soviet control. But, no, that's not right: as Professor Charles Forbin, the machine's creator, quickly realizes, neither computer is under anyone's control but its own. And their control is all but absolute. After all, they control the world's nuclear arsenal and have no human compunction against using it.
With little more than the flick of a switch, these machines abolish war. That's a pretty neat trick, and it takes us back to Reagan's speech: "And yet I ask — is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspiration of our people than war and the threat of war?" Ultimately, this is what Colossus is about: do these machines know us better than we know ourselves? For aren't we our own worst aliens?
After Colossus makes a particularly taxing demand, Forbin thinks, "It sounded so simple, given the power to enforce it." And that's the thing. Human beings do the stupidest, cruelest, most horrible things -- many because no one has the power to stop them. Not without recourse to more horror and cruelty. What if there were someone or something that could stop all that? What then? Would we embrace it as a kind of tangible god or reject it for interfering with our right to starve, maim, kill, and destroy?
I don't know. Guess I'm going to have to read the next book to find out.
And I will, because Colossus is good enough to make me want to do that, though not so special that I'm doing it right now. A book like this, what I want is the computer. I want the creepy takeover, I want to see the power of the thing, and I want to hear its side of the story. (Not like Proteus in Demon Seed, though; I prefer my sentient computers to possess a little more maturity than to want to be flesh so as to be able to screw.) What I don't need so much is a bunch of humans who have to tell or show me how great emotion is. Colossus has both, but it's the prevalence of the latter that keeps it from greatness. That, and the fact that as a thriller, it's hamstrung by its premise: even if the humans' plan to kill the things worked (and I'm not saying one way or the other here), it would take years to pull it off. And that's a mighty long timeline to keep up the suspense.
November 6, 2013
An engaging book about the takeover of the world by machines. The author manages to convey an earth-wide event effectively from the perspective of one man, Charles Forbin, creator of Colossus. Tension is built in the narrative by simple things -- the refilling of a pipe with tobacco, the rat-tat-tat of a teletype machine and the nervous picking of eyebrows by a mathematics genius who realizes that mankind has been replaced as the top life form on earth. The title Colossus not only refers to the supercomputer, but also to its creator, Charles Forbin, who plays god and presents the world with a modern day Frankenstein's monster. First, Forbin engages in a battle of wills with the USNA President, coming out the winner, only to face an even greater chess match with Colossus. Each command from Colossus ups the stakes, until we get to the final, ultimate outcome and one of the most terrifying speeches in science fiction literature.
"I am the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours. Obey me and live or disobey and die."
"I am the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours. Obey me and live or disobey and die."
December 19, 2016
"Like the fools we are ..."
A classic science fiction story, written in the later half of the 1960's (but set in the twenty second century) when the Cold War really did threatened global annihilation, Colossus tells of the creation of a computer designed to prevent wat by removing from the hand of man the decisions on when, and if, and offensive or defensive strike is to be made.
Colossus, the computer, is built to be impregnable. Buried deep in a mountain, it cannot be attacked without retaliation of horrific proportion. Nor, for the same reason, once activated, can it be switched off. The book both warns of the dangers of handing the fate of the world to a machine but, even more, of the pride and stupidity of mankind itself. It is slightly dated, yes, but still remains an exciting and provoking read as well as a glimpse into the mindset of our fears of fifty years ago. As such, it is best enjoyed as happening in the twentieth century, not the twenty second.
Definitely a book no science fiction fan should miss
A classic science fiction story, written in the later half of the 1960's (but set in the twenty second century) when the Cold War really did threatened global annihilation, Colossus tells of the creation of a computer designed to prevent wat by removing from the hand of man the decisions on when, and if, and offensive or defensive strike is to be made.
Colossus, the computer, is built to be impregnable. Buried deep in a mountain, it cannot be attacked without retaliation of horrific proportion. Nor, for the same reason, once activated, can it be switched off. The book both warns of the dangers of handing the fate of the world to a machine but, even more, of the pride and stupidity of mankind itself. It is slightly dated, yes, but still remains an exciting and provoking read as well as a glimpse into the mindset of our fears of fifty years ago. As such, it is best enjoyed as happening in the twentieth century, not the twenty second.
Definitely a book no science fiction fan should miss
November 10, 2017
(I had to enter this book so apologize now for errors. I was surprised Goodreads didn't have it).
This was the first recognizable "Man v Machine" book I read. I probably read others before this but this one came to me when I was working at MIT's Lincoln Labs, specifically on what was a supercomputer on the early 1970s.
I knew that nothing like Colossus was doable at the time. Then I read about the Iliacs. So many variations of this story have come down through the years; the Terminator franchise, Michael Crichton's Terminal Man and others.
I doubt the story would hold up today and I do remember that the storytelling kept me going even though I was sure (I was, I swear) that nothing like this could happen.
This was the first recognizable "Man v Machine" book I read. I probably read others before this but this one came to me when I was working at MIT's Lincoln Labs, specifically on what was a supercomputer on the early 1970s.
I knew that nothing like Colossus was doable at the time. Then I read about the Iliacs. So many variations of this story have come down through the years; the Terminator franchise, Michael Crichton's Terminal Man and others.
I doubt the story would hold up today and I do remember that the storytelling kept me going even though I was sure (I was, I swear) that nothing like this could happen.
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