| Author | Message | ||
     Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.133.23.20 |
I was just looking over the contents list of Cinema Futura, PS's follow-up to Cinema Macabre. Bit disapppointed to see no Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970). Anyway, anyone else a fan of this much-overlooked gem? Mark S. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.234.38 |
Oh, I saw this only a couple months ago. Liked it very much, although the hardware depicted in the film has a terribly dated look to it. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.16.2.34 |
The one where a supercomputer takes over the world? If it's the one I'm thinking of I saw it on BBC2 when I was a kid. | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.133.23.20 |
I saw it as a kid too. Never forgot it, but only revisited it in the last year. Crikey, it packs a punch. Much more terrifying than giant monsters stomping on cities. I have a horrible feeling that might be how the apocalypse really turns out... Mark S. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.16.2.34 |
Funnily enough I was disappointed that it didn't have any giant monsters stomping in cities. Or flying saucers laying waste to the US army. I think I might appreciate it more now. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.72 |
Yes, The Forbin project is outstanding. I always remember the computer ordering the 'traitors' to be shot. No fancy gimmickry in this one. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Based on a novel by one of the great unsung heroes of homespun British sci-fi at its most convincing and calmly apocalyptic: D.F. Jones - author of the utterly brilliant 'Xeno' (1979), which I consider one of the best, and most subtly disturbing, British alien invasion novels ever written. He wrote works of outstanding excellence, in the manner of Wells & Wyndham, but just a decade or two too late to make a lasting impact... still, I remember him. | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.133.23.20 |
I'll have to look Xeno up. Thanks for the tip, Stevie. Mark S. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
The Forbin Project always reminded me slightly of Kobo Abe's novel Inter Ice Age 4 written sometime in the 1950s. Anybody else ever read that novel? It's nothing like The Forbin Project really, but features two supercomputers arguing about whether communism will triumph over the world (the answer is that yes, communism will triumph, but humanity is saved from living in a Stalinist dystopia by an environmental catastrophe on a global scale). The Russian computer reminds me of "Guardian" in the film. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.25.50.10 |
How about the Fredric Brown short story -- I think it's called Answer -- about the scientists asking a supercomputer if there's a God? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
There were actually a trilogy of Colossus novels: 'Colossus' (1966), 'The Fall Of Colossus' (1974) & 'Colossus And The Crab' (1977). His other novels were: 'Implosion' (1967) 'Don't Pick The Flowers' (1971) 'The Floating Zombie' (1975) 'Xeno' (1979) 'Bound In Time' (1981) ... classic Wyndhamesque sci-fi every one. I still have my copy of 'Xeno' and must track down the others. I do love apocalyptic sci-fi done with understated British sensibilities. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
"How about the Fredric Brown short story -- I think it's called Answer -- about the scientists asking a supercomputer if there's a God?" I thought that was an Arthur C Clarke... they load it with the whole of human knowledge and ask it the question. The reply comes back - "there is now" and as they try to switch it off they get hit by a sudden bolt of lightning from a cloudless sky. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.25.50.10 |
I dunno, Clarke might have done a similar story but the one I'm thinking of is the Brown. http://www.roma1.infn.it/~anzel/answer.html Clarke did The Nine Billion Names of God, didn't he? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
That story about the supercomputer answering "Yes, now there is a God!" is definitely a Frederic Brown short story called 'Answer'. Arthur C. Clarke did some short shorts in the manner of Brown but frankly they aren't very good. Clarke was good at longer lengths (I love his Tales From the White Hart) but his short shorts are extremely poor. I used to think that the opposite was the case with Frederic brown -- that he was brilliant at very short lengths but not so good at longer stories. Then I discovered his brilliant novel What Mad Universe? and I changed my mind utterly... My very favourite Frederic Brown short short can be found here: http://gloomyseahorse.blogspot.com/2009/09/end.html | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Ha! That story's brilliant! | ||
| Dpulker (Dpulker) Username: Dpulker Registered: 05-2010 Posted From: 99.231.152.180 |
COLOSSUS looks great. Thanks for the recommendation. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.234.38 |
Anyone remember Brown's "The House"? It haunts me still. I've never been clear about what actually happens in it, but I find it a tremendous piece of writing. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
Oh well done Rhys - that immediately adds Fredric Brown to my list of 'must seek out' authors! | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.46.95 |
John, Nightmares and Geezenstacks is a great Fredric Brown collection. There's also a 'best of' volume which is very good (I suspect they're both out of print, though). | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.234.38 |
The story "The Geezenstacks" can be read here: http://arthursclassicnovels.com/brown-f/geezen10.html | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 80.4.12.3 |
I have a spare copy of What Mad Universe? if anybody wants one. It's in good condition -- a great Frederic Brown novel. If you want it, email me your snail-mail address and I'll pop it in the post on Monday. rhysaurus@hotmail.com | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 80.4.12.3 |
OK, this book is destined for Hubert in Belgium... Weber missed out by just a few minutes, so I might send him a compensation book. Or else Hubert can post the Frederic Brown to Weber when he has finished with it, and so on, until the book has circumnavigated the world. Just a thought... Regards, Rhys! | ||
| Skunsworth (Skunsworth) Username: Skunsworth Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 92.16.93.143 |
There's a fantastic sort story by Dave Hutchinson (writer of simply superb short stories - his 4 early collections are Thumbprints, The Paradise Equation, Fool's Gold and TOrn air, a mix of horror, sci-fi, fabulist, etc, all highly recommended. By me at least) about a scientist talking to a supercomputer buried deep in a mountain as the nuclear war happens up above. The scientist eventually asks the computer, Who Will Survive, to which the computer replies... I WILL.... Brilliant stuff. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
David Hutchinson! Yes, I loved Thumbprints and Torn Air. Some great stories there. I remember a brilliant one called 'Ace In The Hole'... and there was another- the title escapes me for the second- where everyone in the world was part of a single gestalt mind, except one man. Need to track his stuff down. Wonder what become of him? | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Didn't he join the police in the 70s with a partner called Starsky? they had a really cool car... | ||
| Skunsworth (Skunsworth) Username: Skunsworth Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 92.16.93.143 |
Simon: he's a journalist in London! He's on fb (check my friends), and he's written another short story collection (As the Crow Flies) and a novel (The Villages). He has a live journal (check the links on my blog), but he's not posted on fb or his LJ for a few months now - dunno why. I have three of his earlier collections, and love them all. Ace in the Hole was great - there's a story about using a time machine, but it actually being black magic, that's just fab as well. He was a big influence on me, not least of which the fact that his first collection was published when he was just 17! Bastard! I like to think I emulated him, but waited that important extra 21 years... It's great to know someone else has heard of him!! S | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.133.23.20 |
I wonder if anyone else here recalls a "computer develops consciousness" tale called "Saint 505" by the late John Clark. It appeared in the anthology Tales from Tartarus back in 1995. Great stuff. Mark S. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
'Saint 505' was the best tale in that volume, in my view. I always wondered what other stuff John Clark had written. Ray Russell said that he saw some of it but that it was "60s avant-garde awfulness..." I also wondered if 'John Clark' was the same 'John Clark' as the 'John Clark' who wrote the stories 'Minus Planet' (in the April 1937 edition of Astounding) and 'Space Blister' (August 1937, same magazine)... I still wonder this even though I knew he isn't and wasn't... |