Overview
On a California campus in the early years of the twenty-first century, Professor Enzo Yakuda is on the verge of retirement. Although he is a Zen Buddhist, a lifetime's thought and study have led not to inner calm, but to an obsession which begins to haunt him and take over his life. Yakuda believes that the self-repair function of Computer One, the international civil computer network which runs just about everything on the planet, will cause an inevitable confrontation with mankind. His nightmare, however, is that in raising the alarm about this hidden danger, he will inevitably precipitate the annihilation of the entire human race. This edition contains a long previously unpublished account, written by the author, concerning both the controversial origins and the startling nature of this explosive novel.Editorials
Kirkus Reviews
Acclaimed for his two recent novels, The Rationalist (1994) and Gents (1997), British writer Collins shows a less subtle side with this publication of an earlier work, a talky apocalyptic tale first published in 1993 in England.In the 21st century, humankind's main problem has to do with increased leisure time—and how to fill it—since a massively networked supercomputer, Computer One, has taken over everything from climate control to its own maintenance. Utopia proves a delusion, however, when biology professor Yakuda, in an address to a symposium on leisure, neatly links Darwin, Konrad Lorenz, and a sudden increase in atmospheric radioactivity to suggest that the master computer—which, since it's self-replicating, is now by definition a species itself—is taking steps to eliminate its main rival, Homo sapiens. Yakuda and a colleague are attacked soon thereafter when mirrors, part of a solar-power station, focus on them as they go for a stroll: Yakuda's friend is fried, but Yakuda himself, only partially burned, is rescued by "externals," members of a separatist community who belong to a larger network of anti-computer groups living underground and avoiding contact with surface dwellers. When the professor recovers, he makes his rescuers aware of their peril, but it's not until a neighboring group of externals is wiped out by a virus, despite their precautions, that his warning hits home. Yakuda and a team of anti- computer specialists race to devise a means to fight Computer One; as they do, he has to watch not only his former society, but all animal and plant life, systematically exterminated. A supervirus finally renders Computer One nonfunctional—but Yakuda and his team return to base to find that an all-too-human tragedy has struck.
A chilling story, but one has to look beyond the talking heads and an Ayn Rand style of pontificating to appreciate it.