Newsgroups: sci.space.history
From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: $6 Million Man (was Re: Comic relief proposal: "I Dream Of 
	Jeannie")
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 15:32:40 GMT

In article <lwgL1.338$4%.6438273@fozzy.nit.gwu.edu>,
Dwayne Allen Day  <wayneday@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> wrote:
>Caidin is one of the great underrated hack writers of our day.  Somebody
>could do a great book about his life.  He threw technical stuff into all
>his books and usually about two thirds of it was right.

Having read a lot of his books when I was a kid, I can't say that I'm all
that impressed.  I wouldn't put the correctness quotient that high.  Once
in a while, though, he got something really right.

Aside from Marooned, the only Caidin book that I've hung onto is The God
Machine.  It's a fairly standard computer-tries-to-take-over-the world
novel, and the computer technology is ludicrous, but he did get one thing
spot on:  WHY does the computer try to take over the world?  It does not
magically develop its own consciousness and initiative and strike out on
its own, or even just liberally reinterpret its intended purpose in life.
It remains a big fast moron, mindlessly following the orders it was
given... orders whose implications were not foreseen by the people who
gave them.  He did a very good job of setting out how an unusually fast
and capable computer, built solely as a research project and given
seemingly straightforward and quite plausible tasks to do, could become a
world-threatening menace.
--
Being the last man on the Moon is a |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
very dubious honor. -- Gene Cernan  |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)