From: utzoo!decvax!decwrl!sun!gnu
Newsgroups: net.books
Title: Re: computers and books
Article-I.D.: sun.219
Posted: Tue Mar 15 06:08:08 1983
Received: Fri Mar 18 08:58:10 1983
References: watmath.4730 watarts.1744

Actually, Heinlein has written several good books with computers as main
characters.  "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" was already mentioned and was
about how easy it is to take over an organization if its computer is
friendly to you.  "Time Enough for Love" includes a character who begins
"life" as a computer complex enough and with enough stimuli to become
sentient, and ends up transplanting herself into a body created her own
specs by genetic techniques common at the time.  Since "T.E.F.L" his books
have tended more towards modern-day computer capabilities (eg, programming
the machine in "Number of the Beast" to respond with a parrot line upon
being given a command) rather than sentient machines.

As the ultimate teleportation book is Alfred Bester's "The Stars My
Destination" and the ultimate time-travel book is David Gerrold's "The
Man who Folded Himself", the ultimate datanet book is John Brunner's
"The Shockwave Rider
".  If you care what you are creating, read this book!

	John Gilmore, Sun Microsystems