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Probability #1
The Probability Man
He had forgotten his real name, so they called him "Spingarn" after the last role he had played. He was the man the directors of the Frmaes regarded as their major headache - for he was guilty of two unforgivable arrogances. He had programmed himself into every one of the vast world-staged dramas he had directed - and he had reactivated the forbidden Frames of the pre-human planet of Talisker.
In those days of an overcrowded colonized cosmos, a thousand years from now, the Frames were the major means of diversion. Historical re-creations and fictional dramas played out with planets as stages and whle populations as actors - the Frame directors and their robot assistants had become the masters of all life.
They could not destroy Spingarn, THE PROBABILITY MAN, but they could sentence him to undo the damage he had done. So he was sent to the mad Frames of Talisker to unravel the secret of their origin a billion years before the universe.
In those days of an overcrowded colonized cosmos, a thousand years from now, the Frames were the major means of diversion. Historical re-creations and fictional dramas played out with planets as stages and whle populations as actors - the Frame directors and their robot assistants had become the masters of all life.
They could not destroy Spingarn, THE PROBABILITY MAN, but they could sentence him to undo the damage he had done. So he was sent to the mad Frames of Talisker to unravel the secret of their origin a billion years before the universe.
- GenresScience Fiction
175 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 19, 2020
DAW Collectors #3
Cover by Kelly Freas
He had forgotten his real name, so they called him "Spingarn" after the last role he had played. He was the man the directors of the Frames regarded as their major headache - for he was guilty of two unforgivable arrogances. He had programmed himself into every one of the vast world-staged dramas he had directed - and he had reactivated the forbidden Frames of the pre-human planet of Talisker.
In those days of an overcrowded colonized cosmos, a thousand years from now, the Frames were the major means of diversion. Historical re-creations and fictional dramas played out with planets as stages and while populations as actors - the Frame directors and their robot assistants had become the masters of all life.
They could not destroy Spingarn, THE PROBABILITY MAN, but they could sentence him to undo the damage he had done. So he was sent to the mad Frames of Talisker to unravel the secret of their origin a billion years before the universe.
Brian Neville Ball
b.1932
He received his BA from London University in 1960, and his MA from Sheffield University in 1968. Ball was a secondary school teacher from 1955-1965, after which he became a freelance writer and college lecturer. He has published more than two dozen novels and as many short stories.
Ball has two daughters with wife Margaret Snead, Jane and Amanda.
Mr Ball also wrote a couple of the "Space 1999" books
aka Brian Kinsey-Jones
Cover by Kelly Freas
He had forgotten his real name, so they called him "Spingarn" after the last role he had played. He was the man the directors of the Frames regarded as their major headache - for he was guilty of two unforgivable arrogances. He had programmed himself into every one of the vast world-staged dramas he had directed - and he had reactivated the forbidden Frames of the pre-human planet of Talisker.
In those days of an overcrowded colonized cosmos, a thousand years from now, the Frames were the major means of diversion. Historical re-creations and fictional dramas played out with planets as stages and while populations as actors - the Frame directors and their robot assistants had become the masters of all life.
They could not destroy Spingarn, THE PROBABILITY MAN, but they could sentence him to undo the damage he had done. So he was sent to the mad Frames of Talisker to unravel the secret of their origin a billion years before the universe.
Brian Neville Ball
b.1932
He received his BA from London University in 1960, and his MA from Sheffield University in 1968. Ball was a secondary school teacher from 1955-1965, after which he became a freelance writer and college lecturer. He has published more than two dozen novels and as many short stories.
Ball has two daughters with wife Margaret Snead, Jane and Amanda.
Mr Ball also wrote a couple of the "Space 1999" books
aka Brian Kinsey-Jones
September 5, 2025
He was Private Spingarn. Digging in a stinking pit. He was short but had sheer physical strength. Spingarn was shooting the French, who would think this one up? He was the plot, a plot in a frame. He thought of himself as the probability man. He called time- out from the plot and was out of the recreations of reality known as the Frames. Machines worked, men played. No ideas what the fuck is going on? Humanity constructed 109s of frames to stop the extinction of boredom. Spingarn had been in many plots. As soldiers, etc but always knew when to leave a plot at the most dangerous time but a blip was somehow mixing history. There were umpires that were humanoids. Its the 29th century and Spingarn meets the most powerful man in the galaxy. The man who determines the fate of billions of people in frames. Spingarn has his brain altered because he put himself into every plot, every frame. His physical appearance changed by an injection of random cell fusion and has a tail. He is on another planet with a robot man and a girl with beautiful ethereal wings. Giants appear. Absolutely no idea what is going on?
August 11, 2019
Brian N. Ball is a retired British science fiction writer, who published mostly in the 1960s through 80s. I read his 1972 SF novel “The Probability Man” in a vintage DAW original paperback (No. 2). Ball wrote and DAW published a sequel “Planet Probability” in 1973, but book #1 easily stands alone.
“The Probability Man” is set in the 29nd century where entire planets are dedicated to reconstruction of historical battles of humanity, known as Frames. People apply to participate and if accepted are reprogrammed into a role in a Plot, as deemed appropriate by master Comps. These plots are scripted by highly skilled craftsman, known as Plot Directors.
The novel opens with a man named Spingarn who is part of a force tunneling under a fortress during the Siege of Tournai (1340). Spingarn gradually becomes aware that there is more to his memories that just the part he is playing. What follows is an extended unravelling of the reality in which Spingarn exists. That reality includes a furry robot who is forbidden to help, a huzzah-shouting English comrade from the Hundred Years’ War, a “girl” colleague who seeks only to be with her man, shifting Frames, a space war recreated with hot air balloons, and a 100,000 year old alien. The story is a crazy ride through a psychedelic reality. This story could only have been published in the early 1970s, and features many of the tropes of the time, such as a woman character dressed in blue paint and thousand shimmering pinpoints of light. I was quite intrigued by the opening gambit, but things quickly went bizarre. I won’t be looking to read the sequel, but it might fall into my hands as a collectible item.
“The Probability Man” is set in the 29nd century where entire planets are dedicated to reconstruction of historical battles of humanity, known as Frames. People apply to participate and if accepted are reprogrammed into a role in a Plot, as deemed appropriate by master Comps. These plots are scripted by highly skilled craftsman, known as Plot Directors.
The novel opens with a man named Spingarn who is part of a force tunneling under a fortress during the Siege of Tournai (1340). Spingarn gradually becomes aware that there is more to his memories that just the part he is playing. What follows is an extended unravelling of the reality in which Spingarn exists. That reality includes a furry robot who is forbidden to help, a huzzah-shouting English comrade from the Hundred Years’ War, a “girl” colleague who seeks only to be with her man, shifting Frames, a space war recreated with hot air balloons, and a 100,000 year old alien. The story is a crazy ride through a psychedelic reality. This story could only have been published in the early 1970s, and features many of the tropes of the time, such as a woman character dressed in blue paint and thousand shimmering pinpoints of light. I was quite intrigued by the opening gambit, but things quickly went bizarre. I won’t be looking to read the sequel, but it might fall into my hands as a collectible item.
February 20, 2019
Sadly, this one was a rather big miss. After reading the book I hardly have a clue what happened, or what the plot even is. It's about frames where historical battles are being reenacted and the main protagonist (who doesn't know his own name, so he picks Springan) is on the run from the robots who oversee these events. He is shaped like the devil and his companions are a robot and a girl with wings. They go to this (forbidden?) planet called Talisker and that's exactly where I got hopelessly lost.
I can't be bothered to figure out what the plot is, since it's such a short and otherwise insignificant book.
I can't be bothered to figure out what the plot is, since it's such a short and otherwise insignificant book.
August 31, 2014
This is weird old classic SF from the 70's, and it has the feeling of a fever dream or maybe an LSD trip.
Considered as hard SF it pretty much fails to make any sense, but as a fever dream it's pretty entertaining, and I found the required suspension of disbelief pretty easy.
(There is, for instance, a scene where Our Hero (who can barely remember who he is, and who has been given a strong pointed prehensile tail) and a woman who has been given wings, and a man who thinks he is in Hell and whose lower limbs have been transformed into a metal screw and then welded to a big iron meteor, are all in a dirigible, being pursued by a bunch of "Thyroid Giants", who are ponderously floating behind them one to a balloon (because they are after all giants), over a vast desert. Woot!)
Considered as hard SF it pretty much fails to make any sense, but as a fever dream it's pretty entertaining, and I found the required suspension of disbelief pretty easy.
(There is, for instance, a scene where Our Hero (who can barely remember who he is, and who has been given a strong pointed prehensile tail) and a woman who has been given wings, and a man who thinks he is in Hell and whose lower limbs have been transformed into a metal screw and then welded to a big iron meteor, are all in a dirigible, being pursued by a bunch of "Thyroid Giants", who are ponderously floating behind them one to a balloon (because they are after all giants), over a vast desert. Woot!)
February 5, 2016
A wild and crazy ride is what you get with this story. Imagine a time when the human race has accomplished everything and has now began to live an internal life within a massive construct called the Frames. Forever reliving the past in the most personal way. The only humans left who aren't in the Frames are those who make the Frames. Enter Springarn, the Director, the Probability Man. On a distant planet called Talisker lies the original Frames and something more, something he found and a mess he created and now with his handpicked team needs to resolve it. A very fun and confusing story from beginning to end. The beginning was a little difficult at times to make it through but bear with it, the confusion pays dividends.
September 8, 2017
The story takes place in a distance future in which the entire, bored, galactic population lives out their lives in planetary scale historical simulations called frames.
Spingarn is on the run, bouncing from frame to frame just ahead of the frame directors and robot umpires. Spingarn used to be a "plot director", someone who develops the story lines used in the frames, and he was one of the best, an expert at working out plot probabilities (thus his nickname - the probability man). He abused his position by teaming up with an alien intelligence to set up experimental frames where strange experiments are being performed on the human participants on a forgotten planet called Talisker. Once caught, he's sentenced to go back to Talisker, negotiate with the alien, and solve the problem he created.
The writing quality is not very good and it reads a bit like a poor man's version of "Midnight at the Well of Souls". It's a tolerable read but not worth seeking out. Also, be aware the book doesn't really resolve anything, it just sets the reader up for the sequel, "Planet Probability".
Spingarn is on the run, bouncing from frame to frame just ahead of the frame directors and robot umpires. Spingarn used to be a "plot director", someone who develops the story lines used in the frames, and he was one of the best, an expert at working out plot probabilities (thus his nickname - the probability man). He abused his position by teaming up with an alien intelligence to set up experimental frames where strange experiments are being performed on the human participants on a forgotten planet called Talisker. Once caught, he's sentenced to go back to Talisker, negotiate with the alien, and solve the problem he created.
The writing quality is not very good and it reads a bit like a poor man's version of "Midnight at the Well of Souls". It's a tolerable read but not worth seeking out. Also, be aware the book doesn't really resolve anything, it just sets the reader up for the sequel, "Planet Probability".
February 28, 2011
Grade D+. Book P1.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews