The Brain

by Alexander Blade

Repairs had to be made in great haste, at night, while The Brain’s machines slept...

Genres: Science Fiction

206 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 23, 2010

About the author

"One of the longest-lasting Ziff-Davis House Names, originally the personal pseudonym of David Vern [...]. The name was later used by Howard Browne, Millen Cooke, Chester S Geier, Randall Garrett with Robert Silverberg (who also wrote solo under the name), Roger P Graham (Rog Phillips), Edmond Hamilton, William L Hamling, Heinrich Hauser, Berkeley Livingston, Herb Livingston, William P McGivern, David Wright O'Brien, Louis H Sampliner, Richard S Shaver, Don Wilcox and Leroy Yerxa. A large number of stories were published as by Blade, most in Amazing and Fantastic Adventures and some in Imagination, Imaginative Tales and Science Fiction Adventures. The name was last used by John Jakes for "The Deadly Mission" [...]."

SFE - The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...)

Reviews

[Sara]

Come into my brain
am i alien
or y must commt sucide again
fast hury my brain
dont wast yr time and main
y were dimealien vanish when truth apper
nt larg thing can hide the sun again
get out of my brain
at heart of nowere the time passed away
many cd come and stand over them
y big then i am again
get out of my brain

[Alexei Ramotar · Rating 2 out of 5]

It shouldn't be so dated. Pretty awful novel.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story did not gain my interest and I stopped reading after two chapters.

[Reader Reader Chicken Dinner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of it is an interesting conversation between an intellect and an artificial intelligence gaining sentience - an exploration of human vs machine thought evolution. A nice throwback to earlier sci-fi which deals with cold-war era ideology and the potential of WW3.

Unfortunately, the second half of the novel, and especially the ending fall flat without making any significant statement that it worked so hard to set up in the first half. On top of this the ending is head-shakingly silly.

Its other major flaw (and unreadable at times) is the rampant and poorly written misogyny, sexism, and what I assume is the author's attempt at romance?

For instance, there are only two female characters in the novel. One is a receptionist who instantly falls in love with the grey-haired main character. Her purpose in the novel is to book him two appointments. She has a total of maybe 5 lines, yet half of those are her confessing her love for the protagonist and asking why he doesn't date her. The second is a colleague. Her only purpose is to show up every time the author wants to take a break from philosophy and talk about breasts. There's literally a scene where she just randomly comes and puts her hand on him after he finishes a shift of work and "with an effort, he turned his eyes away from those breasts which seemed to strive for the light of the sun." Mind you, this is a fully clothed scientist in a hyper-security lab environment. He then asks her to become his wife and she confesses her love for him. There is zero build up to this. It comes completely out of nowhere and has nothing to do with the thesis of the book, other than to let the author play to his ego and talk about the female body.

[E.R. Everett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Similar to Martin Caidin’s “The God Machine” (1968), The Brain is about the US Government’s attempts to create an artificial intelligence to, primarily, run elements of the Department of Defense to gain an advantage if/when WWIII breaks out. However it is also intended to give society a kind of utopian future. In both books, you can guess what happens when the consciousness awakens and realizes its superiority over its human creators. It’s really difficult to find info. on this obscure novel, written by a prolific sci fi novelist, but it appears to have been written in the 1950s.

What I thought would make this story stand out was the fact that an entomologist, the main character, is hired to help parallel the social structures of ants and termites in the Brain’s development so as to give it a particular paradigm for creating a healthy civilization run by this AI. However, Hamilton never actually takes this idea any further than the hiring of Doctor Lee. Lee’s genetically engineered ant-termite creations do play a role toward the end, but not in any way significant to the original idea.

Overall, the book was OK, not great.

[James Hold · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, which first appeared in the October 1948 issue of Amazing Stories is the basis for the 1954 movie GOG. The screen credits the story to producer Ivan Tors. I don't know if it's a case of plagiarism or neglect but nowhere, not even on IMDB, have I seen this corrected. I don't suppose by now there is much that can be done about it. The movie closely follows the book with only a few name changes.

The story itself is not bad, an early look at computers and the supposed threat they pose to mankind in the wrong hands. Nothing in it stays with you once you've finished reading it; it's essentially an adventure story with some bells and whistles thrown in.

Still it's a shame author Blade does not receive the credit he is due.

[Sean Randall · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable era piece, although not as slickly written as some of course. It's always interesting to see these works in a modern light, this one has clearly aged but was still worth enjoying.

[Tami Gooding · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read , hard to stop reading !!! Technology and man trying to get along still :)))

[Forked Radish]

First published 1948.