The Cosmic Computer

Conn Maxwell comes home to the backwater planet Poictesme carrying a dangerous rumor. During a long-ago war, the story goes, the military left behind Merlin, a strategic supercomputer so powerful it could plan a whole civilization back to prosperity. Conn’s neighbors, sunk in decline and scraping a living off scavenged war surplus, seize on the legend as their salvation, and Conn leads the hunt for the machine. But he half suspects the truth about Merlin is stranger, and more useful, than any computer could be. Part of Piper’s Terro-Human Future History, this is a shrewd novel about faith, hype, and what actually rebuilds a broken society. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.