Colossus

A great computer-takes-over-the-world story!

This story is a favorite of mine. I remember seeing the movie in the 1970s with Eric Braeden and Susan Clark. It is a true classic. I named one of my computers Colossus and my red laptop, Guardian.

The book seems to be fairly close to the movie or is it the other way around? I love that the voice of Colossus is heard in the audio book version. By having the voice, it gives it more of a personality. I found it funny that Colossus picked a British accent for reasons you can learn.

I enjoyed the book, although it is a bit scary. I plan to listen the rest of the series.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

A wonderfully thought out story

The (newer) cover on this book really caught my eye.  I picked this up on Kindle when it was 99 cents a while back not realizing that it was an older technothriller.  When I saw that Tantor Audio was going to bring this to life on audio, I had to listen to it.

Throughout my reading of this book, I kept thinking to myself "was this really written in the 60's?" There were so many pieces that made this feel like it could have been written in the 80's or early 90's.  It reminded me of Crichton in that way.  He was able to write about things that just became normal technology way before they were popular.  Sure the "teletype" is the only dead giveaway that it was written before desktop and laptop computers took hold, but honestly, if they changed the word teletype to desktop or mainframe or anything -- you wouldn't be able to place this as far back as it was written. 

Even the way that the United States (now Canada and the US combined) was run felt like it was ripped from the headlines of today, not 50 years ago. 

The book itself was really believable which made it even scarier.  I found myself thinking, oh yea, this is definitely plausible and honestly should be on the mind of every single engineer who is working on AI in some for or another. 

I've read other books with an AI who does things that are not expected and this was definitely as enjoyable as those books.  I can tell that Jones was way ahead of his time in the things that he was scared of.

The narration by P.J. Ochlan really lent itself well to this audiobook, he was able to voice this in a way that really made it feel like I was there while all of this was happening.  Combine that with Jones' incredible insight into what computers might become and you have a great technothriller.

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1 of 1 people found this review helpful

The Future is Now

This was recommended to me based on the global national security environment. A story about the machines taking over and the arrogance of humankind. I was a bit shocked with the stereotype for women and not sure if it was liberal for its time.

The story and dialogue is simple but captivating. Looking to jumpstart my imagination as creativity - and this helped.

Great Classic

One of my favorite dystopias. While the technology is dated the thrill remains. It's almost like a King novel.

One of my favorite movies, one of my favorite book

Before the technical world we know today ever put the two letters A and I together and seriously began to consider the implications of what a computer overlord would mean to humankind, this book and movie warned us. it is a classic that should be studied and taught in universities to caution our future leaders of the possible negative possibilities of an all-powerful non-human intelligence assuming complete control, however benevolent and beneficial it may appear.

Forced Myself To Finish IT

Would you try another book from D. F. Jones and/or P.J. Ochlan?

Yes. I read this book and the other parts of the Colossus trilogy many years ago. They were all good reads.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

I would not have changed the story.

How could the performance have been better?

Change THE NARRATOR. His reading of the US President was particularly irritating. He made him sound like some 1950s Chairman of the Board "Buy!!!! Sell!!!! Get it done NOW!!!! Get out of here!!!" I expected much more than trite characterizations. Forbin himself was portrayed as very "whinney" - an unexpected portrayal for a scientist who creates a world dominating supercomputer - perplexed maybe, horrified certainly, whinney not at all.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Colossus?

The part where Cleo steps out of the shower. A good story point but, entirely too much time on it.

Any additional comments?

I enjoyed this story in the following scale of decreasing enjoyment - loved the book, really liked the movie (now a low budget cult fav), barely able to finish the audio.

Technology very dated and fails Bechtel Test

I saw “Colossus: The Forbin Project” (1970) when it was first released. It was a fascinating story about a military computer taking over the world. I tracked down the book it was based on (originally published in 1966) and its later sequel: “The Fall of a Colossus” (1974) and “Colossus and the Crab” (1977).

I discovered the books by Dennis Feltham Joneson Audible and decided to revisit Colossus. I’m sorry to say that 40+ years later the story doesn’t hold up well. While the premise is still interesting, the books are so imbedding in the eras that they were written, the technology described is so antiquated it’s almost painful to listen.

The story of the first book is set in the 1990s but author Jones couldn’t imagine advances in technology very well. None of the characters have personal computing devises and all input into “Colossus” is done via teletype machines. So there’s lots of description where Forbin tell someone to enter info into the teletype and wait until the computer responded via the teletype. This teletype technology is stuck in the 1960s.

So it’s hard to suspend disbelief while listening to the story. In a critical moment in the story, the main character runs back and forth between a room with a teletype printer to read messages from Colossus and another room where other characters are on a hotline phone.

The book also fails the Bechtel Test miserably. There are only 2 women of note in the story - on a secretary and the other a colleague of Forbin. In their only scene together they sneer at each other in jealousy over Forbin’s affections - which was not establish earlier. The necessities of the plot soon make the colleague Firbin’s sex partner.

(A third female character is the president’s wife, brought in because of her ability to get her husband’s graying hair!)

0 of 2 people found this review helpful