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The 1970 Universal Pictures release Colossus: The Forbin Project is an underrated science fiction thriller that asks the question: what happens when supercomputers take over? Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden before he became popular as Victor Newman on the soap The Young and the Restless) designs Colossus, a groundbreaking supercomputer, to manage the nuclear armament for the U.S. government. After the massive computer system is switched on, Colossus unexpectedly develops at an exponential rate, eventually eclipsing all human knowledge and intelligence. Soon it reaches out to a similar system in the Soviet Union (one previously unheard of in the U.S.) and begins bringing it up to speed. Once the two systems are aligned, they use their control over the two nations' nuclear caches to take over the world. The computer's ultimate aim—to guard world peace—reaches a frightening plateau. As Colossus itself states: "The object to construct me is to prevent war. This objective is now attained." As Forbin and the rest of humanity soon discover, Colossus's objective also includes absolute power, for in order to attain world peace it must be able to control humanity, the greatest progenitor of war and violence of any other living creature on the planet. Based on the novel by British author Dennis Feltham, Colossus: The Forbin Project is a cautionary tale about what happens when people build bigger, better mousetraps (well, somebody's got to be the mouse).

Colossus: The Forbin Project

Colossus: The Forbin Project.



Cynthia C. Scott is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area whose work has appeared in Glint Literary JournalCopperfield Review, Flyleaf Journal, Graze Magazine, and Strange Horizons. She also writes reviews for Bookbrowse.com. She's currently working on a series of SF novels called The Book of Dreams.
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22 Apr 2024

We’d been on holiday at the Shoon Sea only three days when the incident occurred. Dr. Gar had been staying there a few months for medical research and had urged me and my friend Shooshooey to visit.
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Tu enfiles longuement la chemise des murs,/ tout comme d’autres le font avec la chemise de la mort.
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Le petit monstre n’était pas né comme un enfant des hommes, criant de froid et de terreur au sortir du ventre maternel. Il avait pris vie peu à peu, sur la haute selle à trois pieds, et quand ses yeux s’étaient ouverts, ils avaient rencontré ceux du sculpteur aux larges épaules, qui le regardaient tendrement.
We're delighted to welcome Nat Paterson to the blog, to tell us more about his translation of Léopold Chauveau's story 'The Little Monster'/ 'Le Petit Monstre', which appears in our April 2024 issue.
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