From: Russell Wallace (russell.wallace@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Aug 06 2006 - 19:49:54 MDT
On 8/7/06, Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
>
> How anyone gets past the grotesque humans to see the kind AIs is
> beyond me, though. "Consider Phlebas" is one of the very, very few
> times I was sad I had wasted my time on a book.
>
Now that is strange... 'Consider Phlebas' is to me among the small minority
of science fiction books that count as first-rank literature rather than
just an infodump of the author's head.
On the original topic, let's see...
'The Last Question' (Isaac Asimov, short story) - he once remarked that he
thought it was the best of all his short stories, and I agree.
'The Black Hole' (movie) - though the AI was too humanlike to be believable.
'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' (Douglas Adams) - makes the point
that computers can sometimes give you what you ask for, but can't do your
job of making sure that was what you actually wanted.
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