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Metal Calculator Planet
A planet covered entirely with machinery to a height of twenty miles and covered with a metal roof. (Read the full article)
| "I'm guessing way before New Detroit: http://www.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/marcnewdetroit1.jpg" (Sabre Runner 11/1/2007 10:33:50 AM ) |
| "Trantor was conceived by Asimov in the early 1940s so Simak's metal-covered planet might have been inspired by Asimov's?" (Adam 11/9/2007 1:32:27 PM ) |
| "E.E.Smith conceived an artificial planet-sized "Brain" in his book "The Skylark of Valeron" - a 1,000 km wide computer/spaceship designed to handle unimaginable forces. It was also composed of essentially self-replicating seed components and thus used exponential growth to build itself to large size rapidly. The ship-computer used brain-machine interfaces to take commands from its occupants, with automatic protective circuits to ignore random thoughts." (Adam 11/9/2007 1:34:05 PM ) |
| "I should have realized that what you said about Asimov was true; I own the Astounding Science-Fiction issue that contains Asimov's short story "The Mule," and that was published in 1945. I corrected the article. The reference from "The Skylark of Valeron" is great - I haven't read that book and didn't know that. How about sending in a quote? However, it looks like the idea of using a planet as a calculator still rests with Simak. As Holmes once remarked to a chastened Watson (me) "It is good not to be proven wrong on all points."" ( 11/9/2007 1:43:31 PM ) |
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