The Cosmic Computer
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Narrated by:
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Jeffrey Kafer
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By:
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H. Beam Piper
About this listen
Conn Maxwell returns from Terra to his poverty-stricken home planet of Poictesme, “The Junkyard Planet”, with news of the possible location of Merlin, a military super-computer rumored to have been abandoned there after the last war. The inhabitants hope to find Merlin, which they think will be their ticket to wealth and prosperity. But is Merlin real or just an old rumor? And if they find it, will it save them - or tear them apart?
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The Cosmic Computer, originally titled The Junkyard Planet, is one of Henry Beam Piper’s stories set in the alternate "Future History" of the 6,000 years following the year of the first nuclear chain reaction, 1942. This entry takes place in a distant, chaotic era of Piper’s detailed universe where many planets and human institutions have fallen apart. The audiobook’s protagonist, Conn Maxwell, returns to his particularly hard-hit home planet, what Maxwell refers to as a "junkyard of empire", aiming to raise hopes and funds with the promise of a legendary lost supercomputer hidden on a literal junkyard planet. Jeffrey Kaffer’s hard and tough performance enhances the sense of Maxwell as an assertive leader navigating a harsh but strikingly and exhaustingly described future.
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The Skylark of Space
- Skylark Series #1
- By: E. E. "Doc" Smith
- Narrated by: Reed McColm
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Brilliant government scientist Richard Seaton discovers a remarkable faster-than-light fuel that will power his interstellar spaceship, The Skylark. His ruthless rival, Marc DuQuesne, and the sinister World Steel Corporation will do anything to get their hands on the fuel. They kidnap Seaton's fiancée and friends, unleashing a furious pursuit and igniting a burning desire for revenge that will propel The Skylark across the galaxy and back.
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Space Operas - Good Story telling!
- By Madge on 01-27-10
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Weapons of Choice
- Axis of Time, Book 1
- By: John Birmingham
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 20 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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History is rewritten in an instant as the future smashes into the past, and high-tech hardware goes head to head with World War Two technology. In the chaos that ensues, thousands are killed, but the maelstrom has only just begun. The veterans of Pearl Harbor have never seen a helicopter, or a cruise missile - let alone nanotechnology, ceramic bullets, and F22 Raptor stealth jetfighters. Allied and Axis forces are then caught in a desperate struggle to gain the upper hand.
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The story line is a political stretch
- By Bruce on 04-18-15
By: John Birmingham
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Flight of the Intruder
- Jake Grafton, Book 1
- By: Stephen Coonts
- Narrated by: Benjamin L. Darcie
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed as the finest combat aviation novel to emerge from the Vietnam War, Flight of the Intruder spent 28 weeks on the New York Times hardcover best-seller list and became one of the top-20 best-selling first novels of all time. An instant classic, the book was translated into more than 20 languages and made into a major motion picture. Its hero, Jake Grafton, became a household name and the star of many more Coonts’ best-sellers. Without question, the strength of the book lies in its flying scenes when Jake Grafton straps himself into the cockpit of his A-6 Intruder.
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Great stuff! War and romance.
- By Wayne on 07-30-17
By: Stephen Coonts
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Independence Day: Resurgence
- The Official Movie Novelization
- By: Alex Irvine
- Narrated by: William Hope
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Hybrid fighters merging human and alien technology. Massive cannon emplacements on the moon and Mars. A planetary defense force with the finest military personnel ever trained. For two decades we've known the enemy would return. The nations of Earth have collaborated on a unified defense program designed to defend the planet.
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Excellent audiobook.
- By Jackson C. Frazier on 06-06-16
By: Alex Irvine
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The Engines of God
- By: Jack McDevitt
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Humans call them Monument-Makers. An unknown race, they left stunning alien statues scattered on distant planets throughout the galaxy, encoded with strange inscriptions that defy translation. Searching for clues about the Monument-Makers, teams of 23rd century linguists, historians, engineers and archaeologists have been excavating the enigmatic alien ruins on a number of planets, uncovering strange, massive false cities made of solid rock. But their time is running out.
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Conceptually intriguing, but uneven writing style
- By Michael G Kurilla on 05-12-11
By: Jack McDevitt
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Homeworld
- By: Harry Harrison
- Narrated by: Charles Carr
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Jan Kulozik was one of Earth's privileged elite. A brilliant young electronics engineer, he enjoyed all the blessings of a twenty-third-century civilization that survived global collapse and conquered the starts, unaware of the millions who slaved or starved to maintain his way of life. Then Jan met Sara, a beautiful agent of the rebel underground dedicated to smashing Earth's rigid caste system. Through her he discovered the truth behind the lies he'd been taught.
By: Harry Harrison
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A Talent for War
- An Alex Benedict Novel
- By: Jack McDevitt
- Narrated by: Gregory Abbey, Jack McDevitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knew the legend of Christopher Sim. Fighter. Leader. An interstellar hero with a rare talent for war, Sim changed mankind's history forever when he forged a ragtag group of misfits into the weapon that broke the back of the alien Ashiyyur. But now, Alex Benedict has found a startling bit of information, long buried in an ancient computer file. If it is true, then Christopher Sim was a fraud.
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Very good - but the cover and title are deceptive
- By Brian on 09-25-10
By: Jack McDevitt
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Legion of the Damned
- Legion of the Damned, Book 1
- By: William C. Dietz
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In the future, the terminally ill can prolong life by surrendering their consciousness to a cybernetic life form that is then recruited into the notorious Legion of the Damned, an elite fighting unit charged with protecting humanity.
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Pretty poor
- By Taliesin on 05-09-10
By: William C. Dietz
What listeners say about The Cosmic Computer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jenny Everywhere
- 01-28-17
Good, but reader should have looked stuff up.
My biggest problem with this reading was that the reader should have looked up how to pronounce "Poictesme". It's not "poyk-TEZ-mee", it's "pwah-TEM". It's a portmanteau of two French city names. The rest of the reading was okay, but every time I heard that mangled planet name, it jarred.
This is not an unreasonable expectation, for a reader to check the pronunciation for unusual words.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Mike Lyman
- 09-04-24
Please learn how to pronounce the character and place names
Poictesme (pwa.‘tem’). Not Poi-tes-me
Anse is not pronounced Ans-ee
Listen to a version on LibriVox
Please
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- Londell
- 03-17-16
Excellent storytelling
I simply love the major theme of this book. Everything needed to get the planets economy up and running was right in front of them the entire time. Merlin wasn't necessary.
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- Allen W. Mcdonnell
- 02-27-23
Terro-Human Future History by Piper
H. Beam Piper was a successful author for over a decade and placed his stories in two separate settings, Paratime or the Terro-Human Future History THFH. Cosmic Computer is set near the end of the first phase of the THFH when the population of Poictesme find themselves in a major economic depression following the end of the civil war where the System States Alliance rebelled against the Federation and nearly succeeded in breaking away to form an independent group outside the Federation. After the victory the Federation withdrew their forces so quickly they abandoned trillions valuable military hardware behind and the most popular way for the civilians left behind to make a living is to gather up abandoned military surplus and ship it off planet at bargain prices to colonies where dangerous wildlife or criminals need to be defeated. With hundreds of worlds there is always someone somewhere who can use weapons and ammunition but living as scavenger's has collapsed most other aspects of the local economy.
The audible version of the book is solid and makes for a good listen, especially if you are already familiar with Piper and his style of writing.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Katherine
- 02-27-14
There's a lot going on in this short SF quest
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
Conn Maxwell is returning to his impoverished backwater home planet, Poictesme (a nod to James Branch Cabell), after years at the university where he studied computer science. The leaders of Poictesme sent him to school so that he could learn about MERLIN, a legendary supercomputer that is thought to be located somewhere near their planet. They believe that if they can find MERLIN, they will have the information and guidance they need to raise the economic power and status of Poictesme back to its former glory. It used to be an important military outpost but it was abandoned by the government when the war ended. Some farmers remain (they produce a highly prized brandy) along with all the stuff that the military left behind.
Now that Conn has returned, the search for MERLIN can begin. But there are people on Poictesme who don’t believe in the legend. There are others who don’t want to find MERLIN — they are afraid of what a supercomputer might do to them. And there are still others who only want to find MERLIN for themselves. Conn must work with all of these people — and some of them are his own family members — to try to do the best thing for his planet. And that might mean telling a big lie!
The Cosmic Computer, also published as Junkyard Planet, is the third book in Piper’s TERRAN FEDERATION series, but it can stand alone. (I have not read the previous novels, Uller Uprising and Four Day Planet.) The Cosmic Computer is a fun science fiction quest story that has a lot going on despite its short length. There’s plenty of science and technology — robotics, engineering, astronautics. Some of this is quite dated because the book was published in 1963, but one of Piper’s female characters is a roboticist (the “real” women don’t like her, of course). There’s also lots of business, economics, sociology, religion, politics, and psychology. Plus, space battles!
It’s a little hard to believe that the people of Poictesme couldn’t figure out another way to make their planet prosper (it will be obvious to any reader). The reveal at the end is really hard to swallow, too, but this is still a nice adventure story with an interesting premise, some exciting exploration, and a couple of unexpected plot twists. The Cosmic Computer has some obvious parallels with Asimov’s ROBOT and FOUNDATION stories.
The Cosmic Computer is now in the public domain. I got the Kindle version for free and then purchased the audiobook for $1.99 with Amazon’s Whispersync deal. Jeffrey Kafer’s narration is quite nice.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Brian Lee Gnad (The Bubba Man)
- 05-03-24
Another old favorite classic
I've re-read this book many times and always enjoyed it. As a computer guy, I am greatly amused by the 'peak' of computer technology and how, back in the 1950s they thought that computers would just get bigger, with the same interfaces. It makes me wonder just how badly wrong we are in our expectations of where technology is going.
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- A User
- 02-26-15
Terrible.
What disappointed you about The Cosmic Computer?
The performance.
What was most disappointing about H. Beam Piper’s story?
Ugh. A bunch of post US civil war frontiers men with about the same political views, walking around toting guns, starting companies left right and centre for every purpose other than to prospect the darn computer. The attitude towards women is pretty offensive too, and about as dated as the paper-tape spitting cosmic computer that has an interface taking hours to decipher.
What didn’t you like about Jeffrey Kafer’s performance?
It sounded like he was sight reading. The prosody was off-kilter and difficult to follow -- I have heard better from text-to-speech systems.
What character would you cut from The Cosmic Computer?
They're all so slow witted.
Any additional comments?
Don't buy it. It's probably better to read it yourself, if you're interested in antiquated guesses about the future with antiquated political and social views. I was glad to finish it and disappointed that they didn't all wipe themselves out.
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