The Thinking Machine escapes

[mmcirvin]

Jason Rosenhouse is right: Jacques Futrelle's "The Problem of Cell 13" is a hell of a story, though parts of the resolution stretch credibility a little.

One thing I find interesting is that the notion of a "thinking machine" was well-established enough that the phrase could be used as a character nickname in 1906. I wouldn't have expected it to come up until decades later.

Comments

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

That was a great read; alas even Harlan Ellison's endorsement can't quite sell me on something where the one story I've read is universally described as head and shoulders above the rest.

I don't recall that MacGyver episode, though, except for the very end where they have to cross the river-border.

Airships.

[acw.livejournal.com]

Why Futrelle's snarky skepticism about the very possibility of airships? This is already three years after Kitty Hawk.

The story was amusing, but surely we are not supposed to be convinced of the Thinking Machine's point. No spoilers, but I noticed the components of his plan as they were introduced (though, skating close to a spoiler here, I assumed the ink was rat blood), and I dismissed something very like his actual plan because I thought its chances of success so small. You have to admit, the Machine lucked out big-time, and the plan could easily have failed completely. And had the necessary components not been present, he would have been utterly shafted.

Re: Airships.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I wasn't sure about that airship line either. Santos-Dumont had been flying workable dirigibles for a few years too.

I kind of liked the mysterious quips like "There were two other ways out." Hokum, of course, but cleverly inserted.