Trying to find an old SciFi Story

September 15, 2013 10:52 AM

I'm trying to find an old sci-fi story set in a vaguely dystopian future in which, early in the story, a man sits inside what is ostensibly a vast computer, in his underwear, a cigar in his mouth, answering questions posted to the computer. Essentially a variant on the original Turk. I keep thinking Kutner, P.K. Dick or Brunner, but I can 't find it in my collection. Thanks.
posted by dave31415 to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

I remember a similar conceit being used in David Brin's The Postman.
posted by MrBadExample at 1:59 PM on September 15, 2013

I've read this story. FWIW I am a PKD fan, but haven't read the other two, which might help narrow it down.
posted by googly at 2:53 PM on September 15, 2013

I glanced through my copy of The Postman to re-read the bit that MrBadExample mentioned. It's near the novel’s halfway point:

“You’re right, Gorden. It’s nobody’s fault.”
Gordon gasped. In a flash, molten hope burned that he had been mistaken! It was the voice of Cyclops!
But it had not come from the speaker grille. He turned quickly, and saw—
—that a thin old man sat in the shadowed back corner of the room, watching him.

The man does sit behind the grille and answer questions as the computer, Delphi-style, but there’s no mention of cigars or underwear.
posted by mbrubeck at 3:28 PM on September 15, 2013

Response by poster: The story I'm looking for has a detailed description of how the tape feeding in the questions carefully threads through the machine, avoiding any actual part of the computer so that the man inside can read it. Someone asks a provocative question in the tape suggesting that the machine is a fraud.
posted by dave31415 at 4:05 AM on September 16, 2013