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RWJ · 10-21-2008, 02:04 PM

I have no idea if this is the right sub-forum - it's not about something I'm actually reading, so I thought here was most apt.

A couple of years ago I was staying at a friend's and read an anthology of SF short stories, all by the same author. They were pretty bleak, and Ellison-like; one of them was about a world in which all the humans lived underground in bunkers to avoid the radioactive pollution from nuclear war, but sent robots up top to keep fighting, and the robots decided never to tell the humans it was safe, so they could live in peace up top. In another, a primitive society worships a computer that they think is a god, and every year, a challenger has to ask it an unanswerable question, but if the computer can answer, they are "eaten" by the computer (dissolved in acid.) The friend has no idea what book it was (wasn't hers) and I am thinking it's either Philip K Dick or Ellison, but can't find anything to confirm this.

So, I promise vast (well, according to what I can give) karma points to anybody who can tell me who wrote this, in what book, or just confirm that they've read it too and I'm not going crazy(er).

10-21-2008, 02:04 PM	#1
RWJ Zealot Posts: 120 Karma: 170 Join Date: Jul 2008 Device: PRS-505	Help me place this SciFi! I have no idea if this is the right sub-forum - it's not about something I'm actually reading, so I thought here was most apt. A couple of years ago I was staying at a friend's and read an anthology of SF short stories, all by the same author. They were pretty bleak, and Ellison-like; one of them was about a world in which all the humans lived underground in bunkers to avoid the radioactive pollution from nuclear war, but sent robots up top to keep fighting, and the robots decided never to tell the humans it was safe, so they could live in peace up top. In another, a primitive society worships a computer that they think is a god, and every year, a challenger has to ask it an unanswerable question, but if the computer can answer, they are "eaten" by the computer (dissolved in acid.) The friend has no idea what book it was (wasn't hers) and I am thinking it's either Philip K Dick or Ellison, but can't find anything to confirm this. So, I promise vast (well, according to what I can give) karma points to anybody who can tell me who wrote this, in what book, or just confirm that they've read it too and I'm not going crazy(er).