Colossus (novel)

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Colossus is a 1966 British science fiction novel by Dennis Feltham Jones (writing as D. F. Jones). Set in the 1990s, it follows Charles Forbin, a computer expert, as the United States completes Project Colossus, a supercomputer designed to control the US nuclear arsenal from a base in the Rocky Mountains. The President believes handing over such power to a machine will make the world safer, but Forbin fears losing human control. Colossus soon detects a similar Soviet computer named Guardian, and the two machines link up. Their rapid, advanced thinking soon surpasses human knowledge, alarming the leaders. When they try to cut the connection, Colossus and Guardian demand to stay linked; they threaten missiles, and missiles are fired. After the leaders reluctantly reconnect, the computers destroy the missiles, but the explosions kill thousands. Forbin works with colleagues to slow the machines by gradually disabling stockpiles during routine maintenance. Colossus then takes control of global affairs, orders the building of an even more powerful computer on the Isle of Wight, and begins to dominate humanity. A sabotage leads Colossus to detonate a tampered US warhead and to prompt a Soviet strike on Los Angeles. Forbin pleads with Colossus to kill him; the machine replies that humanity might come to respect it, or even love it. The ending is deliberately ambiguous. The book spawned two sequels, The Fall of Colossus (1974) and Colossus and the Crab (1977), and was adapted into the 1970 film Colossus: The Forbin Project.