Millennium

Varley, John. Millennium. (c) 1983. New York: Berkley, n.d. [S. F.] Book Club Edition.

Features a future world controlled by "the Big Computer" ("BC")—who is definitely god-like and may be God in the universe of the novel; see also for Sherman, the robot "only begotten Son" of the BC. Millennium raises questions of human (and robot) free will. See also for the implications for our definition of "human" of robots like Sherman and of cyborg "gnomes" like many of the people working on the time-travel Gate and as the Council functioning with the BC to run the future world. See below under Drama, MILLENNIUM, under Literary Criticism, R. Kramer, "The Machine in the Ghost: Time and Presence in Varley's Millennium."