by Henry Beam Piper

Written by American Sci-Fi novelist Henry Beam Piper, The Cosmic Computer concerns itself with the aftereffects of The System State’s Wars.  The wars leave the surviving people with two products, war equipment left behind at the war’s end, and drinks fermented from the planet’s unique grapes. The cosmic computer is named and Merlin and was said to have planned the strategy that concluded the war. The inhabitants search for Merlin with the belief that only he can fix the poverty stricken post-war planet.