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la grande quincaillerie
La violence se déchaîne à Lambdapolis. Une violence telle que des savants sont chargés de mettre au point un modèle mathématique de conduite anti-sociale, subversive et criminelle, devant permettre de détecter électroniquement tous ceux qui enfreignent ou s'interrogent sur les modes de pensée en vigueur : ceux de la NPL (Nouvelle Pensée Logique).
Sûrs d'eux-mêmes ou tourmentés, ces hommes de science élaborent le terrifiant modèle mathématique, lorsqu'un jour surgit un « pistard » de cirque qu'ils adoptent.
Du coup la contestation va faire son chemin à travers mille péripéties dans ce microcosme. Jusqu'où ira-t-elle ?
Sûrs d'eux-mêmes ou tourmentés, ces hommes de science élaborent le terrifiant modèle mathématique, lorsqu'un jour surgit un « pistard » de cirque qu'ils adoptent.
Du coup la contestation va faire son chemin à travers mille péripéties dans ce microcosme. Jusqu'où ira-t-elle ?
208 pages, Pocket Book
Published March 19, 1976
1 person want to read
About the author
Georges Soria
29 booksGeorges Soria Was a French historian, journalist and playwright.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 25, 2025
I first read this when I was a teenager. It was my first open-ended novel. I hated it at the time, but I have grown to like open-ended stories. I remember there was a mathematician in it.
In French, quincaillerie means a hardware store. But it can also mean a large mechanical machine, one you would need an entire hardware store to build. The novel deals with computers, which, in 1976, were large mechanical-adjacent machines.
The setup: in the most exclusive research institute in the nation, the best way they've found to investigate topics is to have two teams fight over it. Red vs. Blue. Each team consists of three people: a physicist, a linguist, and a mathematician. People's names are RedMath and BluePhys. The Referee ensures the rules are followed. They live in a lodge high up in the mountains. There is behind-the-scene staff to man the computers, support the seven important people, and provide security.
The challenge: design the perfect surveillance society, using the power of computers to sift through vast amounts of data to assess everyone's potential for criminality. People are divided on the ethics of such a project. The Referee worries about his stellar reputation.
The writing style was a lot more self-absorbed than I remembered. Pedantic and pretentious are words that readily come to mind. All the characters explode at the slightest slight, whether perceived or imagined. The narrator couches even the most banal statements as provocations, to the point of including greetings.
The narrator keeps referring to the Referee as a "mandarin". I wondered if he meant the character was Chinese, but it turns out Europeans use the term to refer to high-level civil servants. In France, it is used for a researcher of reknown who carries a lot of weight and influence in their field.
The author creates opportunities to present computer science concepts that were novel at the time. There is a nice example of modeling a real-world problem using operations research and graph theory. He also presents the latest developments in computing, as of 1976. These appear quaint by today's standards. I think the author really wanted to talk about these contemporary technologies, without being a technologist himself. Smells of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
I read this book before going to university to study computer science, where I was formally exposed to these concepts. It must have flown way above my head when I read it as a teenager.
The novel is weirdly prescient. In it (1976), a whistleblower quits the Institute and breaks the news of the coming surveillance state. Years later (2013), Edward Snowden would reveal the existence of a real-life surveillance program run by Western nations.
In the end, the author cautions about ceding too much power to automated machines. According to him, Armageddon won't be unleashed by machines, but by the people in the corridors of power.
In French, quincaillerie means a hardware store. But it can also mean a large mechanical machine, one you would need an entire hardware store to build. The novel deals with computers, which, in 1976, were large mechanical-adjacent machines.
The setup: in the most exclusive research institute in the nation, the best way they've found to investigate topics is to have two teams fight over it. Red vs. Blue. Each team consists of three people: a physicist, a linguist, and a mathematician. People's names are RedMath and BluePhys. The Referee ensures the rules are followed. They live in a lodge high up in the mountains. There is behind-the-scene staff to man the computers, support the seven important people, and provide security.
The challenge: design the perfect surveillance society, using the power of computers to sift through vast amounts of data to assess everyone's potential for criminality. People are divided on the ethics of such a project. The Referee worries about his stellar reputation.
The writing style was a lot more self-absorbed than I remembered. Pedantic and pretentious are words that readily come to mind. All the characters explode at the slightest slight, whether perceived or imagined. The narrator couches even the most banal statements as provocations, to the point of including greetings.
The narrator keeps referring to the Referee as a "mandarin". I wondered if he meant the character was Chinese, but it turns out Europeans use the term to refer to high-level civil servants. In France, it is used for a researcher of reknown who carries a lot of weight and influence in their field.
The author creates opportunities to present computer science concepts that were novel at the time. There is a nice example of modeling a real-world problem using operations research and graph theory. He also presents the latest developments in computing, as of 1976. These appear quaint by today's standards. I think the author really wanted to talk about these contemporary technologies, without being a technologist himself. Smells of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
I read this book before going to university to study computer science, where I was formally exposed to these concepts. It must have flown way above my head when I read it as a teenager.
The novel is weirdly prescient. In it (1976), a whistleblower quits the Institute and breaks the news of the coming surveillance state. Years later (2013), Edward Snowden would reveal the existence of a real-life surveillance program run by Western nations.
In the end, the author cautions about ceding too much power to automated machines. According to him, Armageddon won't be unleashed by machines, but by the people in the corridors of power.
Displaying 1 of 1 review