This is a quirky little book, sci-fi in its way, written by the Italian author Buzzati in 1960. The plot is an odd one, these days, but due to my background, I know where he’s coming from.
Professor Ismani is summoned by the Department of Defense to accept, along with his wife Elisa, a top secret two year assignment in the Swiss Alps. They are given no information other than it is not a military assignment, but agree to it anyway. It is a secretive journey to the isolated research center, perched in a high mountain valley, surrounded by forests and steep cliffs. Clearly, they are going to be here for the duration. The assignment is very vague at the moment, but it turns out there is a reason they were specifically chosen.
They find that the walls of this valley are covered with strange interconnected buildings, more or less like tunnels, and the only sign of activity are various radar that protrude from the tops and are seemingly in constant and random movement. And then there is the sensation that there are voices, only vaguely heard, but are starting to sound strikingly familiar to Elisa as that of her dear childhood friend, Laura. But Laura, who oddly enough was the director of this place’s first wife, passed away awhile ago. Maybe.
A freaky imagination of artificial intelligence, written in an era when a large computer was assumed to be better. (Early 70s, my college IBM took up an entire building and still could never compete with a Walmart $1 calculator. The chip revolution was still before us.) So I get it. Despite all the hand-waving and vagueness, this book still gets its point across. And check out the cover. That was drawn by the author. Let that sink into your nightmares.
