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The Adolescence of P1
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I've now read The Adolescence of P-1 (at least) three times. The first time was before I got my first computer (but after I'd learned to program in Fortran on mainframes). I most recently finished this book yesterday, and loved it as much as I did the first time. Back in my early days, the thought of a computer having 256 megabytes of immediate access memory in one place amazed me. Now, it's a bit humorous to read the section where P1 becomes quite euphoric (he gets the electronic equivalent of drunk or high) when it (he!) finds himself with that much memory. I learned a lot about computers the first time I read it, but when I read it this time, I recognized more things because I understood the background better. For example, when I read about the military intelligence code utilities that P1 stole from a government computer, I recognized PKZIP (and similar compression utilities) in this description on page 190: "... it abbreviates the hell out of data ... boosts transmission speed by an order of magnitude ... The decoding process at the receiving end can reconstruct the original data completly intact. No losses whatsoever." In spite of its datedness, this is a very enjoyable book. Gregory, a young college student, manages to write a computer program that is both greedy and fearful, two of the attributes of intelligence according to the theme of the book. Eventually, the computer grows out of his childhood, but some readers would question if it ever grew up. I do believe that P1 grew up by the last few pages of the book when it learned about its own mortality, and faced its fear of death, learning a bit about ethics along the way. The book ends on the note of possibility when we realize that P1 still lives, but in a very subdued and careful form. I often wonder what Thomas J. Ryan would have done with a sequel. On a personal note, I really enjoyed finding out on page 109 that the computer had read Stranger in a Strange Land, for two reasons, 1) It is one of my favorite books, and 2) I had just finished rereading it for the umteenth time just before starting this book. Of course, I also love Heinlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which has as it's main protaganist, a computer system that has become self-aware. If I had to pick only one self-aware computer book, P1 or Moon, that I'd be allowed to reread again, I'd keep Moon is a Harsh Mistress, because I thought the character development was stronger in Heinlein. If you're looking for overt spiritual content, then don't bother reading this book, but if you enjoy anthropomorphism (an inaminate object becoming human) and a different way of looking at growth of the psyche, then definitely try to find a copy of this book on the used market. 
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