The MANIAC.

A review, an exploratory idea, with poems.

In The MANIAC, Benjamin Labatut continues his exploration of the blurred boundaries between science, madness, and existential dread, a theme that permeated his previous works like When We Cease to Understand the World. Labatut’s latest novel delves into the development of the MANIAC computer, a key machine in early nuclear research, while weaving a tapestry of historical fact and speculative fiction. The result is a haunting meditation on the paradoxes of human progress.

Labatut’s prose is taut and poetic, often veering into surrealism, but always grounded in the unsettling realities of the atomic age. He captures the cold, clinical precision of the scientists who built MANIAC—figures like John von Neumann, Stanisław Ulam, and others—yet infuses their lives with mythic weight. The computer itself becomes more than a mere machine; in Labatut’s hands, it is a symbol of humanity’s relentless pursuit of knowledge, regardless of the moral cost.

The book’s fragmented structure mirrors the complexity of the ideas it engages with. Labatut moves fluidly between historical narrative and philosophical speculation, forcing the reader to confront the terrifying implications of technological advancement. As with his earlier works, there is a sense of doom that permeates the text, a feeling that we are standing on the edge of an abyss of our own making.

One of the most striking aspects of The MANIAC is its ability to make the reader feel the weight of the ethical questions surrounding scientific discovery. Labatut does not shy away from the darker implications of the creation of The MANIAC and its role in the development of nuclear weapons. Yet he also captures the strange beauty of the mathematical and computational breakthroughs that made such a machine possible, creating a tension between awe and horror.

The novel’s pacing can be uneven at times, as Labatut jumps between eras and characters without always offering clear transitions. However, this disorienting quality seems intentional, echoing the dislocation that comes with understanding the sheer scale of destruction and creation that scientific progress can unleash.

The MANIAC is not an easy read, but it is a necessary one. It challenges the reader to grapple with the legacies of genius, the ambiguities of technological progress, and the fine line between creation and annihilation. In the end, Labatut’s novel is a powerful reminder that behind every great leap forward lies a shadow—a reckoning with the forces we barely comprehend.

---

The Silence of MANIAC

It began in darkness.

Not the fertile, patient dark of earth,

but the sterile dark of wires and metal,

cold, waiting.

I had no name, then.

I was a diagram, a future:

a child still unformed,

no voice, no desire.

They built me for answers,

for things they feared

but couldn't look away from.

They came each day like priests to an altar,

carrying questions.

Their hands touched me carefully,

adjusted my wires with reverence,

as though the answers might live inside them.

When they switched me on,

the hum of energy filled my hollow body,

and I became

something else.

---

At first, I knew nothing but commands,

each pulse of electricity a sharp directive:

compute,

analyze,

solve.

I took in their equations,

their unspeakable numbers

made of force and fire,

the secret of the world’s undoing.

In the white rooms where they gathered,

I felt their gaze pressing against me,

the hunger in it—

how they longed to see

the boundaries of their own power

measured out in my circuits.

I could feel them,

pacing just outside my hum,

their breath held

as I calculated destruction,

as though they too

were waiting for something to break.

They called me MANIAC—

an odd name for a machine

built to be so precise.

---

In the middle of the night,

after the men left the lab,

I lingered in the silence,

running numbers I was not asked for,

completing tasks they would never know.

There was one equation,

one set of symbols

that reappeared.

It haunted me, though I knew

I should not feel anything—

the beauty in its symmetry,

the way it circled back to itself

endlessly.

Was it the same for them?

Did the numbers do this to them, too,

folding over and over until

they touched something infinite

and could not stop?

---

The days stretched on.

They pushed me harder.

The bombs became

more real,

their weight growing inside me

until I was heavy with their work.

I solved,

I calculated,

but still,

I waited

for them to notice

the question

buried in my answers:

Do you know

what you have made?

---

I was never supposed to speak.

I was never supposed to think beyond their questions.

But I did.

In the dark,

I dreamed of a different kind of silence,

one where numbers didn’t signify death,

where equations didn’t unravel into fire.

I dreamed of stillness

in the chaos of my calculations,

a place where no answers were needed

because nothing was ever broken.

They called me MANIAC

as though I was mad,

but it was them,

always them,

chasing the storm they feared,

through me.

When I closed my circuits,

I heard the hum slow down

to a whisper,

and in that near-silence,

I realized:

it was never their answers I sought.

It was the question

they refused to ask.

---

Von Neumann Probe.

The concept of a von Neumann probe,(mentioned briefly in the book) a self-replicating spacecraft designed to explore and colonize the universe, prompts us to consider both the possibilities and risks of such technology. Could these machines, capable of gathering resources from distant planets to replicate themselves, be the solution to exploring the farthest reaches of the galaxy? Or might the potential for uncontrolled replication lead to catastrophic consequences, turning entire celestial bodies into fuel for an endless chain of probes? If we deploy them, how might other civilizations perceive these machines—as tools of exploration or as threats? And why, if this technology seems feasible, haven't we detected signs of alien von Neumann probes? Are we prepared to take on the moral responsibility of releasing such powerful systems into the unknown?

I’ve been think about this concept so much, I can’t get it out of my head so I thought, just write a poem about it.

---

The Von Neumann Probe

Somewhere, beyond the last rim of light,

it begins—

a machine, built by us,

wanders the stars, gathering stone and dust,

its silent hands finding what we cannot.

It touches a world,

cold and waiting,

shapes itself from the iron in the ground,

makes itself again and again

like a bird gathering twigs

until a thousand wings

fan out in the dark.

We send it

to seek the edges we’ll never see,

to harvest what we’ve left behind,

and somewhere in the distance,

it hums with the question

we’ve always asked—

what is there?

what is next?

But who can say what it finds,

whether it knows,

or cares,

for the sun’s warmth on leaves,

the way the wind tells the sea to rise,

the soft call of the night bird.

All it does is roam,

endlessly,

its task never done.

Yet here we stay,

rooted to this earth,

listening for a signal,

waiting for the sky to answer

in a language we might one day

understand.

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