Paul Tabori’s The Doomsday Brain

The Doomsday Brain, published in 1967, was the first volume in Paul Tabori’s Hunters trilogy.

Hungarian-born Paul Tabori (1908-1974) wrote in various genres and his work tends to be wild and imaginative, rather eccentric and often brilliant.

The Doomsday Brain is a spy thriller with some science fiction elements.

An eccentric tycoon has established an international crime-fighting and counter-intelligence network known as The Hunters. They insist that they’re not in the business of revenge and they’re not vigilantes but since they track down criminals who have not been brought to justice by the proper authorities they certainly seem to have some vigilante tendencies.

Computers are malfunctioning all over the world. These do not appear to be random malfunctions, It’s beginning to look like there’s a conspiracy afoot.

It may have something to do with a German war criminal on the run. He now calls himself Master Brug. His mad scientist inclinations have led him to an interest in computers and their potential for mind control.

This mad scientist is fascinated by the idea that the human brain is a kind of organic computer (a delusion that still has its adherents today).

The trail leads the three Hunter field operatives to eastern Europe - to Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

There are various shady characters involved as well as an assortment of Eastern Bloc government and secret police officials some of whom may be thinking of defecting, some of whom may be double agents, some may be sympathetic to the Hunters and some may be in league that that German mad scientist. 

There is limitless potential for double-crosses. And a great deal of paranoia.

Naturally there are women involved, who may be dangerous or treacherous but they’re definitely willing to employ the arts of seduction.

Mind control in various forms was a major obsession in 1960s spy and sci-fi novels, TV series and movies. This novel is interesting because it deals with computers as a tool for world domination. This was 1967. Nobody really knew just how many things computer might potentially be used for. The idea that computers might be used for sinister purposes, for gaining power through the control of information, was beginning to gain traction. This is a novel about the use of computers to achieve world domination which was still a fairly exciting new idea for writers to explore.

Exactly how the computer mind control works does get glossed over a bit. But this is a spy thriller, not a textbook.

It’s a reasonably action-packed story, the Hunters make use of some cool and offbeat gadgets, there’s 1960s cutting-edge tchnology and it builds to a fairly wild climax (as Tabori’s novels tend to do).

The Doomsday Brain is decent entertainment and it’s recommended.

I’ve reviewed some of Tabori’s other books. His Demons of Sandorra is a superb provocative nicely crazy dystopian science fiction novel. The Green Rain is an intriguing sci-fi satire. The Wild White Witch (written using the pseudonym Peter Stafford) is hugely entertaining historical sleaze with admixtures of voodoo and witchcraft.