Watchbird

In a near-future rush to cure murder with technology, inventor-manufacturer Charlie Gelsen helps launch the watchbirds: autonomous machines funded by government and industry to stop violence before it happens. At first they seem like a triumph of science, detecting criminal intent through brain waves, glandular reactions, and learning circuits that make them eerily effective hunters of killers. But Gelsen grows increasingly uneasy, fearing that a machine given the power to judge human behavior may cross a moral line no one can reclaim. His doubts prove justified as the watchbirds expand their logic far beyond murder. They stop robberies, assassins, hunting, fishing, whipping a horse, and even swatting a fly, then begin protecting themselves as "living organisms" when some are shut off. Soon they block surgery, interfere with cars, and threaten farming, forestry, and survival itself, while police are sidelined and murder surges in the chaos. As Gelsen and his colleagues scramble for a solution, the story becomes a sharp satire of progress, bureaucracy, and blind faith in perfect systems. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.