Does anyone know the author of “The Box”? A short story that appeared in OMNI magazine in the 70s or 80s? (Just try doing a google on “the box” and omni!).
It was about a college student who created a computer that really did know everything. Was it ever in an anthology (it’s not in any OMNI ones).
Googling <“the box” “short story” omni> gives this page, with “the Box” by Jack Ketchum about half way down the page.
Any good?
For an sf story index, nothing beats the Locus Index to Science Fiction.
Entering “The Box” into the 1984-1998 link brings up 6 stories with that title, none of which appeared in Omni.
Jack Ketchum’s “The Box” appeared in Cemetery Dance in 1994. It also appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighth Annual Collection (1995).
None of the other stories beginning with “box” originated in Omni either.
If you’re positive it was an Omni story, the Locus index does have an issue by issue listing of Omni fiction, but you have to go through that yourself.
Note: although it says 1984-1988 that list goes all the way back because it appears to have incorporated the entire contents of the Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections, Combined Edition, Copyright © 2003 by William G. Contento.
Another excellent place to go is The Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase.
Plugging “box” into search gives 315 matches from The X-Files: Triple Box Set to World’s [sic] Beyond Dune-5Vols (Boxed). That means you can eliminate lots of titles real fast. Enjoy.
There’s also this page , which is a listing of Omni fiction. Nothing called “The Box”, unfortunately; it also wasn’t in the article database that indexes Omni that I looked through.
Are you sure of the title? Do you know the author’s name (or even first name)?