Junkyard Planet

Imagine a planet covered in giant junk piles from a big space war. A smart boy named Conn comes home from school and everyone thinks there's a magic super-computer hidden in the junk that can fix everything. But Conn finds out it's not real, and bad guys are tricking people, so he helps everyone clean up and make new stuff to save their world with their own hard work!

In H. Beam Piper's 'Junkyard Planet,' set on the war-ravaged world of Poictesme, protagonist Conn Maxwell returns from university on Terra amid rumors of a hidden supercomputer called Omega, rumored to possess godlike economic foresight capable of reviving the planet's fortunes. The planet, littered with massive junkyards from the System States War, clings to hope through local syndicates led by figures like Mayor Kurt Fawzi, who fund Conn's quest to locate Omega among the scrap heaps, only to uncover layers of deception, corporate exploitation, and the harsh reality that blind faith in technology cannot substitute for human ingenuity and honest labor. As Conn delves deeper, he exposes a conspiracy involving off-world interests profiting from Poictesme's stagnation, navigating betrayals, pirate threats, and moral dilemmas while rallying locals to repurpose junk into viable industry. The novel culminates in a pragmatic renaissance, emphasizing self-reliance over mythical machines, with Piper critiquing post-war dependency and celebrating entrepreneurial revival in a vividly detailed future history.