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Renolf, Vincent. Vincent Renolf was created by “Eando Binder,” the pseudonym of Earl Binder (Invisible Robinhood, Adam Link, Little People, Dan Williams, Anton York) and Otto Binder (Invisible Robinhood, Adam Link, Little People, Mad Moor, Dan Williams, Anton York), and appeared in “Spawn of Eternal Thought” (Astounding Stories, Apr-May 1936).

In the near future Dr. Hartwell and his assistant Vincent Renolf have successfully created an organic computer consisting of ten Brains in a Jar. The brains belonged to ten leading scientists and are controlled by a headset, but Hartwell dies as the computer comes to life, leaving Renolf and Hartwell’s daughter Dora in control of the computer. The purpose of the computer is to better mankind’s lot, so Renolf begins doing just this, by inventing a new kind of television and then a spaceship armed with a force field and disintegrators. Renolf uses the spaceship to force global disarmament. Renolf then creates a governing council to rule the world.

Dora Hartwell is affianced to Renolf, but she comes to see that when Renolf wears the computer’s headset, he is superhumanly brilliant but also cold and arrogant, and when he is free of the headset, he is just a kind genius. Renolf begins exploring the solar system in search of a mental wave he once detected, but the planets of the system all have dead civilizations. On Saturn’s moon Tycho Renolf finds a creature, the Spawn of Eternal Thought, which survives by eating planets and sentient species. The Spawn isn’t ready to devour humanity, so Renolf decides to attack it now. He needs more Brains in a Jar–ninety more–and they are given to him. Now linked to all one hundred Brains, Renolf succeeds in killing the Spawn with two mentally-created atomic explosions.

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