Probability Series by Brian N. Ball, Unknown

He had forgotten his real name, so they called him "Spingarn" after the last role he had played. He was the man the directors of the Frmaes regarded as their major headache - for he was guilty of two unforgivable arrogances. He had programmed himself into every one of the vast world-staged dramas he had directed - and he had reactivated the forbidden Frames of the pre-human planet of Talisker... moreHe had forgotten his real name, so they called him "Spingarn" after the last role he had played. He was the man the directors of the Frmaes regarded as their major headache - for he was guilty of two unforgivable arrogances. He had programmed himself into every one of the vast world-staged dramas he had directed - and he had reactivated the forbidden Frames of the pre-human planet of Talisker.In those days of an overcrowded colonized cosmos, a thousand years from now, the Frames were the major means of diversion. Historical re-creations and fictional dramas played out with planets as stages and whle populations as actors - the Frame directors and their robot assistants had become the masters of all life.They could not destroy Spingarn, THE PROBABILITY MAN, but they could sentence him to undo the damage he had done. So he was sent to the mad Frames of Talisker to unravel the secret of their origin a billion years before the universe. less

The Frames were only a realization of the ultimate form of escape. Books, films, sensors, complete total experience - and finally the Frames. The saviors of civilization had shown the way: move the tribes of Americans to Europe, the tribes of the Germans to Spain, the tribes of the English to Switzerland and permutate the combinations endlessly. Use trains, then aircraft, then spaceships... moreThe Frames were only a realization of the ultimate form of escape. Books, films, sensors, complete total experience - and finally the Frames. The saviors of civilization had shown the way: move the tribes of Americans to Europe, the tribes of the Germans to Spain, the tribes of the English to Switzerland and permutate the combinations endlessly. Use trains, then aircraft, then spaceships.The Frames of the Thirtieth Century were a logical extension of the Mechanical Age's exploitation of the means of mass travel. Now, whole populations moved to new areas of experience. New worlds - new re-created worlds - were manufactured for them. And it had all begun on Talisker. But whatever had left the monstrous scenery on Talisker's desert had not begun anywhere in our universe. less