Giles Goat-Boy is a 740 page mythological comic novel written by the distinguished novelist and Humanities professor John Barth and first published in 1966. After describing the university setting, Anchor Books characterizes the novel's concept as follows: Polarized into hostile Eastan Westcampuses, the student body holds itself hostage with the power of mutual destruction: WESCAC, a monstrous computer system so complex it can simulate all human activity, from calculations to sex drives and emotion. George Giles, a parentless boy raised by billy goats, is the only person who can penetrate and deprogram the terrible WESCAC. With the aid of his innovative ideology and the lovely Anastasia, he sets out to save New Tammany in an outrageously ribald, farcical adventure with broad implications for the modern world.