I was talking with Simon about the Aurora Awards, complaining that I didn’t read as much recent canadian science-fiction and fantasy books and stories as I would want to. He then sent me to this page. It’s a short story by Cory Doctorow, a science-fiction author I read a few times in the past two years. This short story has been published in 2005 in Infinite Matrix and has been nominated for many awards.

Now the short story… First, it’s slightly related to Isaac Asimov‘s I, Robot (who, by the way, was not the first one to use that title.) I say slightly related because it’s definitivly a different story, but still, robots in Cory Doctorow’s story are bound by the three laws of robotics and have positronic brains.

The story is about Arturo, a policeman living in Toronto with his teenage daughter, Ada. His ex-wife, a brilliant positronic scientist, fled to Europe after the birth of their daughter and Arturo had to raise her the best he could. One day, Ada disapear and even the sophisticated police-robots Arturo sends after her can’t find where she is. Arturo finds out that renegate robots and positronic brains from Europe — and not bound by the three laws of robotics — are involved.

Cory’s short story I, Robot is about the implication of police state and laws having too much control over scientific inovation. I once though the three laws of robotics were a great concept Isaac Asimov came up with and now I have to admit they are far from being perfect.

The ending has this little something that makes me feel like this story is some sort of prequel to Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

You can also listen to Cory reading his short story as a podcast. Point your podcatchers here. (You will have to go back through the archive to download this story.)

Tags Technorati : review | ebook | creative commons | short story | science fiction | cory doctorow | audio book | podcast

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Lectures by Alexandre Lemieux