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Cory Doctorow's 'I, Robot' Posted

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the if-you-like-that-sort-of-thing dept.

maxentius writes "A bunch of new stuff has been posted to The Infinite Matrix , reports editor Eileen Gunn, including a new 15,000- word short story from Cory Doctorow entitled 'I, Robot.' Other new additions include material from Howard Waldrop and Patrick O'Leary."

5 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'm writing Cory Doctorow's Biography by OzRoy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well it's a trick that seemed to work for Isaac Asimov. The original "I, Robot" was a short story written by Eando Binder. Isaac Asimov was apparently appaled when he learned that his collection was going to be renamed from "Mind and Iron" to "I, Robot".

  2. Re:IP by Eric+Giguere · · Score: 4, Informative

    If the Asimov estate sued, he'd just have to point them to the issue of Asimov's where Isaac himself stated that you can't copyright titles. Now, an argument could be made for trademarking titles in certain circumstances, but in general a title doesn't qualify for protection.

    References:

    Eric
    Vioxx recall reduces spam (humor)
    JavaScript is not Java! (serious)
  3. Neat Idea - shame about the writing by samael · · Score: 3, Informative

    I do like the way he's dissected some of the ideas in Asimov.

    It's just a shame his writing style is stilted and ungainly.

    I've liked bit of his writing, and a fair few of his ideas, but a great writer he aint.

    --
    My Journal
    1. Re:Neat Idea - shame about the writing by FreeUser · · Score: 3, Informative

      I do like the way he's dissected some of the ideas in Asimov.

      It's just a shame his writing style is stilted and ungainly.

      I've liked bit of his writing, and a fair few of his ideas, but a great writer he aint.

      Give him time. He may not be a [insert your favorite author here], but writing styles do tend to improve with time and practice. Try reading some of the early drafts of famouse authors' early works, and you get the idea.

      --
      The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
  4. The reason for the I, Robot title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    From his interview at Locus magazine:
    http://www.locusmag.com/2005/Issues/01Doctorow.htm l

    "I gave up short story writing for a while when I started writing novels (which I think every writer does), but I've started doing it again. What spurred me to it was Bradbury going crazy about Fahrenheit 9/11, saying Michael Moore was a crook for having stolen his title. For a champion of free expression, in the original Fahrenheit 451, to assert that the person who comes up with the meme has the right to control the condition as to who can riff on that meme is not just ironic, it's ludicrous! So I started writing a whole batch of new stories that had the same titles as famous science fiction. I've finished an 'Anda's Game' and an 'I, Robot' and my next one might be a 'Jeffty Is Five'. Ellison's original 'Jeffty' is an anti-technological story -- Harlan's an antitechnological guy. He told us at Clarion that we should get offline and stop screwing around (the best advice I ever ignored). I'm just going to play with that for a while and see how it goes. Let a thousand 'Nightfall's bloom!"