Cory Doctorow's 'I, Robot' Posted

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."

I'm writing Cory Doctorow's Biography

[bigtallmofo]

The working title that I have for Cory Doctorow's Biography is "You, Plagiarist".

Must be easy to get attention for your short stories when you give them names that were formerly used for best selling novels and blockbuster movies.

The title

[MadChicken]

I realize it's asking a lot, but if people would either READ the ARTICLE or scroll way way to the bottom, they'd see this:

About this story, Cory says, "Last spring, in the wake of Ray Bradbury pitching a tantrum over Michael Moore appropriating the title of 'Fahrenheit 451' to make Fahrenheit 9/11, I conceived of a plan to write a series of stories with the same titles as famous sf shorts, which would pick apart the toalitarian [sic] assumptions underpinning some of sf's classic narratives."

Yes, the title is on purpose. Of course if people did that, there would be no discussions here, would there?

Re:The title

[gowen]

the title is on purpose

Where the hell did anyone suggest otherwise?

Oh god, not again

[Anonymous Coward]

Arturo Icaza de Arana-Goldberg, Police Detective Third Grade, United North American Trading Sphere, Third District, Fourth Prefecture, Second Division (Parkdale) had had many adventures in his distinguished career, running crooks to ground with an unbeatable combination of instinct and unstinting devotion to duty.

This man's writing is so amazingly stilted even reading the first paragraph makes me cringe in horror. For the love of my life, I can't understand the Slashdot infatuation with him. Everything I've ever seen by him has been awful even by pulp SF standards.

Re:Catchy Title...

[DigitumDei]

I really wish they'd mentioned that the author intended to rip off well known titles as part of a series of short stories.

But I guess leaving important details out allows the /. crowd to bitch about copyright, IP and court cases without paying any attention to the real reason the story was done.

Re:Reply to sig

[allgood2]

Obviously, let's just overlook a century or more of blacks passing as white; ignore even the current political ramifications of that history and how it helped foster and mutate internalized racism augmented and supported by class-ism in the African-American community (light skin blacks thinking they're better than dark skin blacks, and middle-class blacks thinking they're better than lower class blacks); all so we can make the non-winning, unintelligent, homophobic argument that "if you can hide, you don't deserve protection".

If meant tons of former heterosexuals. Does that mean your willing to give up your protected status??

Re:Neat Idea - shame about the writing

[Anonymous Coward]

"It was quite disturbing actually to hear someone so praised come across sounding so much like a kid in junior high who couldn't lift their eyes off of the page to look at their audience."

So he reading of his script sounds just like his writing of said scripts then?

Reading through his works on Boing seem to be the same -- his quick postings always seem to be soapbox statements, generally referring to himself in the third person. Its fucking annoying.

I bought one of his books off of Amazon last year when they were blowing it out very cheap and honestly, I couldn't get past the first 30 pages. It read like a high school assignment. He will get better, but the very first thing he needs to do is to hire a great editor -- and not someone that just rubber stamps and spell checks the document before it hits the press (albiet, the anonymous coward writting this post would have been most greatful if this were to have seen if this were the case, capeesh?)

BTW -- I love Boing and I check it before I actually check into /. Some of what he posts is actually interesting. A lot isn't.

Re:The title

[froodiantherapy]

In some ways, this an interesting choice on Cory's part for the genre of SF. It seems that Cory is deliberatly attempting to "folk-song" SF; that is, it seems that Cory wants give Sci-Fi the communal aspects of folk music. Just in the way that folk and blues music is a evolutionary genre handed down from generation to generation, Cory wants to hand down Sci-Fi gems down the generations. Whether this is even remotely feasible (or desirable) is a matter for debate, but it seems he's doing this fully aware of its implications.

Re:Neat Idea - shame about the writing

[FreeUser]

I'm not so convinced. I saw him speak a couple of times. He always spoke like he was reading (and not reading well). It was quite disturbing actually to hear someone so praised come across sounding so much like a kid in junior high who couldn't lift their eyes off of the page to look at their audience.

The saddest part is just how angry this guy always comes across. I really hope it's just an act, otherwise he'll probably have a heart attack by the time he's 40.

You could be right. I don't know anything about this particular guy, nor have I bothered to read any of his stuff yet (I'm strapped for time as it is, despite posting here to slashdot). I was speaking more generally, from my own experience (my writing is improving with practice, and while it isn't where I'd like it to to be, it's a lot better than when I first started) and from my observations of others (I've read early drafts and writings by some of my favorite authors, and compared them to their later stuff, and the early stuff is rough by comparison).

As for the anger thing ... most of us do chill out in time. Maybe not completely, but even stuff which still gets me angry today (monopoly entitlements stifling our culture, creativity, and inventiveness vis-a-vis copyright and patent law, for example, or the religious right's usurpation of our once-democratic government) doesn't leave me enraged the way it would have when I was sixteen. No one can maintain rage on a 24/7 basis, and time tends to mellow one's perspective.

Proud tradition

[Anonymous Coward]

About this story, Cory says, "Last spring, in the wake of Ray Bradbury pitching a tantrum over Michael Moore appropriating the title of 'Fahrenheit 451' to make Fahrenheit 9/11, I conceived of a plan to write a series of stories with the same titles as famous sf shorts, which would pick apart the toalitarian [sic] assumptions underpinning some of sf's classic narratives."

And of course Asimov's title was, in turn,
a riff on Robert Graves' I, Claudius. [amazon.com]

But that case is quite different from both Doctorow's i, robot and Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, inasmuch as Asimov's I, Robot is a quite brilliant work of art in its own right.