I, Robot is a science-fiction short story by

Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born 17 July 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of th ...

published April 15, 2005. According to Doctorow's website: :''In spring 2004, in the wake of

Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury ( ; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, Horror fiction, horr ...

pitching a tantrum over

Michael Moore Michael Francis Moore is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and author. Moore's work frequently addresses various Social issue, social, political, and economic topics. He first became publicly known for his award-winning debut ...

appropriating the title of

Fahrenheit 451 ''Fahrenheit 451'' is a 1953 Dystopian fiction, dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. It presents a future American society where books have been outlawed and "firemen" Book burning, burn any that are found. The novel follows in the ...

to make

Fahrenheit 9/11 ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' is a 2004 American documentary film directed, written by, and starring Michael Moore. The subjects of the film are the presidency of George W. Bush, the Iraq War, and the media's coverage of the war. In the film, Moore state ...

, I conceived of a plan to write a series of stories with the same titles as famous sf shorts, which would pick apart the totalitarian assumptions underpinning some of sf's classic narratives.'' The story is influenced by

Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. H ...

robot series The ''Robot'' Series is a series of 37 science fiction short stories and six novels created by American writer Isaac Asimov; the books were published between 1940 and 1995. The series is set in a world where sentient positronic robots serve a ...

and by

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

. The story is set in the type of police state needed to ensure that only one company is allowed to make robots, and only one type of robot is allowed. The story is set in a future Toronto, part of the United North American Trading Sphere, and follows single father detective Arturo Icaza de Arana-Goldberg while he tries to track down his missing teenage daughter. The detective is a bit of an outcast because his wife defected to Eurasia, a rival Superpower.

Reception

The story won the Locus Award for Best NoveletteLocus Awards Winners By Year
at Science Fiction Awards Database; retrieved July 13, 2023 and was a finalist for the 2006

Hugo Award for Best Novelette The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novelette award is available for works of fiction of ...

.2006 Hugo Awards
at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved July 13, 2023

References

External links

as a free online ebook under a

Creative Commons License A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bu ...

2005 short stories Science fiction short stories 2000s science fiction works Locus Award–winning works {{2000s-sf-story-stub