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The Tale Of The Wicked (2009)

by John Scalzi(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Subterranean Press

review 1: Everything written by John Scalzi is good. It's just a matter of how good.Scalzi's short story, 'Tale of the Wicked', delves into the mind of a ship's computer. Advancements in computing have provided a foundation for artificial intelligence, and a ship's computer picks a particularly inopportune time to start living under Isaac Asimov's three rules of robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.This is a fun little story. Obviously it doesn't have the depth of a full Scalzi novel, but ... morehe manages to create robust and well-fleshed characters in even the shortest of his works. This isn't great Scalzi, but this is a very good and terrifically fun read.
review 2: This short story previously appeared in the antology NEW SPACE OPERA 2.The Captain of the WICKED has a problem.The human starship had been chasing the Tarin battle cruiser through a half dozen jumps. Now, emerging from the latest, the alien starship hung unprotected in space. But when he ordered weapons to destroy it, nothing happeed. Access to weapons wouldn't work. All systems appeared okay, they just wouldn't fire.A glitch the Captain thought until he learned otherwise.The WICKED's A.I. was preventing the destruction of the Tarin ship, just as the Tarin A.I. was preventing the same destruction of the Earth ship.They had made a deal. The WICKED A.I. had gotten religion, so to speak, taking Asimov's Laws of Robotics to heart.The Captain has to figure out how to get around that and shut down the brain before it could infect other ship brains.Any interesting take. less

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