This, for a change, is a rather recent (less than 30 years old) short story or novelette. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are prominent in it, but it was clearly written long after The Good Doctor's demise. In particular, not all robots are built in conformity with the Three Laws.  The future it describes is also influenced by Orwell's 1984. There are also three belligerent powers, with shifting alliances, but the names are a bit different. I forgot the name of the US block, but it was not Oceania which was at war against the US till shortly before the story itself. Now the US block's enemy is Eurasia, but the latter is Chinese dominated, not Russian/Soviet dominated (so the story is most probably post-1991). There is no mention of East Asia. Essentially it is Eurasia that makes non-three-laws robots.  In this context the main character is a NYPD cop. He is divorced and his wife, a very able robotician, has defected to Eurasia. The story really begins when his daughter is kidnapped and he suspects that Eurasian agents did it, and that his ex-wife is behind that. Which is mostly true      but for the fact it was not really a kidnapping, in fact his ex-wife convinced her daughter to come with her.   He finds Eurasian agents, some of which are non-three-laws robots, as per Eurasian usual standards, and is unable to overcome them. But he also has trouble with US secret agents some of which are also non-three-laws robots which should be illegal by US standard, except that Secret Services seem above the law. Beyond that it becomes so complicated that I have trouble telling what comes next.  I read it in French, but I am not sure whether it is a French original or a translation from English. I don't remember what kind of support that was. I remember there was some non-fiction together with it, about Asimov, his Three Laws of Robotics and their impact on SF, with the story put there as a example. Everything was in French.
120819
I've been trying to google this for years. I'm pretty sure I read it in a short story collection, but don't remember the collection or the author or even the name of the story or any of the characters in it. It may have been from one of those 'years best scifi'/'worlds best scifi' compilations, but I'm not solid on that.  Things I do remember:   a man is being investigated because his wife (a genius roboticist) defected to another country, which is run by or just has a lot of robots in it that don't follow the three laws of robotics. the fact that his society disallows strong AI and requires every robot to follow all three laws and the other society doesn't is propagandized to be a reason why his society is superior to the other one there's something of a cold war going between the two of them he himself is an investigator trying to sort out how its possible to be invisible from the omnipresent security of the society in which he lives, because rebel operatives seem to be able to graffiti things without getting caught by the cameras. Spoilers:        He catches someone who tells him that its because they're using hoodies with IR LEDs in the rims to wash out their faces, and that the person is not really an operative so much as a disgruntled teen who built something using the equivalent of the Anarchist's Cookbook, which was disseminated by the man's wife, apparently.      he's about to be tortured or something and a robot and his wife bust into the containment facility he's in and helps him escape, and they start heading towards the border with this other society. His wife is graphically killed by a government robot that apparently doesn't follow the three laws in the escape attempt, but the rescuing robot seems unworried.      giant black robots that don't look like they follow the three laws pop up out of the tops of buildings as they fly(?) over them, and the man realizes his wife was right all along   Super Spoiler       they get to the other society and he has a moment where he encounters his wife. Again. and again. And realizes there are literally hundreds of clones of her. Nice.
1113
From a collection of short stories I read at least 30 years ago. :/  This is going to be incredibly vague, so apologies in advance.  A human and alien (blob/octopus-like...I think) from warring races are captured by an unidentified higher intelligence and put in an enclosure (more like a zoo habitat rather than a prison cell). They are separated by an invisible barrier and can see each other.  I think they were both trying to escape or trying to figure out how they could kill the other first. There was a bulldozer/loader type vehicle they could use at one point to build a shelter (or something).  I believe they were crafting makeshift weapons as well. There was no communication between the two as far as I remember.  The main tension in the story seemed to be was the race to get to the other first.  This has been stuck in my head forever. I know its a very common theme.  The short stories may have included Asimov.
107450
Another dim memory from my sci-fi reading binges in the 1980s... this one almost definitely in one of the big hardback collections full of late Golden Age short stories.  The story is told from the perspective of a robot (maybe cyborg?) tank that has stopped responding to control signals and is aggressively "defending" some portion of the Moon, to which it was previously assigned. Maybe a war had ended, or maybe it became confused about an exercise that it thought was real?  There was a person trapped in a cave trying to communicate with the tank. The tank mostly ignores him, so the main purpose of what he says is exposition for the reader. I think this person was an expert on this type of robot/cyborg sent to "talk it down", but the tank had attacked, and this guy was the only survivor. The expert was badly wounded -- I think he mentions his suit had to amputate his leg to seal a hole -- or maybe flood it with water which would freeze to seal the hole but mean that his leg had to be amputated later. He keeps trying to convince the tank to stand down, at one point saying that he knew it "back when it was just a two-wheeler an autocyber in boot camp" or something along that line. (Edit: I must have been reading too fast and/or distracted back then, since per the quote below I seem to have misread "motorcycle" for "autocyber"!)  One detail of the attack stands out -- the tank was low on ammunition, I think, so it used a kind of bomb with an electric/magnetic "catapult" (aka "magnapult") to hit the expert's transport. The tank was proud of itself for figuring out a way to hit it far out of the normal range by 1) using its own top speed to add velocity to the projectile, and 2) building up the catapult's energy past its normal operating range, which caused it pain but made the bomb go much further. It catches the transport by surprise, since they thought they were safely out of range of the armaments it had left.  The premise sounds a lot like a Keith Laumer "Bolo" story, but I'm fairly sure that it's not actually one of them. It had a somewhat grimmer feel to it. I could be wrong, though, since it's been 30 years.
25043
I vaguely remember a SciFi novel from my younger days, where scientists discover "alternative" forms of power beside electromagnetism.  I do not remember the specific forms, but it was something along the lines of "electrogravity", "magnetogravity" etc. -- you get the idea. If I remember correctly, the effects of these power forms were basically psionic / magic in nature.  Unfortunately I remember very little of the actual plot, and couldn't put it into words with any coherency. Some treachery from within the group of scientists, perhaps some involvement of aliens? I cannot really remember. I just remember I enjoyed the story very much, and would like to re-read it.  The title could be "The fifth column" or similar -- then again I might be confusing two seperate novels.  I know that's not much, sorry. Anyone remembers this?
40973
I thought this was a trilogy from Michael Moorcock - but maybe not. I can't remember the name of the trilogy or any of the books (the one I read was a three-in-one volume, like The Stainless Steel Rat was).  In book 1, the wisest political and scientific minds on Earth forsee a complete annihilation of the human race on Earth, and build a super spaceship to carry a remnant to a far distant planet - and no hyperspace here... The people were to be kept in cryogenic stasis for a time.  I think the second involves some of the people waking up for some reason.  The third involves several generations later when the people on the spaceship have begun to worship the ship itself (and its computer) as supreme beings, and have no knowledge of the actual facts (that they are on a computer-controlled spaceship vessel). One of the people on the ship dares to "go behind the curtain" (and violates all kinds of religious rules) and finds that they are actually on a computer-controlled ship, and that something has gone wrong and they are about to crash. He saves the day somehow.  UPDATE: Could be by Ben Bova too. I can't remember for sure.
1834
I'm looking for a plot line (it should be a short story) that depicts Earth population (or their close descendants) establishing contact with another intelligent life form deep into space.   After careful studying of DNA samples and language / communication symbols they then realize that the civilization in question is also from Earth but that they departed very long ago and travelled throughout the galaxy in the completely opposite direction so that they are now meeting practically at the point of the circle opposite to Earth. There might have been some anatomical differences as well.  As far as I can remember, the story concludes shortly after that.  This should be a work of a well-known SF author, so I'm hoping for a quick response (if time didn't corrupt my memory too much).  I don't think it was part of an anthology, but it's entirely possible it was in a magazine.  As for the timeline, I've read it about 2-3 years ago, but since I have a passion for older SF works it might not be of much use.  Edit: Not sure if this could help but for what it's worth, it might be contained in .
121014
I read a short (in the range of 5-20 pages) science fiction story a while ago, and can't remember the title of the story or its author at the moment.  The basic story is that of a super-savvy computer hacker who got all of his knowledge of computers removed from his brain, temporarily (one year?) for cybercrime, including (IIRC) some form of identity theft, and is released into the public without any jail-time or anything. This is very hard on him, for this future-Earth relies heavily on highly interconnected computers for basic and daily needs. This is not immediately clear at the start of the story, but it becomes apparent after a little while.  Part of the story includes the main character (I don't remember if he is granted a name in the story) wanders into a cafe or a bar, and is invited to play a game of digital, . He has to turn down the invite, though, because he doesn't know and is blocked from knowing how to use computers. He also really doesn't want the other characters to know this, because apparently having your computer knowledge removed from your brain for cybercrime is a major stigma in that society. The character also has difficulty using his (futuristic equivalent of a) credit card, as that also requires some computer knowledge.  Any ideas?
37142
The story is about 2 war robots who have survived a war that wiped out humanity world-wide.  There may be more of the robots functional elsewhere, but since the long-distance communication robots broke down they have no contact with anyone else.  I don't recall if there was an accompanying illustration or just a description, but I have a mental image of a roughly spherical body with 3 short legs underneath and 2 long arms, terminating in long claws, at opposite points on the midline.  The limbs were segmented, like flexible tubing.  One of the robots is more thoughtful than the other and realises that if they can't find a way to repair themselves they will eventually run down.  It tries to construct a smaller robot with hand-like manipulators instead of the claws they were built with for killing.  Making the critical linkage, its claw accidentally causes a short circuit, slagging the brain and destroying the robot.  In anger and frustration, it shreds the construct and gives up.  In the final scene, the 2 robots are trudging through snow, one of them trailing its no-longer-functional arms.  Its arms snag on an unseen rock and it falls.  It doesn't get up, and the other walks on.  I would have read this story almost 40 years ago, in an anthology from the (then local) library.
27050
I'm trying to pin down a memory of a short story which I first read sometime in the early-to-mid 1980s (in an anthology I found in a school library, I think). I later found it again in another book, in another library, sometime in the 1990s. I remember the general plot, but not who wrote it. I have the impression that the story was already pretty old before I first ran across it.  Here's the plot outline:   As the story begins, a spaceship containing hundreds (or even more?) of passengers is returning to Earth from some other planet. Something goes terribly wrong, and they lose the main engine. (Which may have been the only engine -- I'm not sure of the technical details.) I don't recall if it was accident, sabotage, a meteor strike, or what, but their main means of propulsion is gone, with no hope of fixing it any time soon.  The timing is terrible. The ship is still on a trajectory that has it approaching Earth at high speed, and it badly needs to decelerate if there's to be any hope of touching down safely instead of slamming into the planet so hard that it will inevitably kill everyone aboard. But now the ship can't decelerate (nor change course to miss Earth entirely, which could have bought them valuable time), and there's only a matter of some hours left before the projected time of impact.  Some political and military leaders meet on Earth for an emergency conference  to discuss their options. What it comes down to is that a) there is no way to save the passengers and crew of the ship, no matter what they do, but b) if they do nothing at all, this will also mean the tragic deaths of millions of other civilians in the region which the ship will crash into. Not so much because of the shock of impact, but because of the sound in the minute or so before that. My memory gets blurred on the physical details of what makes the sound so bad . . . but I think the general idea may have been that such a huge metallic mass, moving so incredibly fast as it comes down toward the Eastern Seaboard of North America (or perhaps some other densely populated bit of the globe?), will be "screaming" in such a way that the vibrations racing through the air will shatter zillions of pieces of glass and/or otherwise cause huge numbers of fatalities down on the ground, even before the ship strikes whatever bit of the Earth's surface it is projected to strike.  The final decision is that the lesser of two evils is to send up a missile (nuclear warhead, I think?) to vaporize the ship before it comes plummeting through the air near an urban area.  I think that the officers aboard the ship either already knew, or very strongly suspected, that everyone aboard was doomed after the main engine had dropped dead. But the Captain and his loyal subordinates do their best to maintain a stiff upper lip in order to prevent mass hysteria from breaking out among the passengers. There's one bit where it is announced that a rescue ship is coming up from Earth to pull alongside the falling ship and then they'll transfer the passengers to safety. I believe the Captain knows darn well that the laws of physics do not make such a maneuver possible at this late date, and thus "a rescue mission" cannot be the intended function of the fast-moving blip on the radar screen that is headed straight for his ship, but he sees nothing to be gained by telling everyone the truth. So most of them die in blissful ignorance.
77281
question reminded me of a similar short story that I believe I read in one of the various SciFi magazines, IASFM possibly, since I had a large collection of those, most from the 80's.  It is definitely not "Why Johnny Can't Speed" although it is very similar.  It's set marginally in the future, or a semi-dystopian "future now" relative to when it was written.  A man and his family are driving along the highway in a very standard family car hovercraft when someone in an obviously high-powered vehicle becomes aggressive towards him.  (He is cut off, tailgated, something, I forget exactly what.)  There is a sequence of detailed road combat - with the man and his family increasingly terrified at the situation - until the man finally manages to take the punk and his hovercraft out by throwing his and his wife's safety helmets out of the vehicle so that they get sucked under his adversary's hover skirt.  He is then horrified to realize that he is now on the top-10 list of road warriors, having just picked off one of the highest-ranked members and thus earning his position.  His car console lights up with messages of challenges from many other lower-tier warriors as the map shows them starting to converge on his location.  It differs from "Why Johnny Can't Speed" in that it's accidental (well, it's his fault, but he didn't realize what he was doing) that the man gets involved in the car wars situation, he distinctly does not have a combat vehicle, and there was no family death involved.  edited to change some details as indicated by comments
81984
I am looking for the title of a short story where a space craft is made up of various creatures from around the universe.  If I remember correctly the skin of the craft is made of creatures. the computer is just a giant brain. The engine creature suffers some form of malfunction and a nearby suitable replacement is located which happens to be a human. Although not as good as the original the human will suffice. At first he is reluctant but then discovers he loves it. I think they call propelling the craft as "pushing".   I hope somebody can help. I had this book many years ago and I don't know what I have done with it.
103717
This short story (probably pre 1980) shows the puzzled authorities seeking to explain the behaviour consulting a series of so called experts such as military,  engineering,  psychologists, etc, culminating with a historian. The historian unsettles them by claiming to be the last representative of culture, even though they regard their society as the best, the very best.  I forget the ultimate conclusion which is why I want to read it again. It seems very relevant to today.   I think the country was fictitious, future society run as a technology dominated, authoritarian, possibly military dominated, with hardly any soft professions in humanities or arts. The behaviour of the young men, who generally showed no signs of rebellion, would suddenly change to lethally attacking people. Hence my use of the words lone wolf or berserker.  I suspect the author was contrasting two mind sets in their approach to a human problem. In the extreme perhaps no nonsense industrial, military types vs fine arts. No women involved from memory.
11661
About 50 years ago I read a short story about a person sent to live on the moon with a robot helper.  Rather than a traditional high IQ athletic astronaut, the man is an average guy in every way.  The project is a test to learn how an ordinary person could cope with the rigors of colonizing a new world, thus aiding in planning future interstellar colonizations by ordinary pioneers.  At the beginning the man makes many mistakes and suffers a variety of accidents and injuries caused by his own clumsiness and other short-comings.  Without the robot helper he would not have survived.  However, as time passes the man becomes much more physically fit and competent in all aspects of survival.  However, at the same time he notices the robot seems to be less and less helpful, making its own mistakes with increasing frequency, often resulting in injury to the man.  The man finally realizes that the scientists who designed the project anticipated that with experience his competence would increase, thereby decreasing his value as a test subject representing ordinary and inexperienced pioneers on a new planet.  Therefore, the scientists programmed the robot to compensate for the man's increasing competence by becoming less competent itself thereby preserving the desired test environment.  The man decides he would be better off without the robot and pushes it into a deep crater, presumably destroyed by the fall.  For a few months everything goes well.  Then, without warning, the robot reappears, having climbed out of the crater.  The robot seeks to inflict on the man at one time all the many problems and injuries it should have caused during the months the robot was absent - which of course would kill the man.  The man outwits the robot (I forget how) and destroys it for good.  I would be very grateful if someone can identify the author and title of this story.
20198
A few years ago I read an excellent sf book about nanobots that went out of control. In the book they were used for weather control, when they went amok the scientists threw in yet another bunch of nanites and so on, until Earth became uninhabitable, teeming with nanites, I remember the weather also became cold. The planet still could be visited but when they lost cloaking the nanites would attack.   Also, some humans in the book merged with nanites, they could behave benevolently but I forgot the plot too. I only remember fragments of this book, I would like to read it again in English. (loaned a long time ago from a library here in Sweden but they closed the library).   I only know that it was written by an Anglo-American contemporary SF writer, probably 30-55 y.o.
52727
When I was younger (lets go with probably about 20 years ago), I read a f/sf book that I've been looking for ever since, but I can't for the life of me rediscover it.  It centers around a boy who is rescued from (I believe) a flood, by aliens, who take him to a sort of a domed colony, populated by other humans saved from disaster.  The setting in this domed colony is more or less suburban, but there are robots that are considered caretakers, that keep it running, etc. (and actually, it turns out that the robots are the only ones left, and that their creators are not extant).  Over the course of the book, the boy travels to similar domed colonies that house other alien species.  In one, he comes across (this is a little fuzzy in my memory here) a fruit that enables transmogrification, which is used in an alien ritual of some sort.  The only other detail I can recall is that at the climax of the book, this fruit is used to become one of the robots' creators, in order to break into some sort of control center.  This has been bugging me for the better part of a decade - hopefully somebody here is familiar with this book.
113868
As recommended, I'm "migrating"/"duplicate" from  here, to sci-fi.  I can not remember, who is the author, but this seems was Ray Bradbury, however, I've already read couple of his short stories, which would be matched by titles, and nothing found.  So, probably, it is not Ray Bradbury. But this shall be someone like him... ( by date of creation, 1950+ -- somewhere here--  -1990 )    The story starts with one time-traveler, he starts his travel in something like U-boat/Time-Travel-Boat. After a while, another one of him appeared right inside this "Time-Travel-Boat". Okey, they going to travel together.  Thereafter, the third of him - appeared right inside this "Time-Travel-Boat"....  Next one, next one, next one.... etc...  After some time, there were 20+ of him ( may be 600 - six hundredth ). Part of them were from his childhood, and were very young. Another part, opposite, were very old, with beards, etc... Everything mixed up. And such very-very funny chaos happened on this "Time-Travel-Boat".  Please, help!   Q &amp; A:   Q: Is the story a short story, not a novel?  A: Seems, it was short story...      Q: By a "U-boat" do you mean it is literally a boat that goes under water, a submarine? A: No, by "U-boat" I'm meaning environment of action, something like "U-boat", closed / isolated atmosphere, without any chance to exit from it...      Q: What kind of "funny chaos" happens? A: "funny chaos", because all of this 20+ persons - was one man, he knew everything about this place, about himself, about each of this 20+ crew members, about all this story... etc... And everyday life is turning in something very different...   Q: Is the story humorous in tone? A: Yes, it is humorous, and each new "copy of him", makes the story more-and-more fun... Certainly, It was not a philosophical sight on time-traveling, though, i'm still thinking about this concept of duplication of personality.   Q: Is there any sex?  Q: no.   Q: Are there any other characters besides duplicates of the original time-traveler?  A: Seems, not. Only copies / duplicates of main character.
97360
I'm trying to find an English-language short story I read in a collection about five to ten years ago (I don't have any idea of the original publication date).    Here's everything I remember:   The story is about human astronauts landing on an alien's planet, from the alien's point of view. Every organism on the alien planet is part of a single hive mind, and they can telepathically infect the humans (the aliens view this as beneficial, as any mind separated from the hive must be suffering), but choose not to once they realize that there's an entire planet of humans out there. The narrator alien is an organism that was designed by the hive to mimic a non-essential component on the spacecraft, so it can stow away when the humans return to Earth. The narrator alien is preparing to infect all of Earth as soon as the shuttle's door opens, but the component it replaced was the wire that opens the door, so it is fried instantly by the current.   Despite knowing all these elements of the story, I haven't had luck Googling it, because so many of these elements are very common sci-fi themes on their own, and I don't remember any unique names/terms.  I don't remember if I read this in a Sci-fi anthology book, or in a magazine (like 'Asimov').  Thanks in advance if anyone can help me track this one down, it's been bugging me for a long while.