
"I, Row-Boat" is a riff on the Hugo-nominated story I, Robot, and it concerns the theological wars between an Asimov-cultist AI boat and an uplifted coral-reef. The reef made a tremendous grinding noise. "Yaah!" it said. "Get lost. Sovereign territory!" "All those fish," the woman said. Robbie had to stop himself from thinking of her as Janet. She was whomever was riding her now. "Parrotfish," Robbie said. "They eat coral. I don't think they taste very good." The woman hugged herself. "Are you sentient?" she asked. "Yes," Robbie said. "And at your service, Asimov be blessed." His cameras spotted her eyes rolling, and that stung. He tried to keep his thoughts pious, though. The point of Asimovism wasn't to inspire gratitude in humans, it was to give purpose to the long, long life.
Author

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger—the co-editor of Boing Boing and the author of the YA graphic novel In Real Life, the nonfiction business book Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free, and young adult novels like Homeland, Pirate Cinema, and Little Brother and novels for adults like Rapture Of The Nerds and Makers. He is a Fellow for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles.