Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014 (28 page)

The Golem of Jewish legend and the monster of Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein
are possibly early examples of artificial intelligence (depending largely upon one's definition of "artificial"), but it fell to L. Frank Baum to introduce the first truly autonomous AI in literature: the clockwork Tik-Tok from
Ozma of Oz
(1907) and later Oz books. Karel Capek's play
R.U.R.
(written in 1920) gave AIs like Tik-Tok the name by which they'd be best known in SF: robots—which comes from the Czech words "robota" (compulsory labor) and "robotnik" (workman).

Most early robot stories (including
R.U.R.)
were little more than retellings of the Frankenstein story, as robots rebelled against humanity again and again. It wasn't until the late 1930s that two SF writers broke out of that mold: Lester del Rey's "Helen O'Loy"
(Astounding,
1938) and Eando Binder's "I, Robot"
(Amazing,
1939) and sequels. In both, robots were intelligent, sympathetic characters.

Isaac Asimov's Positronic Robot stories— beginning with "Robbie" in
Super Science Stories
(1940) and continuing in many subsequent stories in
Astounding
through the 1940s—permanently changed the field's treatment of artificially intelligent robots, and the killer robot was relegated to low-budget Hollywood productions.

By the end of the Second World War, computers had entered the popular consciousness. Among the earliest SF examples of AI in computer form are the Games Machine from A.E. Van Vogt's
The World of Null-A (Astounding,
1945) and "A Logic Named Joe" by Murray Leinster
(Astounding,
1946). Not only did the Leinster story describe a recognizable version of today's Internet, but it also introduced the questions of identity, volition, freedom of information, and AI ethics that SF writers and AI researchers both wrestle with even today.

Just about every SF writer from Anderson to Zelazny dealt with AI in one way or another, a decades-long conversation of ideas that's continued into the present, and shows every sign of continuing forever. An incomplete list of influential SF AIs has to include The City Fathers (James Blish,
Cities in Flight,
beginning 1955); Cohen (Chris Moriarty,
Spin State
and sequels, beginning in 2005); Colossus (D.F. Jones,
Colossus,
1966); Deep Thought (Douglas Adams,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
1978); The Ghostwheel (Roger Zelazny,
Chronicles of Amber
series, 1985); HAL 9000 (Arthur C. Clarke,
2001: A Space Odyssey,
1968); H.A.R.L.I.E. (David Gerrold,
When H.A.R.L.I.E.Was One,
1972); Holly (
Red Dwarf,
1988); M-5 ("The Ultimate Computer,"
Star Trek,
1968); Manfred (Melissa Scott,
Dreamships,
1992); Marvin the Paranoid Android (Douglas Adams,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
1978); Master Control Program (
Tron,
1982); Max (
Max Headroom,
1987); Merlin (J. Beam Piper,
Junkyard Planet
aka
The Cosmic Computer,
1963); Minerva (Robert A. Heinlein,
Time Enough for Love,
1973); Multivac (Isaac Asimov, stories beginning in 1955); Mycroft (Robert a. Heinlein,
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,
1966); Neuromancer (William Gibson,
Neuromancer,
1984); Orac and Zen
(Blake's 7,
1977–1981); Polymat (Frederik Pohl,
Gateway
and sequels, beginning in 1977); R2–D2 and C–3PO (
Star Wars,
1977); Robbie
(Forbidden Planet,
1956); The Robot
(Lost in Space,
1965–1968); Tim (
The Tomorrow People,
1973); and Webmind (Robert J. Sawyer,
WWW Trilogy,
beginning in 2009). Why so many fictional robots have names starting with "M" is a mystery for another time.

In today's SF landscape, AI is everywhere. From the godlike matrioshka brains of modern high-tech space opera to the return of killer robots
(Robopocalypse
by Daniel H. Wilson, 2011), from Transformers to Droids, from intelligent clouds of nanodust to AI personal assistants, artificial intelligences continue to partner with humanity, assist it, threaten it, and make it obsolete. It's looking increasingly more likely that AIs will be the first alien intelligences we contact. It's an almost certain bet that there are AIs in this issue's stories.

In the best tradition of our field, the conversation about AI and its implications continues to play out as it has for at least the last half-century.

Ann Leckie Orbit, 416 pages, $15.00 (trade paperback)

Kindle: $8.89, iBooks: $8.99, Nook: $9.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-0-31624662-0

Series: Imperial Radch 1

Genres: Alien Beings, Clarke's Law, Man and Machine, Space Opera

One of the most appealing things about AIs, at least for SF readers and writers, is that they don't think the way we do. We are fascinated by exploring alien minds, particularly minds that spring from the same background as ours. From Multivac to Webmind, SF writers have held up an AI mirror to our own minds.

Ancillary Justice
is the latest step on this road, and a giant step it is. You definitely don't want to miss this one.

In the far future, the Empire of the Radch rules the galaxy with brutal efficiency. The Radchaai are (in their own eyes, at least) a superior race of humans who have taken up the burden of bringing stability and civilization to the myriad worlds around them. The Lord of the Radch, Anaander Mianaai, is an immortal intelligence that exists across thousands of cloned bodies.

On a frozen planet on the outskirts of the empire, a woman named Breq comes to the end of a decades-long quest. Once, Breq was an ancillary—one of many captured bodies (aka "corpse soldiers") under the command of the AI in charge of the Radchaai troopship
Justice of Toren.
Then, during a climactic battle,
Justice of Toren
was betrayed, and Breq is the only remaining fragment of the great AI.

Breq/Justice of Toren
has sworn to take revenge on the author of her betrayal: none less than the Lord of the Radch itself. After all this time, after evading enemies and making allies, she has located an ancient weapon that might just allow her to destroy Anaander Mianaai once and for all.

On the structure of this space opera plot, Ann Leckie has built a fully realized and utterly rewarding universe filled with more wonders and brilliant ideas than any ten lesser novels. Along the way, she wrestles with questions of identity, individuality, gender, morality, and what it means to belong to any family, group, nation, or empire.

Leckie tells the story in two narratives, past and present. In the past thread—in my opinion, the most rewarding of the two—we see
Justice of Toren
as she was at her height. With the most artful use of language, Leckie carries off the near-impossible task of showing us what it's like to be a super-intelligent being animating both a giant starship and numberless separate bodies, some of them machines and some human bodies. Leckie doesn't just tell us that Breq is a single, pale shadow of her former self—she lets us feel for ourselves the vast sense of loss that Breq feels... and that powers her desire for revenge.

Ancillary Justice
isn't by any means a simple beach read. This is the kind of book that expands your mind, and makes you work for it. Publicity compares Ann Leckie to C.J Cherryh, and that's certainly an apt comparison— but I was also reminded of Iain M. Banks and Elizabeth Bear.

Ancillary Justice
is the first in a series... if the next books are even half as good, they'll be well worth waiting for.

edited by Athena Andreadis

Candlemark & Gleam, 460 pages, $22.95 (trade paperback)

iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $6.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-936460-44-1

Genres: Original Anthology

A Chinese proverb (or Mao Zedong, depending on your source) says, "Women hold up half the sky."
The Other Half of the Sky
is an anthology that presents SF stories with women as protagonists. The focus is strictly on science fiction, which shouldn't bother
Analog
readers. In fact, this book nicely fills the void left by the demise of Roby James's late, lamented
Warrior, Wisewoman
anthologies. If anything, it's better.

Look at this lineup of authors: Alexandr Jablokov, Ken Liu, Jack McDevitt, Cat Rambo, Melissa Scott, Joan Slonczewski, Martha Wells... and nine other names perhaps less familiar. In all there are 460 pages packed with a great selection of cutting-edge SF stories, most of which wouldn't be out of place in the pages of
Analog.

It's hard to select standout stories; they're all of such good quality. But I want to talk about three that will give you a feeling for the breadth of this anthology.

Joan Slonczewski's "Landfall from the Blood Star Frontier" is set in the same universe as her novel
The Highest Frontier.
If you miss Jenny Kennedy from that book, you'll get to see more of her in action. As you'd expect, the story is a heady brew of biotechnology, politics, and suspense set against the slow invasion of Earth by an alien invasive species.

Melissa Scott's "Finders" is set in a far-future world in which Humanity survives by salvaging the almost-incomprehensible technology of the galaxy-spanning Ancestral civilization that fell a thousand years ago. Among the Ancestral ruins are elements such as BLUE and GOLD, which are as much computer code as they are real artifacts. Another total-immersion story, this tale details salvager Cassilde Sam's quest to find a mother lode of GREEN, the rarest and most potent element. Rival gangs of salvagers are after the same lode, but Cassilde has a reason besides money to find the GREEN—her lover's life is on the line.

"Cathedral" by Jack McDevitt is a tearjerker set in a near-future world that's turning its back on space exploration, and the woman who uses a close encounter with an asteroid to breathe life back into the dream.

In the world of SF readers, some are stuck in the third-grade "girls are icky" phase; they continue to insist that women don't belong in SF, either as protagonists or as writers. Anthologies like this one are the best treatments for this particular delusion.

Jacqueline Koyangi

Masque, 336 pages, $14.95 (trade paperback)

iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $6.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-60701401-0

Genres: SF Romance, Space Opera

Alana Quick has problems. So does her whole universe.

Once, times were good. Alana is a starship surgeon, a skill she learned from her Aunt Lai. When the big ships needed repair, Alana and Lai were there to help. The money was good, the work was interesting... and if Alana never got to travel in the Big Quiet, at least she dealt with the ships that did.

Then the economy went south, and Transliminal Corporation stepped in with a different shipping technology and the money to buy out competitors. Traditional repair work dried up.

At the same time, Alana and Aunt Lai became victims of a degenerative muscular condition, one that requires a steady regimen of expensive drugs. And to top it all off, Alana's sister Nova left on one of the big ships and hasn't been back since.

When Nova's ship
Tangled Axon
arrives, Alana learns that Nova is missing... and the Captain and crew want her help to find their crewmate. So Alana boards
Tangled Axon
on a journey of adventure and romance.

Of course they find Nova. There's betrayal, and suddenly the ship and crew are running for their lives, pursued by all the forces Transliminal can command.

The plot is only half the appeal of this book—the other half comes from the social and familial structures of
Tangled Axon
and the worlds they visit.
Tangled Axon
isn't just a ship, it's also a polyamorous family... or maybe families... and much of the fun is figuring out how this fascinating and unusual social universe works.

Definitely a fun book.

James Barrat

Thomas Dunne, 336 pages, $26.99 (hard-cover)

Kindle: $11.04, iBooks, Nook: $12.99(e-book)

ISBN: 978-0-31262237-4

Genres: Nonfiction

I have always maintained that one of the dubious privileges of being an SF reader is being able to worry about important things forty to fifty years before the rest of the world. Atomic war, overpopulation, pollution, genetic engineering, asteroid impacts, climate change... well, now you can add artificial intelligence to the list. If you count those pulp stories of killer robots destroying Humanity, SF readers have been concerned with the possible down-sides of AI for a good ninety years or so. And now the popular press has (finally) caught up with us.

James Barrat is a journalist, writer, and producer of documentaries for the likes of PBS, National Geographic, and Discovery. In 2000, he separately interviewed both Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Kurzweil, and started to get concerned about AI research. So he went researching, interviewing AI researchers, technologists, Silicon Valley wunderkinds, and others—although curiously, the only SF writer referenced in his notes is Vernor Vinge.

Our Last Invention
is the result.

Barrat's basic argument is a familiar one. Sometime soon (probably within the next decade, possibly tomorrow), someone in the world will produce an AI capable of self-directed thought (what he calls Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI). After that, AGI will lead to the development of Artificial Superintelligence (ASI). These AIs will design and produce their own successors, and before you can sing a chorus of
Daisy Bell,
they'll take over the world. By the following Tuesday we'll enter the technological singularity, when knowledge and technology advance faster than the human mind can comprehend. To the AI and AI-enhanced inhabitants of the post-singularity world, ordinary humans will be as insects, and who knows what's going to happen to us?