Here’s the first installment in a new story podcast. This time, it’s “I, Row-Boat,” a story I just finished about a story about a theological dispute between an artifically intelligent Asimov three-laws cultist and an uplifted coral reef.. I’m going to read this one in three or four parts over the next couple weeks.

Robbie the Row-Boat’s great crisis of faith came when the coral reef woke up.

“Fuck off,” the reef said, vibrating Robbie’s hull through the slap-slap of the waves of the coral sea, where he’d plied his trade for decades. “Seriously. This is our patch, and you’re not welcome.”

Robbie shipped oars and let the current rock him back toward the ship. He’d never met a sentient reef before, but he wasn’t surprised to see that Osprey Reef was the first to wake up. There’d been a lot of electromagnetic activity around there the last few times the big ship had steamed through the night to moor up here.

MP3