My Name is Legion (Zelazny stories)

My Name is Legion (ISBN 0-345-29522-6) is an anthology of three of Roger Zelazny's works, compiled in 1976.

Related Topics:
Anthology - Roger Zelazny - 1976

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The protagonist, we find out in flashbacks, was involved in the creation of a global computer network designed to give ultimate economic control by keeping track of all human activity. Just before the system went live the hero's superior expressed concerns about the possible misuse of such power, and gave the hero the chance to destroy his personal data before it was to be entered into the system. In taking this step the hero becomes non-existent as far as the system is concerned. Using backdoors in the central network the hero (whose real name is never revealed) is able to create identities for himself as needed. Using this freedom he sets himself up as a freelance investigator and problem solver.

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The stories are:

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• "The Eve of RUMOKO" - Project Rumoko is a plan to use nuclear explosives to create artifical islands - but there's a saboteur on the project and the hero must identify and stop them.
• "'Kjwalll'kje'k'koothai'lll'kje'k" - At a research station in the Bahamas a diver has died, apparently in an attack by a dolphin....but dolphins don't attack humans, and someone suspects foul play.
• "Home is the Hangman" - A sentient space-exploration robot, lost years before, has apparently returned to Earth and one of its original designers has died under suspicious circumstances. Has the Hangman returned to kill its creators? The hero must find the Hangman and stop it, and time is running out. Although based on the same character as the other stories in this collection the theme is more closely related to the ideas Zelazny was developing in the short story "The Force That Through the Circuit Drives the Current" from the collection "Unicorn Variations". This story won the 1976 Hugo Award for Best Novella.