The Sword of Good

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

An avid fan of fantasy tropes from our world, Hirou, is transported to a world of high fantasy, wielding the fabled Sword of Good. Dolf the wizard and Selena the pirate join Hirou on his quest to confront the Lord of Dark, as was foretold by age old prophecy.

The short story is available in full on the author's blog at Yudkowski.net.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Short Stories, Philosophy

ebook

First published September 3, 2009

About the author

Eliezer Yudkowsky is a founding researcher of the field of AI alignment and played a major role in shaping the public conversation about smarter-than-human AI. He appeared on Time magazine's 2023 list of the 100 Most Influential People In AI, was one of the twelve public figures featured in The New York Times's "Who's Who Behind the Dawn of the Modern Artificial Intelligence Movement," and has been discussed or interviewed in The New Yorker, Newsweek, Forbes, Wired, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Economist, The Washington Post, and many other venues.

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great reframing of what is "good" and what is "evil". The beginning of the book seems to be extremely cliche, but that is intentional. Keep reading to the end.

[Mazzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad, but quite predictable and more of a fragment than a short story.

[Mariam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The way it started out, I thought it would be a light-hearted story about genre savvy guy thrown into a fantasy world. The strong and serious ending was great, and a definite mood whiplash for me. I wish it was an actual novel.

[Eric Chisholm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Eliezer

[Simona · Rating 4 out of 5]

A genre-bending story, as usuall from EY. Still unpolished in story-telling, but as always creative and enjoyable.

[Eric Herboso · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantasy enthusiast from our world is transported to a world of fantasy, wielding the Sword of Good. Dolf the wizard and Selena the pirate join him on his quest to confront the Lord of Dark.

More cannot be said without giving away the storyline, but rest assured that this is an excellent read for any fan of the fantasy trope.

I most definitely recommend this short story.

[Gwern · Rating 3 out of 5]

A clever subversive ending doesn't make a story great. To some extent, this critique was done much better in Spinrad's _The Iron Dream_ or Herbert's _Dune_/_Dune Messiah_ for that matter.

[Nifrigel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short isekai story that is rather trivial from the Lesswrong-kind of rationalism point of view.

[Adam Eveleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenging and interesting.
(listened to read by Eneasz Brodski on the Harry Potter and Methods of Rationality podcast on Spotify)

[Simon Baars · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny and thought-provoking :)

[Alfie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: [B-]

A solid little short story. A bit predictable and not on the same level as Eliezer's other writing but still worth a read if you enjoy his work.

[Andy McKenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Subversive short story; worth the read.

[Mati Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot say much without ruining the story, but I agree with the author's point of view and I like how he shared it.

[Timo Brønseth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked it because the author's moral worldview is so very much in line with my own.

[Teo · Rating 4 out of 5]

2016.01.30–2016.01.30

Yudkowsky E (2009) Sword of Good, The

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not typical Yudkoswky quality

[rixx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh boy, Yudkowsky writes high fantasy, and it's *exactly* what I expected.

[Thomas Lemoine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short-story was one of the most fascinating I ever read. I had high expectations, and Eliezer Yudkowsky really pulled it off with that extremly satisfying ending.