A Statue for Father

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A Statue For Father is a humorous science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. The story first appeared in the February 1959 issue of Satellite Science Fiction and was reprinted in the 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A theoretical physicist and his son work on the theory of time travel, and experiment with a method of reaching back into time and retrieving objects (as also occurs in "The Ugly Little Boy").

More by serendipity than design, they manage to retrieve a nest of dinosaur eggs which in due course hatch. They keep on working but are unable to repeat the experiment. In the meantime, the dinosaurs grow and are kept as pets. But when one of them accidentally gets electrocuted, they can't resist tasting the flesh beneath the scales and find that it tastes delicious.

The two men decide to raise the dinosaurs to be killed for food and open the first of a succesful chain of restaurants dedicated to serving 'dinachicken'.


Buy Jupiter and Other Stories
Darwinian Pool Room | Day of the Hunters | Shah Guido G. | Button, Button | The Monkey's Finger | Everest | The Pause | Let's Not | Each an Explorer | Blank! | Does a Bee Care? | Silly Asses | Buy Jupiter | A Statue for Father | Rain, Rain, Go Away | Founding Father | Exile to Hell | Key Item | The Proper Study | 2430 A.D. | The Greatest Asset | Take a Match | Thiotimoline to the Stars | Light Verse