Satisfaction Guaranteed (short story)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Satisfaction Guaranteed"
Author Isaac Asimov
Country Flag of the United States USA
Language English
Series Robot Series
Genre(s) Science fiction short story
Published in Amazing Stories
Publication type Periodical
Publisher Ziff Davis
Media type Print (Magazine, Hardback & Paperback)
Publication date April 1951
Preceded by Liar!
Followed by Lenny

"Satisfaction Guaranteed" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, originally published in the April 1951 issue of Amazing Stories, and included in the collections Earth Is Room Enough (1957), The Rest of the Robots (1964), and The Complete Robot (1982).

Robot TN-3 (aka Tony) is designed as a humaniform household robot, an attempt by US Robots to get robots accepted in the home. He is placed with Claire Belmont, whose husband works for the company, as an experiment, but she is reluctant to accept him. Tony realises that Claire has a very low self-esteem and inferiority complex, and tries to help her by redecorating her house and giving her a make-over. Finally, he pretends to be her lover, and deliberately lets the neighbours see him kissing Claire, thus increasing her self-esteem. In the end, though, Claire falls in love with Tony, but the Three Laws of Robotics are slightly broken since at first Claire is very bewildered and screams when the robot hugs her. In the end, the TN-3 robot models are rebuilt.


Before:
Liar!
Included in:
The Rest of the Robots
The Complete Robot
Series:
Robot Series
The Complete Robot
Followed by:
Lenny
Languages