The Monkey's Finger

"The Monkey's Finger" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the February 1953 issue of Startling Stories and reprinted in the 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories. The story is based on a disagreement between Asimov and editor H. L. Gold over the story C-Chute. The title is a reference to W. W. Jacobs' story "The Monkey's Paw".

Plot summary

Marmaduke Tallinn, a fantasy writer, and his editor Lemuel Hoskins are locked in a heated dispute over a story that Tallinn is writing for the magazine Hoskins edits. To prove his point, Tallinn introduces Hoskins to a university Professor who has experimented on a monkey to enable it to write stories based on a given style and flavour. The professor demonstrates the monkey's ability by asking Hoskins for a random sample of writing; Hoskins recites two stanzas from G. K. Chesterton's poem Lepanto, and the monkey produces a copy of the next stanza that, spelling errors aside, matches Chesterton's original text exactly.

The monkey is then given Tallinn's unfinished story to consider; it finishes the story exactly as the editor requested, inserting a scene change where Tallinn wanted to leave it out. Tallinn declares this as proof of his point: if he changes his story to match Hoskins' request, he is no better than a machine or a monkey. Hoskins accepts Tallinn's argument and takes the story as-is.

The professor later asks Tallinn what he would have said if the monkey had reproduced his version of the story, instead of the version Hoskins originally wanted; Tallinn reveals, embarrassed, that he initially believed that that was exactly what would happen.