Satisfaction Guaranteed (short story)

"Satisfaction Guaranteed"
Author	Isaac Asimov
Country	United States
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).

Plot summary

Robot TN-3 (also known as 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 realizes that Claire has a very low self-esteem and an 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 neighbors see him making love to (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.

Adaptations

The story was adapted as an episode of the BBC television series Out of the Unknown with Wendy Craig as Claire.^[1]

References

1. ^ "Satisfaction Guaranteed" at the Internet Movie Database

Preceded by: Liar!

Included in: The Rest of the Robots The Complete Robot

Series: Robot Series The Complete Robot

Followed by: Lenny