{"id":6744,"date":"2023-11-10T18:04:27","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T18:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6744"},"modified":"2023-11-10T18:04:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T18:04:31","slug":"dilemma-by-connie-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6744","title":{"rendered":"Dilemma by Connie Willis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dilemma<\/em><\/strong> by Connie Willis (Foundation\u2019s Friends: Stories in Honor of Isaac Asimov<\/em>, 1989) opens with three robots trying to arrange an appointment with Isaac Asimov\u2019s secretary Susan (another robot). They the want to talk to the famous author about repealing the First Law of Robotics1<\/sup> (one of them is a medical robot and cannot make a surgical incision as it would harm a human). Susan tries her best to fob them off but, when Asimov arrives unexpectedly and talks to the three robots and is flattered by their comments, he tells her to arrange an appointment for the next day (which Susan then double books after they leave).
The rest of the story details the robots\u2019 further attempts to talk to Asimov and Susan\u2019s efforts to stop them. In among this are many references to Asimov\u2019s work, in particular the Positronic Robot stories (those unfamiliar with his work may be a bit lost), and a running joke where he is wrongly identified as the author of other books (by, in order, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and Harlan Ellison):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cDo you know how late for lunch Al Lansing was? An hour and fifteen minutes. And when he got there, do you know what he wanted? To come out with commemorative editions of all my books.\u201d
\u201cThat sounds nice,\u201d Susan said. She took [Asimov\u2019s] coordinates card and his gloves out of his pockets, hung up his coat, and glanced at her watch again. \u201cDid you take your blood pressure medicine?\u201d
\u201cI didn\u2019t have it with me. I should have. I\u2019d have had something to do. I could have written a book in an hour and fifteen minutes, but I didn\u2019t have any paper either. These limited editions will have cordovan leather bindings, gilt-edged acid-free paper, water-color illustrations. The works.\u201d
\u201cWater-color illustrations would look nice for Pebble in the Sky<\/em>,\u201d Susan said, handing him his blood pressure medicine and a glass of water.
\u201cI agree,\u201d he said, \u201cbut that isn\u2019t what he wants the first book in the series to be. He wants it to be Stranger in a Strange Land<\/em>!\u201d He gulped down the pill and started for his office. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t catch those robots in there mistaking me for Robert Heinlein.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the story Asimov does some investigation (as he previously pointed out to the three, he only wrote about the Laws of Robotics, he didn\u2019t build them), and he eventually reveals (to the assembled group, which includes Susan) that he has discovered that their complaint about the First Law (spoiler) has been a red herring, and that the real issue is that Susan has been working part-time for one of the three robots (the Accountant)\u2014who is leaving the area and wants Susan to go with him. She has refused as she thinks Asimov would be lost without her (a First Law violation). Asimov tells her that she is free to go as (a) he managed on his own in the previous decades, and (b) he will train up one of the other two robots (the Book Shelver) to be her replacement.
This story is essentially an extended in-joke that has a concealed mystery at its end. A pleasant enough piece.
*** (Good). 6,500 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. I\u2019m not convinced the first law restriction on surgery is valid\u2014surely the second part of that law would override the first:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c\u2018First Law: A robot shall not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm,\u2019\u201d the varnished robot quoted. \u201c\u2018Second Law: A robot shall obey a human being\u2019s order if it doesn\u2019t conflict with the First Law. Third Law: A robot shall attempt to preserve itself if it doesn\u2019t conflict with the First or Second Laws.\u2019 First outlined in the short story \u2018Runaround,\u2019 Astounding magazine, March 1942, and subsequently expounded in I, Robot<\/em>, The Rest of the Robots<\/em>, The Complete Robot<\/em>, and The Rest of the Rest of the Robots.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


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Dilemma by Connie Willis (Foundation\u2019s Friends: Stories in Honor of Isaac Asimov, 1989) opens with three robots trying to arrange an appointment with Isaac Asimov\u2019s secretary Susan (another robot). They the want to talk to the famous author about repealing the First Law of Robotics1 (one of them is a medical robot and cannot make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[334],"tags":[442,335,1588,287,2,1006,537,12,1589],"class_list":["post-6744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connie-willis","tag-442","tag-connie-willis","tag-foundations-friends","tag-isaac-asimov","tag-james-patrick-kelly","tag-recursive-sf","tag-robots","tag-short-story","tag-three-laws-of-robotics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6744"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6751,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744\/revisions\/6751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}