"Death Sentence" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of '' Astounding Science Fiction'' and reprinted in the 1972 collection ''

The Early Asimov ''The Early Asimov or, Eleven Years of Trying'' is a 1972 collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov. Each story is accompanied by commentary by the author, who gives details about his life and his literary achievements in the period in which he w ...

''.

Plot summary

Theo Realo, an eccentric researcher, approaches a psychologist at

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university. His story is that he's spent many years on an obscure out-of-the-way planet and has found evidence that it once formed part of a now-lost Galactic Federation, based on psychology far more advanced than that now known. Based on his reports, a research group visits the planet to explore it. They discover documents that date back many thousands of years and make a small start in examining them. But Realo insists that the ancient psychologists of the Galactic Federation also set up a world of

positronic A positronic brain is a fictional technological device, originally conceived by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It functions as a central processing unit (CPU) for robots, and, in some unspecified way, provides them with a form of consciou ...

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...

s for the purpose of letting them develop their own society and carry out their own research. Realo insists that he has been on this very planet, that the robot society still exists and that he let them examine his spaceship. It is feared that the robots will develop

hyperspace In science fiction, hyperspace (also known as nulspace, subspace, overspace, jumpspace and similar terms) is a concept relating to higher dimensions as well as parallel universes and a faster-than-light (FTL) method of interstellar travel. ...

travel themselves, which will pit them against the current Federation. The government will then have no choice but to attack and destroy them – so the robot world is effectively under a death sentence. Realo refuses to let this happen, and sets off to warn the robots. He plans to return to the city where he first met them — a city the robots called New York.

Notes

Having returned to writing after almost a year with " Author! Author!", Asimov finished "Death Sentence" in June 1943 and sold it to

John W. Campbell John Wood Campbell Jr. (June 8, 1910 – July 11, 1971) was an American science fiction writer and editor. He was editor of ''Astounding Science Fiction'' (later called '' Analog Science Fiction and Fact'') from late 1937 until his death ...

of '' Astounding Science Fiction'' in July, which published it in November.

References

External links

*
"Death Sentence"
on the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

Short stories by Isaac Asimov 1943 short stories Works originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact {{1940s-sf-story-stub