Light Verse (short story)

Infobox Short story
name = Light Verse
author = Isaac Asimov
country = United States
language = English
series = Robot Series
genre = science fiction short story
published_in = "The Saturday Evening Post"
publisher = Curtis Publishing Company
media_type = Magazine
pub_date = September-October 1973
preceded_by = Feminine Intuition
followed_by = —That Thou art Mindful of Him

"Light Verse" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the September-October 1973 issue of "The Saturday Evening Post". It later appeared in the collections "Buy Jupiter and Other Stories" (1975), "The Complete Robot" (1982), and "Robot Dreams" (1986). The author has reported that he wrote the initial draft in one session and later had to change hardly a word in the final revision.

This story details a small portion of the life of Avis Lardner, the widow of an astronaut, William J. Lardner.

After her husband's death, Mrs. Lardner receives a large pension, which she invests wisely, becoming very wealthy. She buys many valuable jeweled artifacts from a number of countries, and displays them in her home. She then takes up the art of light-sculpture, which fascinates many, but she refuses to sell her works and only paints them at parties.

A roboticist with the U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation, John Travis, is invited to a party at Mrs. Lardner's, and tries to imitate her art by using the mathematics related to his robotics to sculpt, but all his attempts fail.

At the party, seeing it as an act of kindness to Mrs. Lardner, he makes an adjustment to one of her robots, known as Matthew, whom he considers to be maladjusted. Discovering what he's done, Mrs Lardner is furious at him, and reveals that Matthew is the one who actually does the light-sculptures, through a creative process made possible by his maladjustment. By adjusting Matthew, Travis has irreparably destroyed that creative process.

Mrs. Lardner then picks up one of her artifacts, a jeweled knife, and kills Travis. However, after the fact, investigators note that Travis did not attempt to defend himself — after realizing he had destroyed the very thing from which he wished to learn, he had fallen into total despair and "allowed" Mrs. Lardner to stab him to death.

Similarities to other Asimov works

*The idea of a robot having creativity would be repeated in "The Bicentennial Man".
*Light-sculpture was performed by Gladia Delmarre in "The Naked Sun".

AsimovStory
before = "Feminine Intuition"
included1 = The Complete Robot
included2 = Robot Dreams
series1 = Robot Series
series2 = Foundation Series
next = "—That Thou art Mindful of Him"