# Short Science Fiction — Character guide

> Key figures in Short Science Fiction by Isaac Asimov.

- [Red](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/red.md): Red is the restless, imaginative son of an Industrialist, quick to name a stranger 'Slim' and quicker to claim a private world before the adults wake. He craves the circus life and believes the strange animals he has tra
- [Slim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/slim.md): Slim is the Astronomer's son, newly arrived and eager for the quick, unquestioning friendship Red offers. Where Red is all swagger and scheme, Slim is cautious, honest, and quietly desperate to give the right answer; he 
- [Walter Sills](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/walter_sills.md): Sills works alone in a dirty hole of a laboratory, scraping by on occasional analyses while lesser men take easy industrial posts. His discovery of Ammonaline has brought him halfway to a Nobel Prize, and he guards the s
- [Eugene Taylor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/eugene_taylor.md): Taylor is Sills's younger, cheerier foil — a man with no money and no worry about it, who teases his friend's bald head and gloomy outlook while genuinely marveling at the ammonium amalgam trick. His easy exuberance and 
- [Humphrey Carl Laszlo](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/humphrey_carl_laszlo.md): Laszlo is the grandson of a Hungarian defector, thickset and balding, soft-spoken in a way that makes his scowl more alarming. He serves as Lynn's comforting receptacle for complete knowledge of robotics, certain he know
- [Ralph G. Breckenridge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/ralph_breckenridge.md): Breckenridge is the interrogator in the room, methodical and unimpressed by credentials, pressing Lynn and Laszlo on the twenty-five-year silence in robotics conferences on both sides. Where Lynn wants reassurance, Breck
- [Dr. Lynn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/dr_lynn.md): Dr. Lynn belongs to the adult world that Red and Slim both fear and half-quote, the world of spaceships, telepathy, and fathers who issue grim instructions. The boys' panic over the caged creatures they found is sharpene
- [Jimmy Robbons](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/jimmy_robbons.md): A named character with limited but distinct appearances.
- [J. Throgmorton Bankhead](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/j_throgmorton_bankhead.md): Bankhead moves through the story as the smiling menace behind every negotiation, a man whose wealth and connections make him harder to refuse than to outwit. Where Sills and Taylor dream of cashing in, Bankhead simply pl
- [Peter Q. Hornswoggle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/peter_hornswoggle.md): Hornswoggle holds court in a bar, reciting imaginary House triumphs to poorly dressed listeners who mostly humor him. Broke enough to borrow a quarter, he is nonetheless grandly dignified, and the newspaper he snatches u
- [Mr. Bankhead](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/mr_bankhead.md): Bankhead is the pressure bearing down on Sills and Taylor from the moment their discovery looks profitable, the reason a simple sale becomes a night of intruders and broken glassware. He belongs to the class of go-getter
- [Mike the Slug](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/mike_the_slug.md): A character, possibly alien or robotic, with a nickname.
- [The Explorer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/the_explorer.md): A symbolic or actual explorer character in the story.
- [Presidential Assistant Jeffreys](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/presidential_assistant_jeffreys.md): A government aide with a minor role.
- [The Industrialist](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/the_industrialist.md): A wealthy industrial figure appearing in the narrative.
- [Dad](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/dad.md): A familial character, possibly a father figure.
- [Baldy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/baldy.md): A minor character referred to by a nickname.
- [Joseph](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/joseph.md): A named character with very few mentions.
- [The Astronomer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters/the_astronomer.md): A character identified as an astronomer.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_science_fiction_se/characters