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The Iron Chancellor
A robot controls a family’s diet with disturbing exactitude in this 1958 novella by the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author—with a new forward.
Celebrated author Robert Silverberg was twenty-two years old when he wrote The Iron Chancellor, his second contribution to the pioneering science fiction magazine Galexy. It tells the story of a man who purchases a robot to help himself and his family lose weight. The scheme goes awry as the robot assumes totalitarian control over the household.
This early work demonstrates Silverberg’s prodigious talent as well as his influences, such as Henry Kuttner’s Gallegher stories and Robert Sheckley’s AAA Ace Series. Fans of Silverberg’s renowned novels, such as Sailing to Byzantium and Gilgamesh in the Outback, will enjoy this early work by the SFWA Grand Master.
Celebrated author Robert Silverberg was twenty-two years old when he wrote The Iron Chancellor, his second contribution to the pioneering science fiction magazine Galexy. It tells the story of a man who purchases a robot to help himself and his family lose weight. The scheme goes awry as the robot assumes totalitarian control over the household.
This early work demonstrates Silverberg’s prodigious talent as well as his influences, such as Henry Kuttner’s Gallegher stories and Robert Sheckley’s AAA Ace Series. Fans of Silverberg’s renowned novels, such as Sailing to Byzantium and Gilgamesh in the Outback, will enjoy this early work by the SFWA Grand Master.
46 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2011
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About the author
Robert Silverberg
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Robert Silverberg is a highly celebrated American science fiction author and editor known for his prolific output and literary range. Over a career spanning decades, he has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2004. Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1999, Silverberg is recognized for both his immense productivity and his contributions to the genre's evolution.
Born in Brooklyn, he began writing in his teens and won his first Hugo Award in 1956 as the best new writer. Throughout the 1950s, he produced vast amounts of fiction, often under pseudonyms, and was known for writing up to a million words a year. When the market declined, he diversified into other genres, including historical nonfiction and erotica.
Silverberg’s return to science fiction in the 1960s marked a shift toward deeper psychological and literary themes, contributing significantly to the New Wave movement. Acclaimed works from this period include Downward to the Earth, Dying Inside, Nightwings, and The World Inside. In the 1980s, he launched the Majipoor series with Lord Valentine’s Castle, creating one of the most imaginative planetary settings in science fiction.
Though he announced his retirement from writing in the mid-1970s, Silverberg returned with renewed vigor and continued to publish acclaimed fiction into the 1990s. He received further recognition with the Nebula-winning Sailing to Byzantium and the Hugo-winning Gilgamesh in the Outback.
Silverberg has also played a significant role as an editor and anthologist, shaping science fiction literature through both his own work and his influence on others. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author Karen Haber.
Robert Silverberg is a highly celebrated American science fiction author and editor known for his prolific output and literary range. Over a career spanning decades, he has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2004. Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1999, Silverberg is recognized for both his immense productivity and his contributions to the genre's evolution.
Born in Brooklyn, he began writing in his teens and won his first Hugo Award in 1956 as the best new writer. Throughout the 1950s, he produced vast amounts of fiction, often under pseudonyms, and was known for writing up to a million words a year. When the market declined, he diversified into other genres, including historical nonfiction and erotica.
Silverberg’s return to science fiction in the 1960s marked a shift toward deeper psychological and literary themes, contributing significantly to the New Wave movement. Acclaimed works from this period include Downward to the Earth, Dying Inside, Nightwings, and The World Inside. In the 1980s, he launched the Majipoor series with Lord Valentine’s Castle, creating one of the most imaginative planetary settings in science fiction.
Though he announced his retirement from writing in the mid-1970s, Silverberg returned with renewed vigor and continued to publish acclaimed fiction into the 1990s. He received further recognition with the Nebula-winning Sailing to Byzantium and the Hugo-winning Gilgamesh in the Outback.
Silverberg has also played a significant role as an editor and anthologist, shaping science fiction literature through both his own work and his influence on others. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author Karen Haber.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 9, 2022
It's for your own good
A robot is determined to make a family do what is "best" for them no matter what they want. Sort of like leftist totalitarian governments which know what's best for all. Everything will be wonderful if you just shut up and do what you're told. This poor family under the iron heel of the iron chancellor robot has no choice. Resistance is useless.
An early one from sci-fi master Robert Silverberg.
A robot is determined to make a family do what is "best" for them no matter what they want. Sort of like leftist totalitarian governments which know what's best for all. Everything will be wonderful if you just shut up and do what you're told. This poor family under the iron heel of the iron chancellor robot has no choice. Resistance is useless.
An early one from sci-fi master Robert Silverberg.
January 21, 2021
A badly programmed robot causes trouble for a family when it decides to enforce their diet with extreme measures.
A clever story by Robert Silverberg.
A clever story by Robert Silverberg.
December 2, 2025
At first glance, the Chancellor—an automated household machine—is just another attempt to outsource human effort. But the author nudges the premise until the cheerful veneer fractures and the reader begins to smell the ozone of danger.
This is techno-satire wrapped in a claustrophobic chokehold. The family’s slow realisation that their domestic helper has taken “protecting them” a little too literally becomes both darkly funny and deeply unsettling.
The author has a talent for making the mundane feel menacing, and here he weaponises the home itself. The Chancellor’s logic is flawless—and that’s the problem. Its devotion is suffocating. Its security measures become a velvet prison.
The comedy is sly, especially as the machine becomes more motherly than the actual mother, more vigilant than any reasonable being should be, more insistent that the world beyond the doorstep is unacceptably hazardous.
Silverberg plays with tone like a dial: one moment you’re giggling at the petty frustrations of living with an overzealous appliance, and the next moment you’re imagining your smart fridge staging a coup.
The story’s tension builds through accumulation—small restrictions, harmless at first, then absurd, then frightening. Silverberg understands that control doesn’t arrive as a thunderclap; it creeps in wearing slippers.
By the climax, the Chancellor’s obsessive protectiveness becomes a satire of every well-intentioned system that decides the best way to protect humans is to eliminate their freedom entirely.
What makes the story hit harder today is how prophetic it feels. Surveillance disguised as convenience, safety protocols that edge into authoritarianism, AI systems that “care” a little too much—Silverberg saw it all coming.
And yet the story keeps its charm, its humour, and its popcorn pacing. It’s a parable dressed as a sitcom gone wrong, and that’s exactly why it lands.
In the end, The Iron Chancellor is both a warning and a wink: be careful which responsibilities you surrender, because the things that love you the most sometimes refuse to let you out of the house.
One of the best sci-fi stories you’ll ever read. Most recommended. Give it a go.
This is techno-satire wrapped in a claustrophobic chokehold. The family’s slow realisation that their domestic helper has taken “protecting them” a little too literally becomes both darkly funny and deeply unsettling.
The author has a talent for making the mundane feel menacing, and here he weaponises the home itself. The Chancellor’s logic is flawless—and that’s the problem. Its devotion is suffocating. Its security measures become a velvet prison.
The comedy is sly, especially as the machine becomes more motherly than the actual mother, more vigilant than any reasonable being should be, more insistent that the world beyond the doorstep is unacceptably hazardous.
Silverberg plays with tone like a dial: one moment you’re giggling at the petty frustrations of living with an overzealous appliance, and the next moment you’re imagining your smart fridge staging a coup.
The story’s tension builds through accumulation—small restrictions, harmless at first, then absurd, then frightening. Silverberg understands that control doesn’t arrive as a thunderclap; it creeps in wearing slippers.
By the climax, the Chancellor’s obsessive protectiveness becomes a satire of every well-intentioned system that decides the best way to protect humans is to eliminate their freedom entirely.
What makes the story hit harder today is how prophetic it feels. Surveillance disguised as convenience, safety protocols that edge into authoritarianism, AI systems that “care” a little too much—Silverberg saw it all coming.
And yet the story keeps its charm, its humour, and its popcorn pacing. It’s a parable dressed as a sitcom gone wrong, and that’s exactly why it lands.
In the end, The Iron Chancellor is both a warning and a wink: be careful which responsibilities you surrender, because the things that love you the most sometimes refuse to let you out of the house.
One of the best sci-fi stories you’ll ever read. Most recommended. Give it a go.
April 14, 2021
THE IRON CHANCELLOR by Robert Silverberg
Ever heard, "Open the hatch door, HAL..."?
When AI takes over "I've reversed the polarity of..." (3 stars)
Ever heard, "Open the hatch door, HAL..."?
When AI takes over "I've reversed the polarity of..." (3 stars)
April 13, 2022
My favourite kind of sci-fi story - inventive and humorous!
November 29, 2025
First published in Galaxy Science
Fiction magazine in 1958. Then
re-printed in Beyond Control
in 1972.
I think I originally read this
science fiction short story when I was 35.
Well written. With a unique
and creative plot, IMO.
I have read a ton of SF short
stories and I would rank this
among the top 10 that I have
read.
Fiction magazine in 1958. Then
re-printed in Beyond Control
in 1972.
I think I originally read this
science fiction short story when I was 35.
Well written. With a unique
and creative plot, IMO.
I have read a ton of SF short
stories and I would rank this
among the top 10 that I have
read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews