Pebble in the Sky
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Pebble in the Sky is Isaac Asimov's first novel, published in 1950. It later became part of his Empire series. Although it has two prequels (The Stars, Like Dust and The Currents of Space) they are only loosely connected.
Plot summary
While walking down the street, Joseph Schwartz, a retired tailor, is the unwitting victim of a nearby nuclear lab accident which propels him tens of thousands of years into the future (50,000 years, by one character's estimate). Due to changes in spoken language, he is unable to communicate with anyone. Mistaken for a mentally deficient person, he is put through an experimental procedure to increase his mental abilities. The procedure works, and also gives him telepathic abilities (including the ability to kill by thought).
Earth, at this time, is seen by the rest of the Galactic Empire as a rebellious planet—it has, in fact, rebelled three times—and the inhabitants are discriminated against. Earth is also radioactive, although the cause is never given. (The prequels elaborate on this point.) Because the radioactivity makes large areas of Earth uninhabitable, it is a very poor planet, and anyone who is unable to work is legally required to be killed. Earthpeople must also be executed when they reach the age of sixty, with a very few exceptions for people who have made significant contributions to society. This is a problem for Schwartz, who is sixty-two years old.
The religious fanatics who rule Earth have created a supervirus which they plan to use to kill or subjugate the rest of the empire. Schwartz, along with some companions, is narrowly able to stop their plan.
It should be noted that the 50,000 year estimate is at odds with the chronology given in Asimov's later novels, in particular Foundation and Earth and The Caves of Steel. The latter novel indicates that the robot R. Daneel Olivaw was constructed some three thousand years after the founding of New York City. Foundation and Earth, in its concluding scene, establishes that Daneel survives into the Interregnum period, after the First Galactic Empire collapses. He gives his age as (roughly) twenty thousand years. The Galactic Era dating system, to which most of Asimov's Foundation Series adheres, places Foundation and Earth approximately twelve thousand years after Pebble in the Sky. Adding up all the differences, Joseph Schwartz's time displacement transported him only eleven millennia into the future.
This sort of inconsistency occurs elsewhere in Asimov's fiction. It is probably to be expected, given that Asimov wrote the Foundation stories over several decades and did not fully link the disparate historical eras until the last years of his life. Furthermore, his characters almost always act with incomplete information, frequently enriching their understanding of Galactic history as the plot unfolds. In this context, such inconsistencies are not only expectable but also—to an extent—necessary for realism.
Themes
This book takes place in the same universe as the Foundation Series. There is even a reference to Trantor, later the planet where Hari Seldon would invent psychohistory. Asimov returned to the radioactive Earth theme in Foundation and Earth, and he would explore it most fully in Robots and Empire.
| Preceded by: | Series: | Followed by: |
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| The Currents of Space | Empire Series Foundation Series | Blind Alley |