Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (Revised Edition)

by James Gunn

  Asimov may have intended the comparison of Christ and Balkis to point up the significant fact that he is not simply rewriting history. Balkis is not Christ, just as Pebble in the Sky is not a simple retelling of the Judea story. Earth is a Judea with special characteristics; it is a Judea with radiation poisoning and institutionalized euthanasia, and it is a Judea given an opportunity to avenge its wrongs and regain its freedom. Asimov's critics (Damon Knight among them), who dismissed his historically inspired science fiction as merely the rewriting of history, overlooked the fact that the Galactic Empire in the Foundation stories is not the Roman Empire at the time of its fall but a Galactic Empire with foresight psychohistory to shorten the Dark Ages and with the Foundations not simply to preserve knowledge, as the monasteries did, but to add to it, disseminate it, and use it as the basis for a newer and more rational Galactic civilization.

  Typically, however, Asimov did not allow Judea (Earth) to get its revenge and its freedom. Such short-sighted triumphs were foreign to Asimov's philosophy. He was not religious and disliked Judaism as a form of "particularly pernicious nationalism. . . ." In Pebble in the Sky Asimov opts for civilization and sanity and understanding, which eventually may lead (though in Foundation and Earth Asimov revealed that the effort was unsuccessful) to the restoration of an Earth that was ravaged by the insanities of the little groups firmly convinced, each one, that it was better than the others.

  Pebble in the Sky also has its weaknesses. The plot against the Galaxy is an isolated act intended to reverse the balance of power at one blow, unlike the more convincing context of actions in the Foundation stories, each one moving the Galaxy in some small way closer to Hari Seldon's vision. Schwartz's bombing of the missile site, which occurs offstage like the violence in the Foundation stories, is a cutting of the Gordian knot that lacks the subtlety with which Asimov unravels his better works. Balkis's insistence on perceiving complicated plots in accidental relationships may be credible considering his own machinations but seems more an authorial convenience in light of the fact that his own conniving rather than someone else's determination brings about his downfall.

  In fact, weakness of motivation is the major flaw of the novel. Events happen for the novel's reasons to keep it going rather than the characters' reasons. Schwartz just happens to be projected into the future and just happens to stumble into the home of the one family that has reason to take him in. Shekt just happens to have advertised for volunteers on which to test the Synapsifier just before Schwartz arrives from the past (why did Shekt need to test the Synapsifier, since he already had used it on a number of the Society of Ancients biologists, and why did the Society allow him to advertise?). The crippled Grew just happens to read about it, and the family just happens to decide to volunteer Schwartz for it to cure his mental deficiencies. Later on, Schwartz just happens to escape from the Institute (he has no reason) as Arvardan is passing by, and Pola, going in search of him, just happens to meet Arvardan. Natter, Balkis's agent, just happens to decide to save Schwartz from being captured by Imperial soldiers, and even that decision seems inadequately motivated. Fortunate incidents accumulate. Few of them happen because they must, but all of them are necessary to the manipulations of the story. This leads Asimov to various kinds of shoring-up processes of which Balkis's conspiracy mania is the grossest example. Without it, none of the rest of the events would have mattered: the missiles would have gone off as scheduled and Earth would have had its will of the Galaxy.

  Perhaps a simpler explanation for the weakness of Pebble in the Sky is that it lacked Asimov's basic method, the puzzle or the mystery. The puzzle or mystery approach provides not only a reasonable and convincing structure for a story, as an individual or a group tries to find a solution, it also supplies credible motivation.

  Asimov's next novel, the one that he described to Bradbury after he had handed him the corrected proofs to Pebble in the Sky, had the Asimov method but was weakened by its unsatisfactory solution to the mystery. As a consequence, The Stars, Like Dust was Asimov's least favorite novel, although he ascribed his feelings to his attempt to use an outline when writing the book, the last time he did so. Possibly it also suffered from second-novel problems. Asimov recounted in his autobiography that the first two chapters and outline that he turned over to Bradbury on Christmas 1949 were not well received. Bradbury gave him a $250 option to keep working but threw out the chapters Asimov had submitted. "I had apparently committed the customary sin of the sophomore novel," Asimov wrote. "The first novel was fine since I was writing as a novice and had no reputation to uphold. Once it was accepted, however, I was a `novelist' and had to write the second novel while keeping that reputation secure, which meant to write deeply and poetically and wittily and so on."

  Bradbury provided some necessary guidance. He rejected a new version of the first third of The Stars, Like Dust, sending it back "copiously red-penciled," but he liked the third try and authorized Asimov to complete the novel. Asimov also got advice from Horace Gold, who had been shown part of the novel by Pohl. Gold wanted to serialize the novel in Galaxy, which was good news. Gold's suggestions, however, were not as welcome as Bradbury's.

  Eventually, the novel was serialized in Galaxy under Gold's title, Tyrann, which Asimov disliked. "An absolutely silly title," he called it, and added that "Gold was a good editor, but his taste in titles was execrable." That too contributed to Asimov's feelings about the novel.

  The Stars, Like Dust is an adventure story without any meaningful theme or concept. The story is set in Asimov's future history considerably before Pebble in the Sky, perhaps one thousand years in our future. (Early in the novel, one character reflects on the "Earthman's habit of building structures of reinforced concrete, squat, thick, and windowless. It was a thousand-year-old tradition dating from the days when the primitive nuclear bomb had not yet been countered by the force-shield defense.") Mankind is still spreading out to the stars, but the Galactic Empire is not yet even a dream; rather various kinds of governmental systems are being tried. At one point in the novel, Gillbret oth Hinriad describes the four stages of development of a new planet: 1) agriculture or ranching to feed itself; 2) mining and exportation of agricultural surpluses; 3) beginnings of industrialization; 4) mechanization, importation of food, exportation of machinery, investment in development of more primitive worlds. Certain kinds of government are appropriate to each stage, he suggests. Most governments are autocracies, either hereditary or elective, but one planet, because it was initially barren, directed its inhabitants outward for conquest. The Tyranni have conquered fifty worlds with their advanced spaceships, their Spartan culture, and their military skills.

  Earth, which is dangerously radioactive in many spots, still is recognized as the birthplace of humanity, and to its university, the University of Earth, come students from many other planets. One of them is Biron Farrill, son of the ruler called the Rancher of Widemos, of the agricultural planet Nephelos. Biron is within a few days of graduation when he is awakened in the night by a visiphone call from a fellow student, Sandor Jonti. But the sending part of the visiphone does not work. Neither do the lights, ventilation, or door when Biron tries to escape a "radiation bomb" building toward explosion in his closet. Jonti, however, blasts the lock, releases Biron, and tells him his life is in danger; his father has been arrested by the Tyranni and may have been executed. Biron, under an alias, should go to the planet of Rhodia and the court of the Director of Rhodia, Hinrik, who has influence with the Tyranni and may be able to get Biron reinstated as his father's successor. Biron reflects that he has not found the Earth document his father had asked him to locate but decides to leave as Jonti suggests. In a personal-beam transmission from the planet Lingane, Jonti learns that the Rancher of Widemos has indeed been executed. Jonti says that Biron is expendable. A bit later he learns from Rizzett, his agent, that the document both he and Biron had been seeking has been missing for twenty years.

  Meanwhile, Biron has had his stateroom changed
and his luggage moved on board the spaceship to Rhodia. He learns that papers revealing his identity have been removed. When he arrives on Rhodia he is hauled before Simok Aratap, the Tyranni in charge of the Rhodian sector. Biron, however, denies that he is Farrill and the Rancher's son and is allowed to go to the court of the Director, although Aratap recognizes that Biron is lying and, as is revealed in the next chapter, Biron realizes that Aratap knows it.

  The Director of Rhodia is selected from its own family members by the ruling house, the Hinriads. Able rulers have been selected; even adoptions are encouraged. But Tyrannian conquest brought in different ideas. The conquerors helped to select Hinrik, who is a terrorized fool. Hinrik tries to persuade his daughter Artemesia (Arta) to agree to marry an aged nobleman of the Tyrannian court, but she refuses. When Biron is brought to Hinrik, and says he has information that Hinrik's life is in danger, Hinrik leaves Biron with Arta. Hinrik's cousin Gillbret also talks to Biron and later that evening invites Biron to his laboratory, where Gillbret reveals that his foolish chatter is just a pose. He works with spy beams and has invented a new musical and visual instrument that works on the nerve endings. He calls it a "visisonor." (In The Foundation Trilogy the Mule plays a visisonor there spelled Visi-Sonor an instrument, resurrected from a museum, that no one else knows how to play properly.) Gillbret wants Biron to take Arta and him away from Rhodia in a visiting spaceship. Spaceship piloting is a forbidden art in Tyranni-controlled areas, but Biron has learned it at the University of Earth. Before Biron can act, however, palace guards invade the laboratory to arrest him. With the aid of Gillbret's visisonor, Biron breaks free and gets to Arta's room before the search catches up. Arta conceals him, and they and Gillbret escape, with Biron in the uniform of a Rhodian palace guard.

  Aratap has arrived, however, in a Tyrannian spaceship to answer Hinrik's call, and the spaceport is lighted. Biron and the Hinriads escape in Aratap's Tyrannian ship. This turns out to be a mistake, for Tyrannian ships can be traced. They have other secret abilities as well, such as being able to program a series of Jumps through hyperspace. Gillbret reveals that more than twenty years earlier he had attended the coronation of the present Khan of Tyrann. On his way back to Rhodia the Tyrannian spaceship in which he was traveling was hit by a meteorite, the two crew members were killed, and the control board possibly was damaged as well. But the ship made several automatic Jumps, and at the end of the last Jump men came from a planet in answer to Gillbret's radio message and took him and the ship into underground areas where men from all parts of the Kingdoms were preparing for rebellion against Tyrann. Gillbret was rendered unconscious and woke up in the Tyrannian spaceship floating in space off Rhodia. He has never told this story to anyone before except the Autarch of Lingane, whose name and position in the conspiracy he learned from conversations overheard by spy beam between Biron's father and Hinrik six months before. But the Autarch had been unwilling to discuss any conspiracy.

  Gillbret, Biron, and Arta resolve to seek out the Autarch and to find the rebellion world. En route, Biron and Arta fall in love. The Autarch turns out to be Jonti. After Biron accuses Jonti of using him as a pawn, which the Autarch frankly admits, the Autarch speculates that the rebellion world may be located in the Horsehead Nebula. On Earth he found the coordinates of five stars inside the Nebula that Gillbret's course could have taken him near. The Autarch also accuses Hinrik of having been instrumental in the Rancher's death. This leads to a growing coldness between Biron and Arta and a growing involvement of Arta with the Autarch as they Jump toward the Nebula and begin exploring the five stars.

  The first three are without planets. The group lands to explore a planet of the fourth sun; it has an oxygen atmosphere but no carbon dioxide and is cold and barren besides. Biron and the Autarch go out to set up a radio transmitter with which to try to contact the rebels, who have not responded to messages from space. But they could be underground or in a hidden valley. Arta sees Rizzett following Biron and the Autarch with a long-range blasting rifle and follows Rizzett. Biron reveals that he has accompanied the Autarch knowing that the Autarch planned to kill him and that the Autarch was guilty of his father's death. As the Autarch pulls a blaster out of the radio equipment, he admits his intentions and his guilt. But the blaster has no charge, and the radio communicator switch was shorted so that everyone, including the Autarch's crew, heard his admissions. Rizzett, it turns out, had been on Biron's side because he had begun to suspect his leader of treachery, including the killing of the Rancher of Widemos.

  Biron helps Arta back to the ship (she had blacked out when running toward Rizzett to stop him, she thinks, from shooting Biron from the exertion and from failure to breathe properly because of the absence of carbon dioxide). He confesses to her that he had feigned coldness in order to set up the Autarch. Arta forgives him. But as Biron is addressing the Autarch's crew members in order to obtain their allegiance, Aratap and his soldiers surround them and take them prisoner. They also had heard the conversation between Biron and the Autarch.

  Aratap tries to persuade the prisoners, one at a time, to betray the location of the rebellion world, but they remain silent except for the Autarch, who is willing to provide the coordinates of the fifth Nebular star if Aratap will kill Biron. Rizzett is furious in spite of Biron's attempts to calm him and when the Autarch reveals the coordinates Rizzett grabs a blaster and kills him. Biron says that this is what Aratap wanted to have happen.

  In the confusion, however, Gillbret escapes. He is found in the engine room. Later, his mind and body failing, he reveals to Biron that he has shorted the hyperatomics so that the ship will blow up when it tries to make a Jump. Biron, unable to convince the guard of his improvised prison cell about the sabotage, escapes and finally is brought to Aratap, who has the Jump delayed until the short is found. Gillbret dies.

  The ship reaches the fifth sun, and Aratap discovers that the star went nova less than a million years before. Aratap says that he now believes, as Biron has insisted, that there is no rebellion world. Aratap releases the four captives (including Hinrik, who accompanied him from Rhodia) and sends them back to Rhodia. Since there is no rebellion world, he says, it is politically expedient to keep the situation as it is and not reveal in a public trial the rumors of a rebellion world that might trouble Tyrannian rule for a century.

  On their own ship, Biron reveals that Gillbret must have been taken to Rhodia in the Tyrannian ship's final Jump. That was his original destination, and the possibility of a random Jump arriving near a star when space is so large and stars so comparatively few is so unlikely as to be unbelievable. The rebellion world, then, is within the Rhodia system. Arta exclaims that this would mean her father is in terrible danger, but Biron reveals that Hinrik has known about it for twenty years, indeed, has been the head of it and has been playing the part of a fool so that he can organize rebellion without interference. It was the valuable life of Hinrik that Biron was trying to save from Gillbret's shorting of the hyperatomics.

  Hinrik confesses his deception, marries Arta and Biron, and reveals that he knows what Earth document the Rancher had asked Biron to find because he has had it for twenty years: the Constitution of the United States of America. This blueprint, which dealt with a small section of one planet, can be adapted to all the Galaxy and will mean the end of such feudal despotisms as that of the Tyranni but also of the more enlightened rules of the Director of Rhodia and the Rancher of Widemos. Democracy will be the new governmental system.

  The revelation that the Constitution was the valuable document was forced on Asimov by Gold and accepted gleefully by Bradbury. Asimov, in his autobiography, objected to it as "corny and unbelievable. No one could suppose that an instrument of government suitable for a primitive nation forming a small part of a single world would be suitable for a stellar federation." But Asimov managed to make the document as plausible as anything else in the novel, which may not be saying a great deal.

  Almost everything in the novel lacks the conviction
and credibility that distinguished typical Asimov fiction. Biron has no good reason to go to Rhodia from Earth, nor does the Autarch have any convincing reason for wanting him to go there. Aratap's allowing Biron to go to Hinrik and Biron's pursuing that original plan in spite of his knowledge that Aratap is onto him are equally unconvincing. Gillbret and Arta's need to escape is flimsy. Gillbret's story of his encounter with the rebellion world is strewn with coincidences that are only partially justified by the revelation that he arrived in the Rhodian system. Even then there is no good explanation for the fact that his first radio messages are picked up by the rebels but not by the Rhodians or the Tyranni. The Autarch's reasons for believing that the rebellion world is inside the Horsehead Nebula are finally exposed as even flimsier than anyone had suspected. If Gillbret overheard Hinrik and the Rancher discussing the Autarch, he must have heard Hinrik not playing the fool, but he betrays no knowledge of Hinrik's act. And Aratap's reasons for letting them go at the end, even though Hinrik plants the thought that Aratap is as intelligent as Biron and has followed the same line of reasoning and will continue to watch them with the hope that they will lead him to the rebels, are more convenient than plausible.