Pebble in the Sky (1950)
Pebble in the Sky is a 1950 fiction in english book written by Isaac Asimov.
Joseph Schwartz, a retired tailor crossing a Chicago afternoon in 1949, vanishes and wakes on an Earth thousands of years ahead. It is a poor, radioactive world, held in contempt across a Galactic Empire that barely notices it exists. Unable to speak the language and taken for a simpleton, Schwartz becomes a subject in a laboratory experiment meant to sharpen the human mind. His path crosses that of Bel Arvardan, an ambitious archaeologist who suspects Earth is humanity's forgotten cradle, just as zealots on the planet set a hidden plan in motion. Asimov's first novel puts an ordinary man, not a hero, at the center.
Quick answers
What is Pebble in the Sky about?
Joseph Schwartz, a retired tailor crossing a Chicago afternoon in 1949, vanishes and wakes on an Earth thousands of years ahead. It is a poor, radioactive world, held in contempt across a Galactic Empire that barely notices it exists. Unable to speak the language and taken for a simpleton, Schwartz becomes a subject in a laboratory experiment meant to sharpen the human mind. His path crosses that of Bel Arvardan, an ambitious archaeologist who suspects Earth is humanity's forgotten cradle, just as zealots on the planet set a hidden plan in motion. Asimov's first novel puts an ordinary man, not a hero, at the center.
When was Pebble in the Sky published?
Pebble in the Sky was published in 1950.
Who made Pebble in the Sky?
Pebble in the Sky was written by Isaac Asimov.
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Explore Pebble in the Sky guides
Pebble in the Sky in our writing
- Companion guide: Foundation: The Complete Guide to Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire
A few thoughts on Pebble in the Sky
For the vertigo of an ordinary person stranded in a strange future, try Planet of the Apes, which drops a modern man onto an Earth he no longer recognizes. Fallout builds whole games from an irradiated, half-forgotten homeworld, and Foundation carries forward Asimov's vision of an empire too vast to notice a single planet.
An empire that treats its own birthplace like a joke
Pebble in the Sky strands Joseph Schwartz on an Earth so poor and radioactive that the Galactic Empire holds it in open contempt, unaware it may be humanity's actual birthplace. Foundation, Planet of the Apes, The Marrow Thieves and Interstellar all put a diminished, forgotten Earth at their center, showing how little patience a dominant power has for the place it came from once it no longer needs it.
People turned into unwitting subjects in someone else's experiment
In Pebble in the Sky, Joseph Schwartz becomes an unwitting subject in a laboratory experiment meant to sharpen the human mind, tested on far more than he ever agreed to. The Scorch Trials, Portal, Portal 2 and BioShock all trap ordinary people inside someone else's experiment, forced to survive a test they never signed up for and don't fully understand.