Category: Pebble In The Sky

Of Pebbles and Pulps

The cover of Galaxy Science Fiction Novel #14
The cover of Galaxy Science Fiction Novel #14

Sometimes the world of science fiction publishing seems like the Wild, Wild West to me. I don’t mean the wacky 1960s teevee show. I probably don’t mean the real Wild, Wild West either because I suspect that was pretty brutal. What do I mean? The Wild West I mean is the one that I grew up with. It lived in shows like The Big Valley and the Star Trek episode “Specter of the Gun” with a little Firefly thrown in for good measure. It also lived in timeless classics like The Cheyenne Social Club. That’s the entire list, I wasn’t much of a Western guy. In fact, I only saw The Big Valley if I was home sick from school. Still, I mean chaotic and lawless in a mostly family-friendly sanitized PG kind of way.

Also, I realize that the inclusion of Firefly implies that I was still growing up when I was nearly forty. That tracks. On my last birthday, I entered my seventh childhood.

So my brain thinks that a novel comes out in hardcover and then some indeterminate time later the paperback edition follows. Mass market paperbacks were just getting started in the early 1950s and in SF publishing, although penny dreadfuls and dime novels were long gone, pulp magazines were still dominant. The other Galactic Empire novels were serialized in major pulp magazines as were the first two Robot Novels. But not Pebble in the Sky, its first paperback edition didn’t exist until 1957. What did we get instead? Two things.

Taking the second thing first, in 1953, Pebble in the Sky was published as the 14th Galaxy Science Fiction Novel. These were reprinted novels that were published monthly in the same digest format as Galaxy Science Fiction. We get a nice new cover illustration, but these have no interior artwork. The Galaxy novel isn’t the inspiration for this post.

The first though arrived in late 1950. Pebble was also published in the first issue of Two Complete Science-Adventure Stories (2CS-AB). And this does have some interior artwork. It took me a while to track it down but I eventually found it at the Luminist Archives which, like Archive.org, is a treasure trove that includes a lot of Golden Age Science Fiction. Each of the two novels opens with an illustrated two-page spread. Here’s the one for Pebble.

The Opening Image for Pebble in the Sky in Two Complete Science-Adventure Stories.

The image from the contents page matches the cover image with the glass hats and the ray guns.

The cover of an Italian Languste version of Pebble in the Sky

This is, so far as I know, the only Pulp Art for Pebble in the Sky. if you know of some more, please let us know in the comments! I’ll leave you with one final image, from an Italian language edition of Pebble. Unlike the 2CS-AB images above it has a clear and relevant relation to the events from the novel.

Resources

Stars End S5E16

We encounter the back cover of the Good Doctor’s first actual book as we wrap up The Pebble in the Sky with chapters 14 through 22.

Cover of the Bantam Paperback edition of Pebble in the Sky (1957)

“Podcast Along With Me The Best is Yet to Be.”

If you’ve been around for a while you probably remember our discussions of the “Great Man Theory of History” vs the “Bottom-Up” paradigm. In other words, do remarkable individuals with unique characteristics write history or is it driven by powerful historical forces that generate great leaders when they are needed? It’s a false dichotomy, but a useful one. In the Foundation Universe the bottom-up theory must dominate otherwise psychohistory could not work the way it does.

But Joseph Schwartz is just the right Jewish tailor with a special kind of trick memory who is accidentally thrust to an exact moment in Earth’s future. Once there he is brought to the only scientist on Earth doing a particular type of brain research. He then survives a dangerous experiment that gives him an unlikely set of psychic powers which he uses to save the lives of nearly every human in the galaxy.

Put those numbers into your Prime Radiant and crunch them!

This probably delayed the creation of psychohistory by hundreds of years. “I just don’t understand it, Hari, the math says everyone in the galaxy should be dead right now.”

You’ll want to hear this! Let’s GO!

Stars End S5E15

Here’s your chance to join the discussion about Pebble in the Sky, Chapters 7 through 13! Also, we’ll open up the “Stars End Mailbag” and talk about Star Trek: Discovery!

Cover of Pebble in the Sky, paperback ed. , circa 1992

“There is Only One Reason Why a Synapsifier Can Possibly Be Used – To Improve a Podcast”

A lot of us who are past the point where we would be culled by the 60 take supplements to, theoretically, help improve our memory. Just the other day I couldn’t remember the title of the Star Trek episode “Return to Tomorrow.” That was no fun. I think most of us would like to be at least a little smarter and maybe some of what would come from a device like the synapsifier could be helpful.

I’ll pass on the parts about being lost in the department store, wandering about the automat, or being driven mad by the thoughts of strangers though. Those don’t sound fun either. “Lost in the Supermarket” by the Clash might sum up all of these potential side effects.

It would though, improve a podcast, to a point. Remembering what we want to say would help quite a bit. And having perfect recall would save a lot of note-taking. But telepathic communications would ruin things even with state-of-the-art recording equipment unless an hour of silence would be an improvement.

In the meantime, we’ll muddle through and bring you the best podcast possible with regular human brains and imperfect memory! Let’s GO!

Stars End S5E14

We begin our conversation about Pebble in the Sky with Chapters 1 through 6.

Pebble In The Sky First Edition Cover

“Between One Podcast and the Next.”

Isaac Asimov is famously prolific; if you know one thing about the Great and Glorious Az it might be that he wrote more than 500 books. Asimov-Reviews.net puts the number at 514 counting the Good Doctor’s dissertation. Asimov.Fandom.com puts the number at a much more modest 506.

The Back Cover of Opus 100. Asimov’s First 100 books.

Why is this relevant? Well, Pebble in the Sky is Asimov Book #001; it’s the first thing he wrote that got stuck between its own two covers (unless you count his dissertation, which he did not). It’s also only his first novel even though he had already been writing professionally for eleven years. Most of I, Robot and the Foundation Trilogy were in the rearview mirror; those quickly became books 002, 004, 006, and 009. Pebble in the Sky is also a lot of fun!

Don’t miss it as we delve into this significant moment in Asenion history! Let’s GO!