PEBBLE IN THE SKY

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Summary: The first Science Fiction book that I ever owned!
Review: The book that I read was a Bantam Pathfinder paperback edtion. The copyright was 1950 and the printing history was that it had appeared in Galaxy publications between January and June 1933 and then was reprinted several times. The book is dedicated to Isaac Asimov's father. The story is probably too slowly paced for today's MTV generation. It lacks lot's of the shootin' and blowin' things up that are popular today. Instead it is a speculative story about a man who is yanked out of his time and into another. Written in the 1930's was obvuiously updated for the post war years because it reads more like the 1950's and talks to people of any generation. It introduced me to the poetry of Robert Browning and the poem "Rabi Ben Ezra". "Grow old along with me the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made." ...

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Summary: My personal Favorite
Review: This book is great. The only problem with it is i didn't like the ending (same with Foundation Edge) but after reading it again , i decided that it was good one. Schwartz a cool and description of earth is good. Best asimov book by far (and his first, ironic)

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Summary: A displaced (in time) tailor, discrimination, and empires
Review: This is Isaac Asimov's first published science fiction novel and a nice introduction to 1950s science fiction. I first read it when I was a teenager. This particular story is an interesting look at discrimination. In this book, a 62-year-old tailor is accidentally transported to a distant future. In this future, the Galaxy is populated by man and Earth is only a minor planet within the Galactic Empire. The peoples of other worlds treat Earthlings as being a separate and defective race. An archeologist travels to Earth to find evidence that a single planet, Earth, was the source of mankind. Earth itself has a Procurator representing the Galactic Empire while the local politics are centered about a strict theocracy (reminiscent of ancient Rome and Israel) which controls the size of the population by euthanasia of its citizens at the age of sixty. The population is always threatening to revolt against the Empire. An Earth neurophysicist has discovered a new technique with which the rate of learning can be accelerated. He describes it as a procedure that can alter the dielectric constant between synapses (unfortunately, a change in the dielectric constant would probably result in protein denaturation; but that would ruin the story). Our time-traveling tailor is subjected to this treatment with unexpected results.

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Summary: Excellent Novel
Review: This is the first novel I've read by Azimov. His short stories are excellent and this novel has great levels and evectively jumps from one persons perspective to anothers.

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Summary: A very good bridge if nothing else
Review: This story connects the Empire series together with the foundation series. On its own it is nothing spectacular--certainly not one of Asimov's finer works (though it may be because it is such an early work). It gets the job of tying loose ends together done and it does it well, no doubts.

Rating:
Summary: A very good bridge if nothing else
Review: This story connects the Empire series together with the foundation series. On its own it is nothing spectacular--certainly not one of Asimov's finer works (though it may be because it is such an early work). It gets the job of tying loose ends together done and it does it well, no doubts.

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Summary: An early gem from Asimov.
Review: This story of a twentieth century man thrust into the far future was one of the few S.F. novels of Asimov that I had not read. I picked it up at a garage sale and I was not disappointed. This was a very enjoyable story of time travel and political intrigue.

Tailor Joseph Schwartz gets accidentally transported from modern day (1949) to the far-flung future of the Galactic Empire. (I am always a sucker for a time travel story.) What transpires is a classic Asimov story line. Schwartz is "volunteered" for a science experiment in which he inadvertently acquires the ability to read minds and influence them. This type of "happy accident" is evident in other Asimovian stories. In Robots of Dawn R. Giskard is given similar abilities by a child playfully rearranging his programming. In Foundation and Empire the Mule is a mutant born with such abilities. While this is all OK, I wonder why he used it so much.

Even though I liked the book, the ending came too quickly, which seems to be Asimovian as well.


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Summary: Excellent Asimov Book Introducing me To Sci-Fi
Review: This was my first sci-fi book that I ever read. I would love to read again this story of the man who was minding his own business and steps from his known world into an unknown world as a result of a particle beam that got out of control. This was Asimov at his finest at an early stage of his productive career.

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Summary: memorable
Review: This was the first Asimov book I read in school in the sixties, I have been searching for a copy. I recall the lost and lonley feeling the main character felt being in a "foreign"place,but how he learned to trust his new friends. Truely a classic!