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Pebble in the Sky

Galactic Empires, Book 3

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Pebble in the Sky

By: Isaac Asimov
Narrated by: Jon Lindstrom
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About this listen

Caught up in an experiment gone wrong, Joseph Schwartz is transported forward in time from post-war Chicago to the heyday of the first Galactic Empire.

Earth, he soon learns, is a backwater, despised by the other two hundred million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it as the original home of man.

And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil – so poor that everyone is sentenced to death at the age of sixty.

And Joseph Schwartz is sixty-two.

Asimov’s Galactic Empire novels are among the earliest stories by one of the twentieth century’s greatest visionaries. Filled with ideas and wonders, they are classic adventures from science fiction’s Golden Age.

©2023 Isaac Asimov (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Space Exploration Space Opera Time Travel

Critic Reviews

‘Isaac Asimov was one of the great explainers of the age…It will never be known how many practicing scientists today, in how many countries, owe their initial inspiration to a book, article, or short story by Isaac Asimov’
Carl Sagan

‘Asimov displayed one of the most dynamic imaginations in science fiction’
Daily Telegraph

‘Asimov’s career was one of the most formidable in science fiction’
The Times
All stars
Most relevant  
I first read this book as a teenager in the mid-70s, and never forgot it. It was written in 1950, and I listened to it seventy-five years later, in 2025 (when at 62, I'm the same age as the main character, Schwartz). Asimov was a brilliant visionary, and the personalities, and social / political situations he envisaged back then are still, for better or worse, reflective of the world we find ourselves in, today. Highly recommend this novel. LS, in Australia, 24th June 2025. (PS: I sped up the narration to 1.2 - perfect).

A story that stands the test of time!

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