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fly him to Senloo (St. Louis) and bomb the building where the missiles and virus were ready to be sent off. |
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In the final chapter, the Galaxy is sending vast loads of soil to restore Earth, Schwartz has been decorated by the Empire and is about to leave with the newly married Arvardan and Pola Shekt on a tour of the Galaxy, after which the Arvardans plan to return to Earth to work. Arvardan has become a naturalized citizen. |
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The novel has three major strengths. The first is the historical development of the Galactic Empire, a background that Asimov built with convincing detail through the Foundation stories and in other works. The Empire is ready-made for his use, and the lowly estate of the birthplace of humanity, which has been part of other stories (in the Foundation stories, the birthplace has been lost, as it has been in the Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth), serves as a satisfying irony. The second strength is the use of an elderly tailor as hero (at sixty-two, Schwartz must have seemed ancient to the twenty-nine-year-old Asimov and his by-and-large youthful readers). It was an act of daring in a genre that specialized in young men for action and older men for inventions. The choice of hero that may have put off Merwin and perhaps Campbell was ultimately rewarding: Schwartz is convincing and his development into a man of understanding and strange abilities turns the novel into something of a novel of character. The third strength is in its historical parallel: just as the Empire in The Foundation Trilogy is comparable to the Roman Empire when it began its long fall, so Earth in Pebble in the Sky is comparable to Judea under the rule of the Romans, when it was awaiting the Messiah. |
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Asimov's choice of the historical parallel is deliberate. As proof, one can point to his successful use of the same technique in the Trilogy and to his fascination with history. There is internal evidence as well: 1) Earthmen clearly represent the Jews; 2) the Empire's representative on Earth is called a Procurator, as was Pontius Pilate, the Roman administrator of Judea who condemned Jesus to the Cross; 3) Earthmen are bloodthirsty, always asking for the death penalty for one of themselves, as did the Jews when they were asked whether to spare Jesus (the High Minister says, ''. . . my people are an obstinate and stiff-necked race . . ."); 4) Earth's extremists are called Zealots, as was the radical group that advocated the overthrow of Roman rule; and 5) at one point a troubled Ennius, as Pilate, says of Balkis, "I find no fault with this man." Though Ennius might double for Pilate, the Machiavellian Balkis as Christ stretches the parallel a bit. Perhaps it is not intended to be carried that far. |
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