Independent Reading Day 7

I completed Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov this week. Pebble in the Sky was an excellent book. It encompassed many areas of not just the future, but modern life. The book showed the greed and corruption of governments very well. It also introduced galactic life without ever leaving the Earth. I thought that this book was very clever.

The plot that is brought together in Pebble in the Sky is that the government on Earth uses Dr. Shekt's synapsifier on the biologists of the government. They used the biologists to develop biological warfare weapons against the rest of the world. Because Earth had been exposed to diseases such as the flu virus for so long, they became immune, but the Outsiders of the Galaxy do not have this immunity, so Earth has that advantage, and exploits it. The weapons are filled with disease, and the Galaxy will not be able to stop it.

The plot is ingenious. I was surprised that Earth would be able to have a weapon to take on the entire Galactic Empire! However, the Earth government was extremely greedy in this case. They would annhilate the entire Galaxy so that they could reign supreme over what? Just Earth anyways! Eventually, the galaxy would be recolonized, and Earth would once again be shoved off as a poor planet. Yet the government did not care, so long as they had power. I hope that Iran will not make that kind of decision with its nuclear weapons, just for power.