Mother Earth (novelette)
| "Mother Earth" | |
|---|---|
| Author | Isaac Asimov |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction short story |
| Published in | Astounding Science Fiction |
| Publisher | Street & Smith |
| Media type | Magazine |
| Publication date | May 1949 |
| Preceded by | The Positronic Man |
| Followed by | The Caves of Steel |
"Mother Earth" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was written from September 1 to October 10, 1948, and published in the May 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It was republished in Asimov's 1972 short story collection The Early Asimov.
No individual robots appear, but positronic robots are part of the background. With fifty Spacer worlds led by Aurora, this tale seems to bridge the gap between the early robot stories and The Caves of Steel. Asimov himself is ambiguous about the link, saying:
What interests me most about "Mother Earth" is that it seems to show clear premonitions of the novels Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, which I was to write in the 1950s."
The term "Galactic Empire" appears at the end of the novel. This could indicate a possible link to the Empire Series. The first Empire novel, Pebble in the Sky, was written in 1947, the year before "Mother Earth".
Mother Earth will finally have given birth not to merely a Terrestrian, but to a Galactic Empire.
A major theme of the story is the way in which the Spacers have closed their thinly populated worlds to Earth's crowded inhabitants. This was not an abstraction to Isaac Asimov, who was born in the village of Petrovichi in Russia. When he was three, his parents were able to emigrate to the USA, shortly before severe restrictions were placed on the immigration of Russian and East European Jews. He did not forget the link, and in fact remained fluent in Yiddish as well as English.
Earth faces a confrontation with its colonies, the "Outer Worlds." A historian looks back and sees the problem beginning a century and a half earlier, when Aurora got permission to "introduce positronic robots into their community life." No date is given, but fifty years before the story starts, the Outer Worlds established an immigration quota against incoming Terran citizens. The balance of power then tipped. Now war appears likely, and there are rumors that Earth has developed an unknown weapon, code-named the "Pacific Project."
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