Pebble in the Sky

Pebble in the Sky

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Isaac Asimov
Cover artist	Richard M. Powers
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Empire series
Genre	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Doubleday
Publication date	January 19, 1950
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	223
Preceded by	The Currents of Space
Followed by	"Blind Alley"

Pebble in the Sky is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, published in 1950. This work is his first novel — parts of the Foundation series had appeared from 1942 onwards, in magazines, but Foundation was not published in book form until 1951. The original Foundation books are also a string of linked episodes, whereas this is a complete story involving a single group of characters.

Pebble in the Sky was originally written in the summer of 1947 under the title "Grow Old with Me" for Startling Stories, whose editor Sam Merwin, Jr. had approached Asimov to write a forty thousand word short novel for the magazine. The title was a misquotation of Robert Browning's Rabbi ben Ezra, the first few lines of which (starting "Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be...") were included in the final novel. It was rejected by Startling Stories on the basis that the magazine's emphasis was more on adventure than science-heavy fiction (despite the editor inviting Asimov to write the latter as an experiment for the magazine), and again by John W. Campbell, Asimov's usual editor. In 1949, Doubleday editor Walter I. Bradbury accepted the story on the suggestion of Frederik Pohl, on the condition it was expanded to seventy thousand words and the title changed to something more science fiction oriented, and it was published in January 1950 as Pebble in the Sky. "Grow Old With Me" was later published in its original form along with other draft stories in The Alternate Asimovs in 1986.

In Before the Golden Age, Asimov wrote that Pebble in the Sky was influenced by the short story "Proxima Centauri" by Murray Leinster.