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from the past (why did Shekt need to test the Synapsifier, since he already had used it on a number of the Society of Ancients biologists, and why did the Society allow him to advertise?). The crippled Grew just happens to read about it, and the family just happens to decide to volunteer Schwartz for it to cure his mental deficiencies. Later on, Schwartz just happens to escape from the Institute (he has no reason) as Arvardan is passing by, and Pola, going in search of him, just happens to meet Arvardan. Natter, Balkis's agent, just happens to decide to save Schwartz from being captured by Imperial soldiers, and even that decision seems inadequately motivated. Fortunate incidents accumulate. Few of them happen because they must, but all of them are necessary to the manipulations of the story. This leads Asimov to various kinds of shoring-up processes of which Balkis's conspiracy mania is the grossest example. Without it, none of the rest of the events would have mattered: the missiles would have gone off as scheduled and Earth would have had its will of the Galaxy.
Perhaps a simpler explanation for the weakness of Pebble in the Sky is that it lacked Asimov's basic method, the puzzle or the mystery. The puzzle or mystery approach provides not only a reasonable and convincing structure for a story, as an individual or a group tries to find a solution, it also supplies credible motivation.
Asimov's next novel, the one that he described to Bradbury after he had handed him the corrected proofs to Pebble in the Sky, had the Asimov method but was weakened by its unsatisfactory solution to the mystery. As a consequence, The Stars, Like Dust was Asimov's least favorite novel, although he ascribed his feelings to his attempt to use an outline when writing the book, the last time he did so. Possibly it also suffered from second-novel problems. Asimov recounted in his autobiography that the first two chapters and outline that he turned over to Bradbury on Christmas 1949 were not well received. Bradbury gave him a $250 option to keep working but threw out the chapters Asimov had submitted. "I had apparently committed the customary sin of the sophomore novel," Asimov wrote. "The first novel was fine since I was writing as a novice and had no reputation to uphold. Once it was accepted, however, I was a `novelist' and had to write the second novel while keeping that reputation secure, which meant to write deeply and poetically and wittily and so on."
Bradbury provided some necessary guidance. He rejected a new version of the first third of The Stars, Like Dust, sending it back "copiously red-penciled," but he liked the third try and authorized Asimov to complete the novel. Asimov also got advice from Horace Gold, who

 
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