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Page 134
find because he has had it for twenty years: the Constitution of the United States of America. This blueprint, which dealt with a small section of one planet, can be adapted to all the Galaxy and will mean the end of such feudal despotisms as that of the Tyranni but also of the more enlightened rules of the Director of Rhodia and the Rancher of Widemos. Democracy will be the new governmental system.
The revelation that the Constitution was the valuable document was forced on Asimov by Gold and accepted gleefully by Bradbury. Asimov, in his autobiography, objected to it as "corny and unbelievable. No one could suppose that an instrument of government suitable for a primitive nation forming a small part of a single world would be suitable for a stellar federation." But Asimov managed to make the document as plausible as anything else in the novel, which may not be saying a great deal.
Almost everything in the novel lacks the conviction and credibility that distinguished typical Asimov fiction. Biron has no good reason to go to Rhodia from Earth, nor does the Autarch have any convincing reason for wanting him to go there. Aratap's allowing Biron to go to Hinrik and Biron's pursuing that original plan in spite of his knowledge that Aratap is onto him are equally unconvincing. Gillbret and Arta's need to escape is flimsy. Gillbret's story of his encounter with the rebellion world is strewn with coincidences that are only partially justified by the revelation that he arrived in the Rhodian system. Even then there is no good explanation for the fact that his first radio messages are picked up by the rebels but not by the Rhodians or the Tyranni. The Autarch's reasons for believing that the rebellion world is inside the Horsehead Nebula are finally exposed as even flimsier than anyone had suspected. If Gillbret overheard Hinrik and the Rancher discussing the Autarch, he must have heard Hinrik not playing the fool, but he betrays no knowledge of Hinrik's act. And Aratap's reasons for letting them go at the end, even though Hinrik plants the thought that Aratap is as intelligent as Biron and has followed the same line of reasoning and will continue to watch them with the hope that they will lead him to the rebels, are more convenient than plausible.
The major problem of the novel is that it proceeds by concealment of information from the reader and by misunderstanding. In the best Asimov fiction, characters may try to deceive others, but their own motives are clear. In The Stars, Like Dust nobody has sound motivation for what they do, with the possible exceptions of Aratap and the Autarch, both of whom intend to repress or use to their own advantage whatever is going on, and both of whom lose. The novel is a mystery. It

 
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