The Book I'm About to Read: The Stars, Like Dust by Isaac Asimov

I'd knocked back Isaac Asimov's first novel, Pebble in the Sky, in about a week, courtesy of the Louisville Free Public Library's e-collection, and found that this had just whetted the Asimov appetite that had started growing in me a couple of years ago. (Yes, before I knew that Apple TV+ was going to bless us with their most excellent & interesting Foundation series. I do not follow trends, I anticipate them.)

So I checked the Asimov Bibliography on Wikipedia to see what his second novel was, found that it was The Stars, Like Dust (first published February 15, 1951), and I went to see if the library had a book book first. Much to my surprise, they did not. They did have an e-book, but only one copy...and that was checked out. Which meant at minimum a two week wait. I don't wait well, so I went to Internet Archive (HERE), which often solves such problems as this for me. Much to my delight, I found that they had not one, not two, not even three, but four copies of the novel available for check out:

So I chose the one with the coolest cover, clicked on it, and...found this puzzling message: Renewable every hour, pending availability. That wasn't what I wanted, so I clicked on the second coolest cover. Same message. Third coolest? Same. Least cool? Same. Sigh. If I were only going to be reading this book at home I suppose it would just be a minor inconvenience to have to check the book out every hour, but my Kindle travels with me, and we don't do public wifi. So I went back to the LFPL and placed a hold on their one copy of the book.

But then I started thinking: hey...this is the 21st Century. Everything is on the internet somewhere, right? So I thought about it some more. Checked back on Wikipedia and found that originally this novel was published in Galaxy magazine...under the title Tyrann. Specifically in the January, February, and March 1951 issues of Galaxy. Which is kind of puzzling. Unless I'm missing something (always a possibility to consider), that means the book was published before the final installment of the serial version hit the stands. And possibly before the second, actually. That doesn't seem normal, does it?

Anyway, I went back to the Internet Archive and searched for Galaxy January 1951. And...Whoomp! There it was!

And not only did this give you the whole 164 pages of the magazine without even checking it out...it also gave you 9 different download options. And just to sweeten that pot a little more, there were illustrations for the story. 7 of them. 

Well. They had me at illustrations, for sure.

So I don't have to wait after all. Going to go back and cancel that hold and give somebody else a chance at it.

More news as it happens. But meanwhile...Internet Archive, brahs and tahs. It's where things happen.