Synopsis
A delegation from the Galactic Federation is sent to Earth to sign them up for the Federation when they achieve interstellar travel capability. Earth doesn’t want to join.
History
First publication: Astounding, September 1940
Review
This is a weak story, even though John W. Campbell liked it. First it is weak in characters. Asimov has characters that seem like stock characters from a B-movie in the 1930s. This is an issue that Asimov would struggle with again. Second, those characters are supposed to be aliens. Aside from their home planets and different features, they don’t seem even remotely alien. The third weakness is one Asimov said he did try to avoid, but that Campbell rewrote the story to fit his view of Earthmen being able to beat all comers, no matter how advanced they may be. I would recommend this only to the Asimov completest. This is not even one of the best stories of 1940, and Asimov himself had already written better stories.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
The Early Asimov, hardcover, Doubleday / SFBC, 1972-12-00
All of the stories in the Homo Sol series:
1 Homo Sol
2 The Imaginary
3 The Hazing
