The Billiard Ball
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The Billiard Ball is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, written in September 1966 and first published in the March 1967 issue of If. It appeared in Asimov's 1968 collection Asimov's Mysteries, and also in his 1973 collection The Best of Isaac Asimov.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
An example of Asimov's "late style", the story is a journalist's recollection of the events surrounding the discovery of an anti-gravity device in the mid-21st century. Heavy with physics theory, the story describes the relationship between the creator of the device, the billionaire inventor Edward Bloom, and his former classmate James Priss, a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist who had discovered most of the theory that made the device possible.
| Asimov's Mysteries |
| The Singing Bell | The Talking Stone | What's in a Name? | The Dying Night | Pâté de Foie Gras | The Dust of Death | A Loint of Paw | I'm in Marsport Without Hilda | Marooned Off Vesta | Anniversary | Obituary | Star Light | The Key | The Billiard Ball |
| The Best of Isaac Asimov |
| Marooned Off Vesta | Nightfall | C-Chute | The Martian Way | The Deep | The Fun They Had | The Last Question | The Dead Past | The Dying Night | Anniversary | The Billiard Ball | Mirror Image |
