POHL, Frederik

(1919-)

   US writer, professionally involved in the sf field as an editor, agent and writer since his teens, his first published piece being a poem, "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna" as by Elton V. Andrews, for AMZ in 1937,and his first story proper being "Before the Universe" with C. M. KORNBLUTH, both writing as S.D. Gottesman, for Super Science Stories in1940. His 3rd marriage was to sf writer Judith MERRIL (1949-52) and his 4th to Carol Metcal Ulf (1952-82), who collaborated with him in editing several anthologies. His 5th and present wife, Elizabeth Anne Hull (married 1984), is an academic and a leading member of the SCIENCE FICTIONRESEARCH ASSOCIATION. FP was a member of the FUTURIANS, and wrote much of his early work in collaboration with other members of the group, mostly with C.M. Kornbluth. Names used by these two, sometimes involving third parties (including Robert A.W. LOWNDES and Joseph H. Dockweiler), were S.D. Gottesman (see above), Scott Mariner, Dirk WYLIE and the house namePaul Dennis Lavond. On his early solo work FP usually used the name James MacCreigh, though he published 1 story each as Wylie and Warren F. Howard. He published much of this work himself while editing ASTONISHING STORIES and SUPER SCIENCE STORIES Spring 1940-Fall 1941; he was then assistant editor to Alden Norton on these magazines from late 1941 until their demise in 1943. After WWII he worked as an sf literary agent; he represented many of the most celebrated writers in the field during the late 1940s. He began writing again, abandoning the MacCreigh pseudonym, in 1953, by which time he had used his own name on the first of a new set ofcollaborations with Kornbluth, the classic THE SPACE MERCHANTS (1952 Gal as "Gravy Planet"; 1953). While working as assistant editor to H.L. GOLD at GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION he wrote a great deal for the magazine, sometimes as Paul Flehr, Ernst Mason or Charles SATTERFIELD, the last once used for a story written in collaboration with Lester DEL REY, in partnership with whom he also wrote Preferred Risk (1955) as Edson MCCANN. Other writers with whom he collaborated at one time or another wereMerril, Isaac ASIMOV and Joseph SAMACHSON, and he built up a second long-term partnership with Jack WILLIAMSON. FP was editor of Gal and IF from late 1961 to mid-1969. While under his aegis If won 3 HUGOS as Best Magazine 1966-8. He also founded and edited 2 shorter-lived magazines,WORLDS OF TOMORROW (1963-7) and INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE FICTION (1967-8). Another significant editorial endeavour was an early series of original ANTHOLOGIES, STAR SCIENCE FICTION STORIES: Star Science Fiction Stories (anth 1953), \#2 (anth 1954), \#3 (anth 1955), \#4 (anth 1958), \#5 (anth 1959) and \#6 (anth 1959), along with a volume of longer stories, Star Short Novels (1954). He has also ed numerous reprint anthologies.As a writer FP made his first reputation by way of slickly ironic short stories, mostly SATIRES with a hint of black comedy. Works in this vein include the classics "The Midas Plague" (1954; incorporated into Midas World, fixup 1983) and "The Tunnel Under the World" (1955); almost allthese stories of the 1950s are collected in Alternating Currents (coll 1956; with 1 story dropped and 1 added, rev 1966 US), The Case AgainstTomorrow (coll 1957), Tomorrow Times Seven (coll 1959), The Man who Ate the World (coll 1960), Turn Left at Thursday (coll 1961) and The Abominable Earthman (coll 1963). Oddly, the only short-fiction award FPwon before his 1986 Hugo for "Fermi and Frost" was a Hugo for an atypical "posthumous collaboration" with Kornbluth, "The Meeting" (1972), whichappeared in Critical Mass (coll 1977) with Kornbluth; some of their collaborations had already been assembled as The Wonder Effect (coll 1962), and further selections appeared as Before the Universe, and OtherStories (coll 1980) and Our Best: The Best of Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth (coll 1987). FP's early solo novels were less successful: Slave Ship (1957), Drunkard's Walk (1960), A Plague of Pythons (1965; rev vt Demon in the Skull 1984) and The Age of the Pussyfoot (1969) lack the vitality of his collaborations with Kornbluth. The gaudy image of a future dominated by advertising painted in THE SPACE MERCHANTS now seems remarkably prescient (MEDIA LANDSCAPE) - although FP's solo sequel, The Merchants' War (1984), was unfortunately belated; both novels wereassembled as Venus, Inc (omni 1985). Gladiator-at-Law (1955; rev 1986) with Kornbluth is sillier, but makes some telling comments on housing projects (CRIME AND PUNISHMENT). The episodic Search the Sky (1954; rev 1985) with Kornbluth is an enjoyable early contribution to the"absurd-society" variety of sf. The more ambitious and surrealistically complicated Wolfbane (1959; rev 1986) with Kornbluth involves invading alien robots, the kidnapping of the planet Earth, subsequent primitive societies engineered to provide human components for living MACHINES on the aliens' own dirigible planet, and a revolt organized by these.FP's early collaborations with Jack Williamson were the Undersea juveniles - Undersea Quest (1954), Undersea Fleet (1955) and Undersea City (1958) (UNDER THE SEA) - and the Starchild novels, assembled as The Starchild Trilogy (omni 1977): The Reefs of Space (1964), Starchild (1965) and Rogue Star (1969). The latter are intelligent SPACE OPERAS combining Williamson's flair for melodrama with FP's economy of style. As FP's solo work has matured, so has his collaborative work with Williamson. The Saga of Cuckoo - Farthest Star (fixup 1975) and Wall Around a Star (1983), assembled as The Saga of Cuckoo (omni 1983) - is action-adventure fiction involving a vast artificial world. Land's End (1988) confronts the human survivors of a cosmic DISASTER with a godlike ALIEN. The Singers of Time (1991) is an excellent fusion of traditional space opera with modern ideasin PHYSICS.There was a sharp improvement in FP's longer works once he was no longer editing full time. Two fine novellas, "The Gold at the Starbow's End" (1971; exp vt Starburst 1982) and "The Merchants of Venus" (1971),were important transitional works, the latter forming a prelude to the enterprising Heechee series - GATEWAY (1977), Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980), Heechee Rendezvous (1984), The Annals of the Heechee(1987) and The Gateway Trip (coll of linked stories 1990) - which tracks humanity's exploration of the Galaxy using artefacts abandoned by aliens who have gone into hiding because of a threat posed to all living species by the enigmatic Assassins. GATEWAY won the Hugo, NEBULA and JOHN W. CAMPBELL MEMORIAL AWARD, following up the success of MAN PLUS (1976), aneffectively cynical novel about the adaptation of a man for life on MARS which had won a Nebula the year before (PANTROPY); the rather less impressive sequel is Mars Plus (1994) with Thomas T. THOMAS. JEM: The Making of a Utopia (1979) is a similarly cynical and compelling account ofthe COLONIZATION of an alien world - which somewhat resembles the eponymous planet in Medea's World (anth 1985) ed Harlan ELLISON - by competing human power blocs, but the more lightly satirical The Cool War (1981) is less successful. Syzygy (1982), a mundane novel about thefailure of a much-touted catastrophe to overwhelm California as a result of a rare alignment of planets, understandably suffers from a lack of melodrama - an absence made good in two later non-sf novels, the thriller Terror (1986) and the "drama-documentary" novel Chernobyl (1987). FP hasoccasionally complained about the unwillingness of sf writers to be constructive in their dealings with NEAR FUTURE scenarios, and he made a sustained attempt to practise what he preached in The Years of the City (fixup 1984), a future history of the City of New York. The Coming of theQuantum Cats (1986) is an ALTERNATE-WORLD adventure story only lightly seasoned with satire, but a more considerable satirical edge is evident in Black Star Rising (1985), Narabedla Ltd (1988) and the sharply pointed TheDay the Martians Came (fixup 1988). Homegoing (1989) is a more romantic and light-hearted story of confrontation between humans and aliens. The World at the End of Time (1990) recalls the theme of Land's End inpresenting a human colony's encounter with a godlike alien in a tale which traverses eons to the time and location referred to in the title; while the novella Outnumbering the Dead (1990 UK) focuses on the predicament of a man who is among the very few who age and die in a world of youthful-seeming immortals (IMMORTALITY).FP was president of the SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA 1974-6 and president of WORLD SF 1980-82. Muchinsight into the early days of his career is provided by the commentary in The Early Pohl (coll 1976), much of which was subsequently incorporatedinto The Way the Future Was: A Memoir (1978). The special Sep 1973 issue of The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION was devoted to his work. In 1993 he was granted the Nebula Grand Master award.

   BS

   Other works: Digits and Dastards (coll 1966); The Frederik Pohl Omnibus (coll 1966; vt Survival Kit 1979); Day Million (coll 1970); The Gold at the Starbow's End(coll 1972); The Best of Frederik Pohl (coll 1975); In the Problem Pit (coll 1976); Planets Three (coll 1982); Pohlstars (coll 1984); BiPohl (coll 1987); Stopping at Slowyear (1991); Mining the Oort (1992); The Voices of Heaven (1994).Nonfiction: Science Fiction: Studies in Film (1981) with Frederik Pohl IV; Our Angry Earth (1991) with Isaac ASIMOV.As Editor: Beyond the End of Time (anth 1952); Shadow of Tomorrow (anth 1953); Assignment in Tomorrow (anth 1954); Star of Stars (anth 1960; vt Stars Fourteen UK); several Galaxy anthologies, including Time Waits for Winthrop and Four other Short Novels from Galaxy (anth 1962), The Seventh Galaxy Reader (anth 1964), The Eighth Galaxy Reader (anth 1965), The Ninth Galaxy Reader (anth 1966), The Tenth Galaxy Reader (anth 1967; vt Door to Anywhere 1970), The Eleventh Galaxy Reader (anth 1969) and Galaxy: Thirty Years of Innovative Science Fiction (anth 1980) with Martin H. GREENBERG and Joseph D. OLANDER; The Expert Dreamers (anth 1962), sf stories by SCIENTISTS; The Best Science Fiction from Worlds of Tomorrow (anth 1964);three If anthologies, being The If Reader (anth 1966), The Second If Reader (anth 1967) and Worlds of If (anth 1986); Nightmare Age (anth1970); Best Science Fiction for 1972 (anth 1972); Jupiter (anth 1973) with Carol Pohl; Science Fiction: The Great Years (anth 1973) and Science Fiction: The Great Years: Volume II (anth 1976), both with Carol Pohl; The Science Fiction Roll of Honor (anth 1975); Science Fiction Discoveries (anth 1976) with Carol Pohl; The Best of Cyril M. Kornbluth (coll 1976); Science Fiction of the '40s (anth 1978) with Greenberg and Olander; Nebula Winners 14 (anth 1980); The Great Science Fiction Series (anth 1980) with Greenberg and Olander; Yesterday's Tomorrows: Favorite Stories from Forty Years as a Science Fiction Editor (anth 1982); Tales from the Planet Earth (anth 1986).

   About the author: Frederik Pohl, Merchant of Excellence: A Working Bibliography (1989) by Gordon BENSON Jr and Phil STEPHENSEN-PAYNE.

   See also: ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN SF; ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION; AUTOMATION; BLACK HOLES; CITIES; COMPUTERS; CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; CORPSICLE; CRYONICS; CYBERNETICS; CYBORGS; DEL REY BOOKS; DIMENSIONS; DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; DYSTOPIAS; ECONOMICS; END OF THE WORLD; EVOLUTION; FANDOM; FASTER THAN LIGHT; GAMES AND SPORTS; GOLDEN AGE OF SF; GREAT AND SMALL; HISTORY IN SF; HISTORY OF SF; HUMOUR; HYPERSPACE; ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE; LEISURE; LINGUISTICS; LIVING WORLDS; MATHEMATICS; MONEY; NEW WAVE; NUCLEAR POWER; OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM; OUTER PLANETS; OVERPOPULATION; PARALLEL WORLDS; PARANOIA; POLITICS; POWER SOURCES; PSI POWERS; Julius SCHWARTZ; SF MAGAZINES; SOCIOLOGY; SPACESHIPS; STARS; TERRAFORMING; UTOPIAS; VENUS; WEAPONS; WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST.