Pohl, Frederik - The best of Frederik Pohl

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Introduction: A Variety of Excellence

Published by arrangement with Ballantine Books

A Division of Random House, Inc.

201 East 50th Street

New York, New York 10022

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

January 1954.

August 162.

July 1958.

1964.

Stories, September 1956.

Galaxy Publishing Corp. for Galaxy Magazine, April 1959.

Magazine, February 1960.

1960.

February 1956.

October 1964.

CONTENTS

introduction

A Variety of Excellence, by Lester del Rey 1

The Tunnel Under the World 8

Punch 36

Three Portraits and a Prayer 40

Day Million 53

Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus 58

We Never Mention Aunt Nora 78

Father of the Stars 88

The Day the Martians Came 106

The Midas Plague 112

The Snowmen 162

How to Count on Your Fingers 169

Grandy Devil 183

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Speed Trap 188

The Richest Man in Levittown 199

The Day the Icicle Works Closed 209

The Hated 240

The Martian in the Attic 250

The Census Takers 262

The Children of Night 268

Afterword: WHAT THE AUTHOR HAS TO SAY ABOUT ALL THIS

by Frederik Pohl 301

AVariety of Excellence

NOTHING IS EASY to categorize about the life and works of Frederik Pohi. His stories vary more in

length, attitude, type and treatment than those of any other writer I know. About the only point

of similarity is the high level of excellence to be found in everything from his short-shorts to

his novels. To make things more difficult for a biographer, he has been one of the leaders in

almost every activity that in any way relates to the broad field of science fiction.

Even his career as a writer falls into two widely separated periods which seem totally

unrelated to each other.

He began writing professionally in the very early forties, when he was just out of his

teens. A large number of his stories, under a host of pen names, were written in collaboration

with one or more other authors, and nobody seems entirely sure of exactly how many people or

stories were involved. There were also twelve stories under the name of James McCreigh. The work

produced during this period was generally quite competent-good enough to win him welcome from a

number of markets-but there was nothing about it to distinguish him from many other young writers

of the period.

The second phase of his writing career began eleven years later, after a long hiatus; and

his reputation was established from the first story, a serial by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth-

called Gravy Planet in the magazine version, but retitled The Space Merchants for book

publication. This was unquestionably the most important novel published in 1952. It was favorably

reviewed by publications that ranged from The Wall Street Journal to organs of the extreme

political left, none of which normally gave any space to science fiction.

PohI and Kornbluth brought the art of satire back to science fiction and were soon being

widely imitated by other writers; in fact, the influence of this work reshaped much of the field

during the next two decades.

This novel was soon followed by two other collaborations with

Kombluth. Some of the self-proclaimed critics in the field, who remembered Poll's earlier stories

and esteemed the independent work of Kornbluth, immediately decided that Pohi was largely

dependent on Kornbluth for the high quality of their novels. They proceeded to pick the works

apart, deciding who had done what-and the parts they admired were always ascribed to Kornbluth.

Kornbluth agreed with Pohi that these critics were amazingly consistent in being wrong

about it, so far as could be remembered. But this didn't quiet the part-pickers. Even the

publication of Pohl's first independent novel, Slave Ship, wasn't enough to convince them, though

it certainly should have done so. However, as other works by Pohi appeared, even the most severe

critics were forced to concede that he was one of the major novelists of the field.

Meantime, among the readers, he was developing a high reputation as a writer of shorter

fiction, in which he had no collaborator. His novelette, "The Midas Plague," was the first of his

independent stories to appear in Galaxy Magazine, in April, 1954. This is a brilliant example of

satirical writing, with the shocking bite of its main assumption muted nicely by an element of

humor. It is also an extrapolation of one trend, carried just a bit further than any other writer

would dare to go with it, and then justified by the other welldeveloped details of such a society.

I recently had an excellent chance to discover just how good Pohl is as a writer of

shorter fiction. In making the selections that appear in this book, I read through every word of

eight collections of Pohl's shorter works. That comes to about half a million words!

Generally I've found that reading all of any one collection of shorts and novelettes by a

single writer is not to be done at a single stretch. After all, shorter works are never meant to

be read together, but rather to be separated by many months in magazine publication. Most writers

tend to stick to certain themes, or do certain types of stories much better than others. When read

at one sitting, these become too obvious, too repetitive-boring, in fact, in such an unfair way of

reading them.

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For that reason, I approached the task rather reluctantly. I planned to read one book at a

time, then wait a week, and try another.

It didn't work that way. I read all eight books in less than a week- and found that I

thoroughly enjoyed them. I not only didn't find that the reading grew monotonous, but I began to

look forward to each new volume with anticipation.

The works in this collection all appeared between 1954 and 1967;

there have been outstanding stories since, but I agree with Frederik Poll that we need more time

to determine which of those should endure as his best. Meantime, these are the ones I consider his

best, chosen from a rich production that can often ~'be honestly termed memorable. Probably other

readers would have made other choices

-there are too many good stories to make selection simple. But I have chosen these after a great

deal of consideration.

As I read, I kept a list of the stories I felt mandatory for inclusion, planning to fill

the remainder with "next-best" stories. Again, it didn't work out that way. My list of "must"

stories was twice as long as the limits of the book permitted. So I had to go back and weed out

stories, hating to eliminate even one, to reach a manageable length.

There seems to be no limit to the variety to be found in the shorter works of Frederik

Pohi, in fact. They vary in length from 1,500 to 21,000 words, and that is the smallest element of

their variety. Some of them, like "The Midas Plague," might be called satirical-but not with the

cold sardonic contrivance so common to this much-abused form of literature. Pohl is involved in

the cultures he shows; he may be sardonic or amused, but he feels himself a part of that which he

holds up to the distorting mirror of reality.

Some stories depend on a twist at the end; usually this occurs in the shorter pieces, as

should be the case. However, the twist is not to surprise the reader, but to bring the idea to a

quick and pointed conclusion that is completely satisfactory. And there is always more than the

twist. "Grandy Devil" is based on a marvelous character in a family that is strangely immortal;

"Punch" tells us more about ourselves and all intelligent life than is conveyed in many novels,

short as the story is.

"Tunnel Under the World" is a story of terror and of pathos-an odd blend of emotions,

indeed. It is also a fine suspense-action story. "The Hated" could have been a simple action

story, but the heroes it presents to us are engaging in a different kind of conflict with their

environment.

There are stories that would simply be sentimental in the hands of a lesser writer.

"Father of the Stars" tells of a man who felt he had to go to the ends of explored space, and how

he succeeded; we've all read that story a dozen times, but not in this form! "Three Portraits and

a Prayer" tells of an old scientist who learned he was wrong. There's sentiment there for those

who can empathize-but no sentimentality.

Some might be called "idea" stories. (All are built around ideas, of course; but some

ideas tend to obtrude beyond the story, except in

the hands of a very skillful craftsman.) "The Day the Martians Came" is one of the oldest ideas,

first given acceptable form in Wells' War of the Worlds. The title gives it all away-or does it?

All the ingredients are familiar-except the way we see it, and what we realize from Pohl's view.

"Speed Trap," on the other hand, is a totally new idea, so far as I can determine, beautifully

turned into excellent fiction. "The Day the Icicle Works Closed" gives us a new service for

tourists, another idea that makes me wonder why no one thought of it before.

It's hard to say whether there's a new idea in "Day Million"-Pohl says it's a love story,

the oldest idea in literature. It is a love story, but I find nothing old in it.

And finally, skipping over a few other selections you can discover for yourself, there is

an article, as a sample of several excellent pieces of science non-fiction authored by Pohl. In

this day of computers, we should all master arithmetic to the base two, but most of us still cling

to the decimal rut. Pohi teaches us how natural and simple the new system is-and shows us that

it's the only way to master some of the ordinary problems of daily life.

There was also no problem of balancing the book to insure sufficient variety. That took

care of itself.

PohI's career in science fiction is at least as varied and complex as his writing.

Like so many of us, he began his public life as a "fan," a reader of science fiction who

became so enamored of the literature that he had to join with others in discussing and

proselytizing it. In those days, there was a small number of such fans who were so well known that

many became more famous in science fiction than some of the writers. Pohl rapidly joined this

number, and became a leader among the others.

He was part of the movement that led to the formation of the first great fan tradition-the

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annual World Science Fiction Convention. As much as any single person could be, he was a moving

force in the organization of the very first one, held in 1939. (He didn't attend. There were feuds

in those days that seemed earthshaking then, and he was too strong a fan not to take sides.

Happily, those feuds are now dead, and ancient enemies are now the best of friends.)

Almost at once, he graduated to editing his own magazines. This came about before he was

twenty-one. Somehow, despite a very low budget for his magazines, he managed to become a major

editor, with magazines second only to the acknowledged and established leader. And when I visited

New York City in those days to see John

W. Campbell, the only other editor it occurred to me to see was Frederik Poll.

He might have gone on with the magazines, but the war interrupted his career. And when he

returned, he turned to another field. He opened an agency to handle the stories of other writers,

and rapidly became one of the leading agents in science fiction, perhaps the leading one. His

roster of clients read like a Who's Who of science fiction, from long-established professionals to

beginners who were quickly promoted to stardom under his handling. I couldn't have issued the four

magazines I was then editing without his service; his help to Horace L. Gold in the launching of

Galaxy must have been beyond value.

It was partly as a result of his work as an agent that he returned to writing. He made a

strong effort to bring back many of the writers who had dropped out of the field, among them his

close friend, Cyril Kombluth, who had begun under a number of pen names and had been one of the

better young writers before the war, but had since abandoned all writing efforts. In persuading

him to return to writing, PohI discussed many ideas for stories with him. It was during these

discussions that the idea of collaborating again came up, resulting in the novel, The Space

Merchants.

As an agent, Pohi was also instrumental in steering many writers into the book field,

where publishers were then just becoming interested in science fiction. Among the writers steered

into this new market was Isaac Asimov. And Asimov benefited in this partly by the fact that PohI

was also still an active and important fan! There was an organization in New York called the Hydra

Club which had been founded by Frederik Poll and me in 1947, and the monthly meetings of this club

were attended by most of the major writers and editors in the field at the time. It was at such a

meeting that Pohi brought Isaac Asimov together with Walter Bradbury, editor for Doubleday; the

result was a contract for the first of an incredible number of books by Asimov.

Eventually, the lure of writing proved more compelling than the work as an agent, and Pohl

gave up his agency to become a full-time writer. He continued to collaborate with Kornbluth, but

he began to work a great deal on his own. He also collaborated on two projects with me. I can't

speak for other collaborators, but in my own case, Pohi contributed fully half of the writing and

all the basic ideas, while taking only half the credit. But our work was so much rewritten back

and forth, and so completely the result of constant rethinking that I can't even guess who was

responsible for what, in most instances.

But our methods were so dissimilar that we both decided after the second attempt to abandon

working together, financially successful though it had been. One lasting result, however, was that

my wife Evelyn and I moved out to Red Bank, where we were always the closest of friends with Fred

Poll and his wife Carol during the next two decades.

Pohi also began a series of collaborations with Jack Williamson. It seemed an unlikely

combination; Pohl's writing was accepted as somewhat sardonic and cynical (though that was an

unfair judgment), while Williamson was noted for his extreme romantic euphoria about man in the

future. Yet the collaboration worked well through three juvenile books and many adult serials.

Nothing ever went in a straight line in his career, however. Now that he was a successful

author, it wasn't too surprising that he resumed his career as an editor. Horace L. Gold resigned

as editor of Galaxy and if, and Pohl was immediately chosen as his successor.

Now he was editing two of the leading magazines in the field, with a competitive budget,

quite different from his previous experience.

He proceeded to demonstrate just how good an editor he really was, and the results were

quickly apparent, as he began discovering new talent and making full use of the old. Many of the

leading authors today first appeared in his magazines-Niven and Tiptree, to name two quite

dissimilar ones from a large group. The stories he printed won a majority of the Hugo awards in

the succeeding years, and if was picked for the Hugo three successive years!

Then the magazines were sold to Universal Publishing and Distributing Corporation. Pohl

was offered the chance to continue editing the magazines, but it would have meant full-time

commuting to New York City, and he decided to go back to writing without editing. He felt there

were rewards enough in that; rightly so, as it proved, since he was named as Guest of Honor by the

World Science Fiction Convention in 1972 and won a Hugo for his writing in 1973-the only man to

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win that honor both for his writing and his editing.

There were a few other contributions during all this time, of course. He became one of the

most sought lecturers on science fiction and the world of the future, addressing all sorts of

groups and crusading for what science fiction had long been, but which was just being discovered

by a wider audience. He helped enlarge that audience. He taught science fiction in schools for

young writers. And he traveled widely (to both Russia and Japan, for instance) to deepen the

international flavor of science fiction.

As I write this, he is again serving as an editor, this time as science fiction consultant

for a large soft-cover book publishing house. And, happily, he is still writing some of the best

science fiction to be found in books or magazines.

Lester del Rey

August 11, 1974

The Tunnel Under the World

ON THE MORNING of June 15th, Guy Burckhardt woke up screaming out of a dream.

It was more real than any dream he had ever had in his life. He could still hear and feel

the sharp, ripping-metal explosion, the violent heave that had tossed him furiously out of bed,

the searing wave of heat.

He sat up convulsively and stared, not believing what he saw, at the quiet room and the

bright sunlight coming in the window.

He croaked, "Mary?"

His wife was not in the bed next to him. The covers were tumbled and awry, as though she

had just left it, and the memory of the dream was so strong that instinctively he found himself

searching the floor to see if the dream explosion had thrown her down.

But she wasn't there. Of course she wasn't, he told himself, looking at the familiar

vanity and slipper chair, the uncracked window, the unbuckled wall. It had only been a dream.

"Guy?" His wife was calling him querulously from the foot of the stairs. "Guy, dear, are

you all right?"

He called weakly, "Sure."

There was a pause. Then Mary said doubtfully, "Breakfast is ready. Are you sure you're all

right? I thought I heard you yelling."

Burckhardt said more confidently, "I had a bad dream, honey. Be right down."

In the shower, punching the lukewarm-and-cologne he favored, he told himself that it had

been a beaut of a dream. Still bad dreams weren't unusual, especially bad dreams about explosions.

In the past thirty years of H-bomb jitters, who had not dreamed of explosions?

Even Mary had dreamed of them, it turned out, for he started to tell her about the dream,

but she cut him off. "You did?" Her voice was astonished. "Why, dear, I dreamed the same thing!

Well, almost

the same thing. I didn't actually hear anything. I dreamed that something woke me up, and then

there was a sort of quick bang, and then something hit me on the head. And that was all. Was yours

like that?"

Burckhardt coughed. "Well, no," he said. Mary was not one of the strong-as-a-man, brave-as-

a-tiger women. It was not necessary, he thought, to tell her all the little details of the dream

that made it seem so real. No need to mention the splintered ribs, and the salt bubble in his

throat, and the agonized knowledge that this was death. He said, "Maybe there really was some kind

of explosion downtown. Maybe we heard it and it started us dreaming."

Mary reached over and patted his hand absently. "Maybe," she agreed. "It's almost half-

past eight, dear. Shouldn't you hurry? You don't want to be late to the office."

He gulped his food, kissed her and rushed out-not so much to be on time as to see if his

guess had been right.

But downtown Tylerton looked as it always had. Coming in on the bus, Burckhardt watched

critically out the window, seeking evidence of an explosion. There wasn't any. If anything,

Tylerton looked better than it ever had before. It was a beautiful crisp day, the sky was

cloudless, the buildings were clean and inviting. They had, he observed, steam-blasted the Power &

Light Building, the town's only skyscraper

-that was the penalty of having Contro Chemicals' main plant on the outskirts of town; the fumes

from the cascade stills left their mark on stone buildings.

None of the usual crowd were on the bus, so there wasn't anyone Burckhardt could ask about

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file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Frederik%20Pohl%20-%20Best%20of%20Frederik%20Pohl.txtCOPYRIGHT(c)1975flYFREDERIKPOHLIntroduction:AVarietyofExcellenceCopyright(c)1975byLesterdelReyPrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaPublishedbyarrangementwithBallantineBooksADivisionofRandomHouse,Inc.201East50thStreetNe...

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