Pohl, Frederik - 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

for Galaxy Magazine, January 1954.

Magazine.

for Galaxy Magazine, August 162.

Alternating Currents.

for Galaxy Magazine, July 1958.

Magazine, November 1964.

Visions.

Magazine, April 1954.

Magazine, December 1959.

Science Fiction Stories, September 1956.

Magazine, June 1955.

Magazine.

"The Richest Man in Levittown" (orig. published as "The Bitterest Pill"),

Corp. for Galaxy Magazine, February 1960.

Thursday.

if Magazine, July 1960.

Science Fiction, February 1956.

Galaxy Magazine, 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

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.

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 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!

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COPYRIGHT(c)1975flYFREDERIKPOHLIntroduction:AVarietyofExcellenceCopyright(c)1975byLesterdelReyPrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaPublishedbyarrangementwithBallantineBooksADivisionofRandomHouse,Inc.201East50thStreetNewYork,NewYork10022ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"TheTunnelUndertheWorld,"copyright(c)1954byGalaxyPubl...

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