#frederik-pohl — Public Fediverse posts

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 114: Flexitarianism
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2469363/

Are you a carnivore? A vegan? A frugivore? Or do you fall in between categories of eater, identifying more as a flexitarian? As we learn from this episode’s guest author, Kelsey Speakman, flexitarianism is a complex space of food making, ethical and multispecies relationships, and marketing rhetoric.

Kelsey’s article on the subject, “Beef, Beans, or Byproducts? Following Flexitarianism’s Finances,” comes from Vol. 11, No. 4 of Canadian Food Studies (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i1.638). And sandwiching this meat-alternatives theme are Alexia Moyer on a powerful kitchen implement, and Milka Milicevic on the power of true alternatives in eating.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodPodcast
#Flexitarianism
#FoodAlternatives
#Eating
#Supermarkets
#KitchenMallet
#Meat
#Vegetarianism
#GeorgeBrownPolytechnic
#GBPolytech
#GBCollege
#HonoursBachelorOfFoodStudies
#TheSpaceMerchants
#FrederikPohl
#CyrilKornbluth
#FoodStudies
#Academia

photos: Alexia Moyer

Digesting Food Studies—Episode 114: Flexitarianism
https://rss.com/podcasts/digesting-food-studies/2469363/

Are you a carnivore? A vegan? A frugivore? Or do you fall in between categories of eater, identifying more as a flexitarian? As we learn from this episode’s guest author, Kelsey Speakman, flexitarianism is a complex space of food making, ethical and multispecies relationships, and marketing rhetoric.

Kelsey’s article on the subject, “Beef, Beans, or Byproducts? Following Flexitarianism’s Finances,” comes from Vol. 11, No. 4 of Canadian Food Studies (https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v11i1.638). And sandwiching this meat-alternatives theme are Alexia Moyer on a powerful kitchen implement, and Milka Milicevic on the power of true alternatives in eating.

#DigestingFoodStudies
#FoodPodcast
#Flexitarianism
#FoodAlternatives
#Eating
#Supermarkets
#KitchenMallet
#Meat
#Vegetarianism
#GeorgeBrownPolytechnic
#GBPolytech
#GBCollege
#HonoursBachelorOfFoodStudies
#TheSpaceMerchants
#FrederikPohl
#CyrilKornbluth
#FoodStudies
#Academia

photos: Alexia Moyer

Please BOOST!
SPECIAL COLLECTORS EDITIONS of Jem (UNSIGNED) & Gateway (SIGNED) by Frederik Pohl
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=frederik%20pohl&bi=0&bx=off&cm_sp=SearchF-_-Advs-_-Result&ds=30&prc=USD&recentlyadded=all&rgn=ww&rollup=on&saction=allow&slist=82408087&sortby=20&xdesc=off&xpod=off
or see the full collection here:
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#Literature
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#Horror
#ScienceFiction
#books
#bookstodon
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#FrederikPohl

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Born this Day:
Frederik George Pohl Jr. (November 26, 1919 – September 2, 2013) was an American science-fiction writer. Author of
Gateway (1977)—winner of the Campbell Memorial, Hugo, Locus SF, and Nebula Awards as the year's Best Novel, and Jem (1979) winner of the National Book Award.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_Pohl

#Literature
#SciFi
#Horror
#ScienceFiction
#books
#bookstodon
#coverart
#FrederikPohl

Groups:
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On my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the #StarShipSofa #podcast (Episode 756), I discuss two pioneering #dystopian novels -- published 50 years apart! -- that have a great deal to say to each other and to us in 2025: #TheSpaceMerchants by #FrederikPohl and #CMKornbluth and #Feed by #MTAnderson.

#Dystopia #Resist #SFF #Books #Bookstodon #ScienceFiction

Here is the link!
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-u89eb-25675237

I’m rereading the 1952 #ScienceFiction classic #TheSpaceMerchants by #FrederikPohl and #CMKornbluth before teaching it again this summer. It’s always been compelling, but wow, it hits different in 2025.

#Dystopia #VintageScienceFiction #SFF #Books #Bookstodon

Book Review: Star Science Fiction Stories No. 3, ed. Frederik Pohl (1955)

• Richard Powers’ cover for the 1955 edition

3.5/5 (collated rating: Good)

Ballantine Books’ illustrious science fictional program started with a bang–Star Science Fiction Stories. According to Mike Ashley’s Transformations: The Story of Science-Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970 Frederik Pohl’s anthology series of original (mostly) stories was “intended as both a showcase of Ballantine’s authors and a lure to new writers.” Paying better rates than magazines, the Star series foreshadowed the explosion of original anthologies that would provide a sustained challenge to the eminence held in the 50s by the magazine.

I’ve selected the third volume of the six-volume series.1 It contains an illustrative cross-section of 50s science fiction. Philip K. Dick’s “Foster, You’re Dead” (1955), Richard Matheson’s “Dance of the Dead” (1955), and Jack Williamson’s “Guinevere for Everybody” (1955) are not to be missed.

Recommended.

Brief Plot Summaries/Analysis

“It’s Such a Beautiful Day” (1955), Isaac Asimov, 3.5/5 (Good): The anthology starts off with an effective Isaac Asimov satire of the suburban experience. The creation of suburbia in the 1950s (and subsequent mass white flight) generated increased commutes between home and urban work. The home became a bunker to protect the American family from any threat (fallout shelters, a community away from diversity and interaction with “the other,” etc.).2

Asimov speculates that new, almost instantaneous, transportation portals will isolate the family completely from the external world. A minor glitch in the transportation system instills a change in the young Richard Hanshaw, Jr. He isn’t as willing to trust the portal — and decides to trek to school by foot. His teacher calls mother in shock and suggests psychological treatment. An intriguing, and gentle, satire on American conceptions of normalcy, the new-fangled post-War emergence of psychology as a therapeutic practice, and the suburban experience.3

“The Strawberry Window” (1955), Ray Bradbury, 3/5 (Average): The story follows a family on Mars. The father, Will, spends his day constructing the settlement town. He’s possessed by the dream of Mars and humanity’s conquest of the stars: “It’s not just us come to Mars, it’s the race, the whole darn human race, depending on how we make out in our lifetime. This thing is so big I want to laugh, I’m so scared stiff of it” (31). His long-suffering wife Carrie yearns for the small sounds and big memories that anchor her to Earth. And so Will comes up with a compromise, an expensive compromise.

Ultimately, this is beautiful polish to a banal, almost jingoistic, defense of humanity’s supposed destiny to expand and conquer: “There’s nothing better than Man with a capital M in my book” (32). I am far more interested in the more subversive and quietly critical moments of Bradbury’s other Mars stories. This one is simplistic propaganda of conquest. Despite the enjoyable thematic core (the effects of leaving Earth) and polished telling, I’d classify “The Strawberry Window” amongst his most disappointing and forced. For superior Bradbury that I’ve covered, check out “The Highway” (1950) and “The Pedestrian” (1951).

“The Deep Range” (1955), Arthur C. Clarke, 3/5 (Average): One of the reasons I feel a special attraction to 50s SF is its interest in the working-class experience of the future. Of course, for the reader of the present futuristic trappings suggest a certain glorification of what would be a new form of the mundane daily grind. The heroic blue-collar stories in James Gunn’s fix-up Station in Space (1958) come to mind. In Clarke’s “The Deep Range” humanity farms the seas. Instead of terrestrial herds of sheep or cows, shepherds in submersibles with dolphin assistants protect herds of meat-yielding whales from predatory sharks.

An effective slice-of-working class experience set in an evocative locale. It’s an immersive little story that draws on Clarke’s own interest in scuba diving and underwater adventure. Regardless, I remain uninterested in returning to Clarke’s work in anything more than an anthologized tale here and there.

“Alien” (1955), Lester del Rey, 3/5 (Average): Due to an comically improbable collision at sea, Larry Cross and his alcoholic crewmate Al Simmonds find themselves stranded on an island with an alien which “could swim out of a sunken ship at the bottom of the sea” (51). Al Simmonds is injured and Cross must keep the man alive and figure out the alien’s intentions. A classic SF problem story in which man must figure out a modus operandi in a bizarre new scenario. It’s polished. It’s solid. It’s predictable.

“Foster, You’re Dead” (1955), Philip K. Dick, 5/5 (Masterpiece): Mike Foster spends his school days practicing survival skills–digging, making knives, weaving baskets–in case of a nuclear attack. The kids snicker at him as he walks past. They don’t own a fallout shelter at home. His father refuses to pay into the NATS (National Security fund). If a bomb hit, Mike wouldn’t even be granted access to the school shelter. He’s possessed by a deep, perpetual, encompassing trauma.4 His walk home is nightmarish. Mechanical newspaper machines shout excitedly about “war, death, amazing new weapons” (67). The public shelter beckons with its neon lights but he has no money in his pocket for entry. And the store with the new shelter model mocks with its advertisements: “a powered heating and refrigeration system” and “self-servicing air-purification network” with “three decontamination stages for food and water” (68). Reluctant to yet again confront his father about their lack of shelter, he gazes at the new model and talks to the salesmen. He imagines that every evening he’d sleep in its encapsulating embrace, womb-like.

One of the absolute best fallout shelter themed SF stories I’ve ever read. It’s a fascinating collision of crisp prose, commentary on the arms race, and an evisceration of the complicity of commercialism in Cold War terror. Joins William Tenn’s “Generation of Noah” (1951), Daniel Galouye’s Dark Universe (1961), Modecai Roshwald’s Level 7 (1959), and Fritz Leiber’s “The Moon Is Green” (1952) amongst the best on the theme.

“Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?” (1953), Gerald Kersh, 3.5/5 (Good): In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries surgical diagrams called “Wound Men” crop up in medical miscellanies in Europe. These illustrations–the human form hacked, slashed, smashed, cut, pierced, bloated–served as an annotated table of contents to guide the reader through various injuries and diseases. Kersh imagines a literary version of himself returning to New York City from WWII interacting with a fantastical manifestation of a Wound Man on board the Cunard White Star liner Queen Mary. Corporal Cuckoo, the “Wound Man” in question, regals the narrator (Kersh) with the history of his scarred and mutilated form that mysteriously heals from every injury.

The reader becomes immersed in a historical military narrative that begins in the early 16th century. There’s a bizarre sense of horror and fantastical displacement. Like some crushed and deformed specimen, Cuckoo becomes an encyclopedic, and culminative, glimpse of humanity’s relentless obsession with death and violence.

Interesting and memorable. I’ll keep on the lookout for more of Kersh’s SFF.

“Dance of the Dead” (1955), Richard Matheson, 4/5 (Good): My third favorite story in the anthology transplants the standard narrative of a young adult straying from the path set out by parents and small town community onto a break-neck road trip in a drug and alcohol drenched near-future. Len, Bud, Barbara, and Peggy race their car towards St. Louis. Bud tries to get Barb to take snuggle–“act of promiscuous love-play; usage evolved during W.W. III” (114)–and take drugs: “Have a jab, Bab” (115). In the kaleidoscope of the new and relentless peer pressure the lessons her mother taught her slowly erode. All her inhibitions come crashing down when the quartet see the transcendent nightmare that is the titular dance of the dead.

Manifesting the SPEED of the car, Matheson’s prose resonates with pulse and hum, snippets of song and signage, slang and youthful lust: “At a hundred miles an hour let me DREAM my DREAMS!” (115). It’s frantic. It’s zappy. It’s vibrant. Recommended for fans of the more linguistically experimental (and bleak) of 50s visions.

“Any More at Home Like You?” (1955), Chad Oliver, 2.75/5 (Below Average): Dangerously close to joke story territory (what I classify stories that rely on a silly last page twist designed to generate a chuckle), Oliver re-imagines the classic flying saucer story. A young “man” named Keith crashes his advanced spacecraft in the swanky Bel-Air neighborhood of LA. He seems friendly. Friendly residents take him in. He meets with politicians. He gives a canned speech at the UN. But what’s the secret behind his sudden appearance? Does he really represent a massive Galactic Civilization as he claims? When the pieces all fit together, there’s a gentle sense to it all mixed in with a little, rather silly, “snip” at humanity’s claims to galactic centrality.

If you’re new to Oliver, I recommend tracking downs his two generation ship short stories–“Stardust” (1952) and “The Wind Blows Free” (1957). This one was not for me.

“The Devil on Salvation Bluff” (1955), Jack Vance, 3.25/5 (Above Average): As my last Vance review came in 2021–The Languages of Pao (1958), I looked forward to this anthology as a way to return to his fiction. “The Devil on Salvation Bluff” imagines a religious colony (everyone calls each other “Brother” or “Sister”) on a planet named Glory without clear scientific or societal patterns. If anything, disorder, irregularity, and chaos is the pattern. Regardless, the community attempts to impose an almost monastic order on their lives. The colonists brings with them a massive clock, build communities in precise patterns, and carve up the landscape with linear canals and irrigation.

In classic missionary fashion, the colonists attempt to impose their religion and regularity on the humanoid inhabitants of Glory, nicknamed Flits, that spend their days indulging in their passions, seemingly random rituals, and goat herding. Using salt as a bribe, they momentarily convince the Flits to settle in a new village created by the colonists. After Brother Raymond and Sister Mary kidnap the chief of the Flits to identify the psychosis they think might underline their impulsive, random, and occasionally destructive actions, the true psychological truth of the planet emerges. Vance suggests that dogmatic religion must shift and change to adapt to the moment.

Fits in with an intriguing cluster of often brilliant 50s stories exploring the clash of Earth religion and the SFnal new–Ray Bradbury’s “The Man” (1949), Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Star” (1955), James Blish’s A Case of Conscience (novella 1953, novelized 1958), Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz (stories 1955-1957, novelized 1959), etc.

Somewhat recommended.

“Guinevere for Everybody” (1955), Jack Williamson, 4.5/5 (Very Good): An artificially created Guinevere stands “chained” in a “vending machine” tempting sleepy passengers in an airport with her plaintive calls (169). “You like me, huh?” she asks strangers as they pass (170). “Won’t you by me?” she cajoles (170). The implication is clear. The reason for her sudden appearance in train stations, and others of her model, far less so. Chimberley represents General Cybernetics, a company building “managerial computers” to replace human workers (171). Chimberley attempts the origins of “THE VITAL APPLIANCE!” with her all too human sex appeal, and disturbing tendency to spout advertisements for other products (170). He, little more than a cypher manifesting the displacement of the mechanical age, feels drawn to her as “his best friends were digital computers” (171). He discerns that she is a recent product created, produced, and distributed by one of these vast managerial computers. Giddy with excitement he sees her as “something human management would never have had the brains or the vision to accomplish” (172). He purchases her from the vending machine and sets off to find the producing facility. But a line has been crossed, and another.

This story bothered me (in a good way) far more than it should. Williamson integrates little comments about how the mechanical (think AI unleashed on the US government) ignores the human experience. And how Chimberley, alone, adrift, insular, feels fulfilled by a programmed device that is but a fragment of a capitalistic assault on the consumer. This disturbed satirical gem took me by surprise. I will be on the lookout for more 50s Williamson short stories.

Notes

1. Eight if we count the one-volume Star Science Fiction Magazine (1958) and Star Short Novels (1954). ↩︎
2. There is a ton of scholarship on both of these ideas that I have referenced in various reviews in the past. Here is a short list! Elaine Tyler May’s Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988, rev. 2017); Thomas Bishop’s Every Home a Fortress: Cold War Fatherhood and the Family Fallout Shelter (2020); Laura McEnaney’s Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties (2000); and Robert A. Beauregard’s When America Became Suburban (2006). ↩︎
3. For “normalcy” see Anna G. Creadick’s Perfectly Average: The Pursuit of Normality in Postwar America (2010); For the growth of psychology as medical practice in the post-War moment see Ellen Herman’s The Romance of American Psychology: Political Culture in the Age of Experts (1995). ↩︎
4. I am reminded of studies of childhood trauma conducted on the students of Abo Elementary, New Mexico, a school built underground as a fallout shelter. ↩︎

For cover art posts consult the INDEX

For book reviews consult the INDEX

For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX

#1950s #arthurCClarke #avantGarde #bookReview #bookReviews2 #books #chadOliver #fiction #frederikPohl #geraldKesh #isaacAsimov #jackVance #jackWilliamson #lesterDelRey #philipKDick #rayBradbury #richardMatheson #sciFi #scienceFiction #writing

RIDER (1990)
Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 27" x 35"

A race of turtle-like creatures conquers Earth, imposing a gentler set of values on humankind, outlawing destructive technology, and denying the validity of human scientific theories. 1/3

#sciencefiction #scifi #scifiart #illustration #frederikpohl #jackwilliamson

@SFRuminations

Gateway, Frederik Pohl

Brilliant exploration of the extreme jeopardy involved in space travel.

SPOILER:
https://rdmp.org/dale-mellor/bookblog/?review=gateway

#bookstodon #reading #frederikpohl #gateway

Man Plus (1976) by Frederik Pohl is hard science fiction at its best. As good as the science aspect of the story is, where Man Plus truly shines is in the human drama. And Pohl also adds a mischievous twist that appears near the end. It’s a mystery not for the characters but for the reader. Without question, Mars Plus is one of Pohl’s greatest efforts in his long career.

Mars. It’s inhospitable, cold, and very far away. The human fascination is unquenchable. And the idea of colonizing Mars is one that never seems to go away. But what would it take to become a true Martian?

The world is in turmoil. Countries are collapsing. Nuclear war is imminent. The unrest in the United States has put the country under martial law. Yet despite these obstacles, the U.S. President has deemed that America must send a mission to colonize Mars.

Roger Torraway is a hero astronaut and his life is almost perfect. His job is to create a monster. A monster capable of surviving on Mars. Will Hartnett is that monster. A cyborg capable of amazing feats, Hartnett is ready to survive the Martian environment. That is until catastrophe happens.

The Man Plus project is effectively dead but the President insists that it continue at all costs. That means they need a new monster. Roger Torraway is that monster and he will discover the true cost of becoming a Martian.

Man Plus is a chimera of a story. Many differing parts come together to make up an unexpected whole. Where Pohl to focus his efforts mostly on the technical side of the story it would be good. However, Pohl devotes equal, if not greater effort to make the characters real and believable.

Pohl focuses on the human cost of making a man into a monster. However, Pohl doesn’t just focus on the monster, Roger Torraway. Pohl shows what it does to the people around Roger and how his change affects them. Unsurprisingly, the costs may be higher than anyone expects.

Yet, despite the high cost, everyone is willing to continue with the project. This is, perhaps, the one drawback in Pohl’s thinking. This idea that everyone is willing to do whatever it takes for the mission to succeed is a little naïve. However, this probably stems from the 1960s effort to put a man on the moon and this extreme optimism carries over into Man Plus.

Pohl’s world-building is excellent. He takes the social and political situations of the mid-70s and extrapolates them into a not-unfamiliar future. Pohl may get some technical details wrong but the story does not feel technologically or socially quaint.

Toward the end of the story, a narrator begins to insert itself. This mysterious narrator doesn’t take over the story but adds a new line of reasoning to the story. Pohl uses the narrator as a mystery for the reader to solve. Leaving clues throughout the text Pohl expects you to figure out what is going on before he reveals it. I expect most readers today would pick up on it quite quickly but perhaps not so readily in the 1970s.

There is a lot of pain in Man Plus, both physical and emotional. This thread of pain is the most motivating reason to read Man Plus. The idea of colonizing Mars is secondary to the struggles needed to get there.

Roger Torraway’s journey from man to man plus is a terrible one. In the end, his sacrifices change not only him but everyone around him. Not one person escapes the process unscathed. The scars may be subtle and invisible but they are there. But most change is hard and damaging in some way.

Pohl does something that a lot of hard SF fails to do. He balances the technical needs of the story with the human reactions beautifully. There are very few stories of similar style that wield as much emotional weight as Man Plus. If you’ve not read Man Plus, read it. If you have read Man Plus, read it again. It’s worth your time.

https://incompletefutures.com/2024/11/04/man-plus-remains-a-classic-of-hard-sf/

#BookReview #FrederikPohl #HardSF #ManPlus #SF

Frederik Pohl’s sci-fi novel Danger Moon was published in 1951. There's trouble on the Moon - suspected sabotage at a uranium mine. Reasonably realistic in the light of what was known in 1951 but basically a very conventional story.

My review: https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2024/09/frederik-pohls-danger-moon-red-moon-of.html

#FrederikPohl #scifi #scifinovel #scifinovels #sciencefiction #pulpscifi

Virgil Finlay illustrating 'The Children of Night' by Frederik Pohl from Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1964. #FinlayFriday

#VirgilFinlay #FrederikPohl #Illustration #Pulps #WeirdTales #GalaxyScienceFiction #ScienceFiction #SF #SFF @sciencefiction @scifi

THE RIDER (1990)
Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 27" x 35"

A race of turtle-like creatures conquers Earth, imposing a gentler set of values on humankind, outlawing destructive technology, and denying the validity of human scientific theories. 1/3

#sciencefiction #scifi #sff #scifiart #illustration #frederikpohl #jackwilliamson

The Space Merchants, a 1953 sci-fi novel by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth. One of the great dystopian novels, about a future world controlled by huge corporations. They control the government. The most powerful are the advertising agencies.

My review: https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-space-merchants.html

#FrederikPohl #scifi #scifinovel #scifinovels #vintagescifi #dystopian novel #dystopian novels

Un 26 del noviembre nace
🖊️#FrederikPohl (1919-2013)
Escritor y editor de #CienciaFicción
Obras muy reconocidas
de este maestro son:
📚 Saga de los Heechee
Premiado ciclo de #novelas
Y 📖 Mercaderes del espacio
Una sátira del consumismo
escrita en colaboración con 🖊️ Cyril M. Kornbluth

Wally Wood illustrating “Under Two Moons” by Frederick Pohl, IF Science Fiction, September 1965.

#WallyWoodWednesday #WallyWood #FrederikPohl #Illustration #PenandInk #ScienceFiction #SF #SFF @sciencefiction

Synergy: New Science Fiction Volume One
Ed. George Zebrowski

Harvest/HBJ, 1987
My own copy.

Cover art by Catherine Deeter

Short stories by Gregory Benford, Ian Watson, Charles L. Harness, James Morrow, Frederik Pohl, W. Warren Wagar, and Rudy Rucker, and an essay on “What Should an SF Novel Be About” by Brian W. Aldiss.

#SF #SFF #scifi #sciencefiction #vintage #paperbacks #shortstories #BrianWAldiss #FrederikPohl #RudyRucker

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrtWBFpLMEW/

I'm a sci-fi fan but my tastes are strictly old school. I don't read anything written since the 90s. And not much written since the 60s, apart from some of the cyberpunk writers.

One of the first sci-fi novels I read was Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars and I still regard it as one of the half dozen best sci-fi novels of all time.

Some writers I like -

#ArthurCClarke #murrayleinster #julesverne #hgwells #johnwyndham #fredhoyle #frederikpohl #conandoyle #williamgibson #leighbrackett

FREDERIK GEORGE POHL JR.(26 de noviembre de 1919 - 2 de septiembre de 2013) #FrederikPohl

Il Come Eravamo del Come Saremo – Paesaggi Alieni 3
di Mauro Antonio Miglieruolo

La Fantascienza come poesia per immagini puntata numero 32

Insisto. Van Vogt. Non solo perch
https://www.labottegadelbarbieri.org/il-come-eravamo-del-come-saremo-paesaggi-alieni-3/
#bottegadelbarbieri #labottegadelbarbieri
#Articoli #Difuturicen'ètanti #Fantascienzacomepoesia #FrederikPohl #IlComeEravamodelComeSaremo #immaginifantascienza #LeArmidiIsher #MauroAntonioMiglieruolo #PhilipDick #VanVogt