Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Tomorrow Times Seven -- Frederik Pohl

Fred Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth wrote one of my favorite SF novels, The Space Merchants. By himself, Pohl's written a number of novels I've enjoyed, and dozens of short stories. Included in the book to the left is one of my favorites, "The Day of the Boomer Dukes," which was New Wave before there was such a thing. The story was published in 1956, and not in one of the more prestigious magazines. It was in Future, one of the Columbia House publications. I suspect it was written for a higher-paying market, but I could be wrong. Anyway, it's a good story, and a funny one, too. I also enjoyed "The Knights of Arthur," dated though it may be. The other stories, while fun to read, didn't seem to me as good, but I was perfectly happy to be reading all of them. The '50s were a good decade for magazine SF, at least to those of us who were at the right age to be reading it at the time.

4 comments:

Jayme Lynn Blaschke said...

Bill, do you know who the cover artist was on that book you got there? To me, his work is the quintessential "look" of '60s and early '70s SF.

mybillcrider said...

Gotta be a Powers cover. Can't remember the first name. He just signed "Powers."

Jayme Lynn Blaschke said...

Thanks, Bill. It's Richard M. Powers. Cool website dedicated to him can be found here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjk5/

mybillcrider said...

Thanks, Jayme. Excellent site.