Authors: Frederik Pohl

Outside the classroom, Pohl was a voracious reader; the Brooklyn Public Library was a favorite haunt. He preferred fiction, reading in all genres. In the 1930s he discovered science fiction and began writing short stories for publication in the various fan magazines, or fanzines, published in New York City. Pohl also joined numerous science-fiction clubs, the most important of which was the Futurian Society of New York, a club whose members included future science-fiction greats such as Isaac Asimov, Cyril M. Kornbluth, Judith Merril, and James Blish. Pohl considered this decade critical to his personal development, as his main interests—writing, politics, science, and music—developed during the period.

During World War II, Pohl volunteered for the Army and was assigned to the US Army Air Force. He served in a weather squadron in the European theater of operations and received seven battle stars. At the end of the war, he returned to New York City and became an advertising copywriter for the advertising agency of Thwing and Altman. He then moved to Popular Science magazine, working in the circulation and promotion departments, before becoming a copywriter and book editor. Four years later, he became a literary agent, specializing in science-fiction authors such as Asimov, Robert Sheckley, and Fritz Leiber Jr. Although he was successful in working with authors, there was not enough money to be made in representing them, and Pohl decided to write for himself.

His first major success was a serialized work called Gravy Planet (1952), coauthored with Kornbluth. Published first in Galaxy, the leading science-fiction magazine of the time, the work was renamed The Space Merchants and released as a book in 1953. An immediate best-seller, it has remained in print in English and in more than twenty translations. The work also established a Pohl formula: extrapolating trend into satire. In The Space Merchants Pohl and Kornbluth study the practice of manipulation, in this case through advertising, a theme that continued to dominate Pohl’s later works.

The success of The Space Merchants allowed Pohl to become a full-time writer. In the following three decades he wrote more than three dozen novels (some coauthored), edited numerous anthologies, and wrote dozens of short stories, most of which were published several times. He also edited Galaxy magazine from 1961 to 1969, served as executive editor of Ace Books in 1971–72, and was science-fiction editor of Bantam Books between 1973 and 1978. At a year-round pace of four pages per day, Pohl’s writing accumulated prodigiously, including the popular Heechee series that began with Gateway in 1976 (published in book form in 1977) and ended with the short-story collection The Gateway Trip in 1990.

As Pohl’s popularity grew, so did demands on his time. He had long enjoyed travel, but fortuitous articles in Business Week and the New York Times Sunday Magazine showcased his speaking talents, resulting in numerous speaking engagements at business meetings and conventions. He became a much-sought-after speaker, lecturing at over two hundred colleges around the world and appearing on hundreds of radio and television programs. Pohl became, for several decades, an articulate spokesman not only for science fiction but also for various causes and issues, such as the Democratic Party and world peace, which he espoused. He served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) from 1974 to 1976. He also produced works in science, technology, and history, even becoming Encyclopedia Britannica’s authority on the Roman emperor Tiberius. Pohl himself conceded that the demands on his time of his writing and traveling contributed to his lack of marital success; he was married five times, to fellow Futurian Leslie Perri (1940–44), Dorothy LesTina (1945–47), Judith Merril (1948–52), Carol M. Ulf Stanton (1953–83), and Elizabeth Anne Hull (from 1984 until his death in 2013). He had four children, one with Merril and three with Stanton.

Pohl’s contribution to the development of the genre of science fiction is substantial. While the quantity of his output is enormous, the quality of his work is evidenced by the awards he received. He won six International Science Fiction Achievement Awards (now Hugo Awards), three as editor (1966, 1967, 1968) and three as author (1973, 1978, 1986). He has also received several other prestigious awards for his writing, including the 1966 Edward E. Smith Memorial Award; two John W. Campbell Awards for best science-fiction novel, for Gateway and The Years of the City (1984); and two Nebula Awards (voted by active members of the SFWA), for Man Plus (1976) and Gateway. In 1993 he received the Grand Master Nebula Award. Just as significantly, Pohl was directly responsible for the success of many other science-fiction writers, both older and younger generations, for his talents as editor and agent molded many writing careers.

Pohl’s greatest contribution to his genre may simply have been himself. As an ambassador of and spokesman for science fiction, he has had few peers. It is no overstatement to say that he, along with a very limited number of other writers, made science fiction popular. As the genre metamorphosed from mere wish fulfillment to respectable fiction, Pohl played a major role in all aspects of that transformation. Moreover, he was personally responsible for organizing and developing the major organizations of science-fiction writers. Thus Pohl must be ranked as one of the most outstanding persons in the field of science fiction.