Frederik Pohl, thoughts?

Read Gateway years ago, terrific book. I think they are making this one into a tv series.
 
Where did you hear they were making a TV series of Gateway? That would be fantastic if it was done well.


I read about it back in March of this year. Unfortunately I don't remember where I read it. Im not making any of this up.
 
I used the search function to track down "ideas".

The Space Merchants is one of the books I recommend the most. I do not so much regard it as satire as prophecy. All you have to do is watch television and then study technology. I have a Linux book from 2001, it surprised me but did not shock me by talking about the Planned Obsolescence of computer software.

So what has happened since then: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.

And Lo and Behold 9 is coming.

Guess what? It has Virtual Desktops that I have been using on Linux for 12 years. I am so impressed.

Read:

The Screwing of the Average Man (1974) by David Hapgood
http://www.buildfreedom.com/tl/rape10.shtml
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006W84KK/?tag=brite-21

and the book is not really satire.

psik

Hell, the Commodore Amiga had virtual desktops. How long ago was that - 30 years?
 
Hell, the Commodore Amiga had virtual desktops. How long ago was that - 30 years?

Well, it's the X Window System that has the virtual desktops, rather than Linux as such, and it's been around since 1984, though the virtual desktop wasn't implemented until 1989. The virtual desktop was actually developed at PARC, also in 1984. The Amiga implementation was between PARC's and X's but was hardware dependent. And, while not there by default, Windows has had virtual desktops since XP (maybe W2K) via a "powertoys" addon, but it was crap as the MS Windows window managing capabilities were crap and not designed for virtual/multiple desktops, anyway. (And that is a distinction - AFAIK, Windows never had and still doesn't have "virtual desktops" but the powertoys implemented multiple desktops. X and a decent window manager does both. Not sure what Amiga actually did but was probably also "multiple" (which is, after all, the more useful side of the coin). Virtual desktops are displays larger than the physical screen while multiple desktops are more numerous desktops than the physical one. I could have both, but have my desktop size the same as the physical screen, but use four of them. The manual to my window manager (fvwm) modestly says

The total number of distinct desktops does not need to be specified, but is limited to approximately 4 billion total.

That limited? I feel so cramped. :D
 
Reporting back on a couple more of his books I have read since my last post here:

Gateway - 4 stars

Mankind has discovered an ancient alien artefact in our solar system; a gateway that contains thousands of spaceships that people can ride in only they can't control where they go or how long they'll be gone. It might take them to untold riches if they discover useful alien remains or it might deposit them dangerously close to a neutron star or it might simply take then on a journey far longer than their life support system will hold out for.

Our protagonist Bob gets a lucky break from his life in the food mines and gets himself onto Gateway to be a prospector. Prospectors wait until a likely looking alien ship becomes available and lets it take them where it will hoping to hit it rich and make it back alive. There's a disturbingly low rate of survival for prospectors which is partly why Bob takes so long to actually commit to a journey.

Bob is not an easy character to like or relate to which will undoubtedly put a lot of readers off. He doesn't even like himself very much which will, as the story goes on, become readily apparent why. The narrative cuts between the present in which Bob is reluctantly seeing an AI physcho-analyst Sigfrid and his past story how be got to become a prospector on Gateway, exploring his life, loves and fears. The text is also scattered with frequent inserts that supply background information and asides that can be skipped if desired but help build up the background picture of the story.

This book explores adult and psychological themes and as such I don't think it would make great reading for younger readers. But it portrays a convincing vision of the future but in some ways is starting to feel a little dated. A flawed yet very good story about a very flawed character.

Jem - 3 stars

Although ostensibly a story about first contact and colonising another planet its real focus is on how the politically rival forces on earth rip each other apart and, exporting such tensions to the new colonisation expedition, how the colonisers nearly do the same to each other there as well.

Initially I found it quite hard to get into and I wasn't particularly enjoying it for a long part of the story. It failed to convey the wonder of space travel and exploration of an alien planet. Things picked up later on and I began to enjoy it when I discovered where the real focus lay.

This book, written in the cold war era and firmly embedded in a cold war mentality, predicts a not too distant future in which a kind of cold war persists but the balance of power has evolved into a precarious tripartite set up; those countries with a surplus of food, a surplus of oil and a surplus of labour. When a remote earth like planet is discovered, the three powers all send colonising parties that are supposed to cooperate but inevitably end up taking the political divisions and mistrust with them. The cost of supporting such expensive expeditions causes much strife at home which escalates tensions between the three powers and consequently between the colonising expeditions too.

This story contains quite a bleak and cynical view of humanity that must have seemed quite a plausible future for humanity at the time although with end of the cold war it does seem now a little less so. There is a bit of a 'phoenix rising from the ashes' up-tick at the end as the author (briefly) describes a new utopian society that might emerge but I found that far less plausible.

All in all it does have its merits but I'm not quite convinced it deserved its place in the SF Masterworks series.
 
I am going to have to check out Gateway again some time. I know I read it and finished it in the early 80s but it was one of those books I just regarded as OK and let slip from my mind. I hardly remember anything about it and it never qualified for a reread. So Space Merchants is what I mostly remember Pohl for.
 
I consider Gateway to be among the best single S.F. books, and the series to be memorable indeed.
 
I consider Gateway to be among the best single S.F. books...
Yes, agreed. And the more I think about it, the more I suspect it may be the best SF book I've read. It may not be, but I can't think of an alternative that I am confident is better.
 
For me, "The Space Merchants" is by far the best book of his I have read (so far)...
 
Has anyone read the original Space Merchants and the 'revised' Space Merchants? If so, what did you think of the difference between the two?

I have an original copy and re-read it recently. Didn't know there was a revision. I have to say that I found the old novel remarkably relevant and have a tough time imagining what could be changed that would be an improvement.
 
I have an original copy and re-read it recently. Didn't know there was a revision. I have to say that I found the old novel remarkably relevant and have a tough time imagining what could be changed that would be an improvement.
As far as I know, he changed older brand/store names to newer names, basically. I'm sure it wasn't an improvement.

He revised all the Kornbluth collaborations. This link goes to my take (last large paragraph) on the original and revised Search the Sky, for what that's worth.
 
How do I know which version I have of Space Merchants?
3/6
Published Penguin 1965
(Heinmann 1955 and (c) 1953)
Cover shows detail of "Folklore Planetario" Victor Vasarely

I've had it a long while. But I doubt from 1965, though I do have some books still I bought then, new.
 
The revisions were (I think all but The Space Merchants) published by Baen in the mid-80s and the TSM revision is even newer. You've got the original.

Edit: yep, three revisions 1985-6 Baen, then TSM in 2011 St.Martin's Griffin
 

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