Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories

For all fans of Science Fiction, here's a master collection! Pohls stories, well written, original and with the charachrteristic Pohl 's sharp style are a delight to read!

This is an anthology of Frederik Pohl's best short stories. Before reading this anthology, I had heard of Frederik Pohl, but the only story of his that I had read was "Creation Myths of the Recently Extinct" in "Analog", and that is an extremely short piece that does not give a reader much of a sample of the author's style. The stories included in this anthology are: "The Merchants of Venus", Worlds of If, July/August 1972. "The Things That Happen", Asimov's, October 1985 "The High Test", Asimov's, June 1983. "My Lady Green Sleeves", Galaxy, February 1957. "The Kindly Isle", Asimov's, November 1984. "The Middle of Nowhere", Galaxy, May 1955. "I Remember a Winter", Orbit 11, Damon Knight (ed.), 1972. "The Greening of Bed-Stuy", F & SF, July 1984. "To See Another Mountain", F & SF, April 1959. "The Mapmakers", Galaxy, July 1955. "Spending a Day at the Lottery Fair", F & SF, October 1983. "The Celebrated No-Hit Inning", Fantastic Universe, September 1956. "Some Joys Under the Star", Galaxy, November 1973. "Servant of the People", Analog, February 1983. "Waiting for the Olympians", Asimov's, August 1988. "Criticality", Analog, December 1984. "Shaffery Among the Immortals", F & SF, July 1972. "The Day the Icicle Works Closed", Galaxy, February 1960. "Saucery", F & SF, October 1986. "The Gold at the Starbow's End", Analog, March 1972. "Growing Up in Edge City", Epoch, Roger Elwood and Robert Silverberg (eds.), 1975. "The Knights of Arthur", Galaxy, January 1958. "Creation Myths of the Recently Extinct", Analog, January 1994. "The Meeting" (in collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth), F & SF, November 1972. "Let the Ants Try", (as by James MacCreigh) Planet Stories, Winter 1949. "Speed Trap", Playboy, November 1967. "The Day the Martians Came", Dangerous Visions, Harlan Ellison (ed.), 1967. "Day Million", Rogue, February/March 1966. "The Mayor of Mare Tranq", The Williamson Effect, Tor, 1996. "Fermi and Frost", Asimov's, January 1985. Plus, there is an Introduction by James Frenkel and an Afterword called "Fifty Years and Counting". Each story comes with a very brief (one paragraph) introduction. I will not comment on each of them, but will point out a few pieces that stood out in some way, plus talk about the overall quality of the work, and its style. I guess I will get my griping out of the way first, as there is little griping to do. The cover of the book lists the sub-title as "The Collected Best Stories" and does not specify a genre, although the book is part of Tor's "Sc-Fi Essential Book" serie. The introduction at least implies that the reader can expect science fiction, fantasy, and the broader supra-genre of speculative fiction. Almost all of the stories are either clearly science fiction are very close kin to it. The one definite exception is "I Remember a Winter" and, in the introduction to that story, it raises the question of whether the story can be called science fiction. I would answer that questi

Fred Pohl has been writing and/or editing science fiction since 1939, and he's still at it. That's a career of 68 years -- so far. This collection shows why he was voted the title "Grand Master." Most of these thirty stories, actually, were first published in the 1970s or later; the most recent in 1996. And among his later stories are some of his best. Keeping the best for last is the Hugo-winning "Fermi and Frost," a somberly realistic and very engrossing nuclear war story. (Who else would have thought to point out that Iceland is the best equipped place in the world to survive a nuclear winter?) Also very, very good is "The Gold at the Starbow's End," about politics and the basic mechanism of intellectual creativity, and "The Greening of Bed-Stuy," about a future New York City. Just below those, in my opinion, is "Saucery," a rather gentle yarn about two con men dealing with an interplanetary threat to their livelihoods. On the other hand, "The Day the Icicle Works Closed" has always been popular but I don't regard it as one of Pohl's stronger efforts. "Some Joys Under the Star" is another swipe by the politically astute Pohl at American political realities -- very on-topic when it first appeared at the end of the Nixon Administration and getting that way again. Pohl does great adventures, too, and one of the best of those is "The Merchants of Venus," an early Heechee story. Of course, some stories don't age as well as others, and foremost among those -- in this collection, anyway -- are "The Celebrated No-Hit Inning," "The Middle of Nowhere," and "Servant of the People," all of them affected badly by the ways in which the world actually has changed since they were published. By and large, though, this is a collection of very high quality, showing off the author's stylistic elegance and ingenious plotting. Nor does he worry overmuch about whether something he wants to say is technically "science fiction" or not. Younger readers especially, those who didn't grow up with Pohl's stuff in the 1950s and `60s (I remember reading _The Space Merchants_ a few years after it appeared in 1954), will profit from it.

Frederick Pohl truly is one of science fiction's Grand Masters in a career that has provided us with some of the most beloved novels (The Gateway/Heechee series) and short fiction as well. This collection gathers some of his finest works of the past 5 decades and gives a good taste of the wide range of plots, characters and world-building that has made him a master of his craft. A few of my personal favorites include the cautionary tale "Growing Up in Edge City," which was a Nebula finalist in 1975, and the 1955 tale "The Mapmakers" about navigating hyperspace--which lead to my own exploration's of Einstein's theories when I was a younger man... Highly recommended.

Selecting only thirty tales from the fifty year career of Grand Master Frederik Pohl had to seem impossible as you want representation from the five different decades to show trends as well as quality. Obviously with a science fiction hall of famer like Mr. Pohl several editions of his best stories could easily be produced. No one will have any negative comments on the chosen thirty though some might feel a personal favorite was left out. As he has done throughout his career, most of the selections warn humanity about excesses that lead to a dark catastrophic future using hyperbole to make the case that there is no inclusive in extremism only a deadly future. Personal favorites include the "The Greening of Bed-Stuy" and "The Merchants of Venus". All the contributions are terrific, but stories like "Let the Ants Try" written in 1949 but set in 1960 has an eerie nuclear war time twist that make the audience think what if. A superb collection (based on last week in Montreal - probably banned in the White House as anti-patriotic), science fiction fans will appreciate that the greatness mantle fits Mr. Pohl; as demonstrated by these entertaining thought provoking cautionary tales. Harriet Klausner