The Space Merchants

Brilliantly written in the 1950s, "The Space Merchants" is a deeply cynical and darkly prescient dystopian novel in which advertising, conspicuous consumption and capitalism have run rampant in a world beset with overpopulation and environmental degradation. Mitch Courtenay is an executive copywriter with Fowler Schocken, an advertising agency that has been given the task of selling the notion of colonizing Venus, an environmental hell-hole, to an over-populated and environmentally stressed earth. Courtenay, born with a proverbial silver spoon in his mouth and unaccustomed to anything but a pampered lifestyle is attacked by a deadly corporate conspiracy, robbed of his identity and imprisoned in an impoverished third world environment, the very existence of which came as a complete shock to him. At the end of the day, whether you believe Courtenay to be an incorrigible villain or a reformed conservationist, "The Space Merchants" is a soft sci-fi classic well ahead of its time that explores thought-provoking themes and disturbing political issues that will be with us for many years to come. A gripping novel that well deserves it place in classic sci-fi libraries. Paul Weiss

Written over 50 years ago, this book anticipated much of what is wrong in the world we now live in -including corporate imperialism, environmental degradation and the villification of conservationists, the replacement of humanity with two categories of people -those who sell and those who consume, the death of spiritual values and the total ascendancy of materialism. Pohl and Kornbluth have created a materialist, consumerist dystopia that ranks with Vonnegut's Player Piano (also written in the early 1950s), and anticipates books like Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero and Joseph Heller's Catch 22. And, like the latter books, it manages somehow to be funny much of the time. What a tremendous loss it was for science fiction, and literature in general, when Cyril Kornbluth died prematurely. He had the makings of another Swift, if only he could have lived another 20 years.

One of the more frustrating things about Science fiction is the way that many of the premier titles in the genre go out of print and remain unavailable for long periods of time. It would be really great to see a couple of publishing houses attempt to keep some of the greater Sci-fi novels from the past in print. THE SPACE MERCHANTS is remarkable for the way it combines advertising, corporate culture (especially relevant today with the Enron and Worldcom scandals), and reflections on ways it might be possible to exploit the solar system economically in the future. Like the best of Sci-fi, it presents a plausible vision of the future that seems equally to life today, while also managing a great plot. The ending (which, of course, I cannot describe without giving too much away) is one of my favorites in all of Sci-fi. The book feels like it was written much more recently than 1952.Definitely worth seeking out.

In the early 1950s, Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth looked at the USA and extrapolated to a world run by advertising hucksters: an overpopulated, polluted world where production was the handmaiden of marketing, and privacy an impossible dream. This satiric _reductio ad finem_ (extrapolation to an extreme) predicted our world with an accuracy highly unusual for SF. And Pohl and Kornbluth gave a diagnosis of how this disaster could happen, and suggestions for a radical conservation movement that might bring a cure: positive elements rare in satire. _The Space Merchants_ belongs not only with the best of SF but among the finest works of satire, from Aristophanes through Chaucer to Shakespeare's _Troilus and Cressida_ to Swift's _Gulliver_ and beyond. ( )

He has been largely forgotten by the mainstream now, but C.M. (Cyril) Kornbluth was one of the giants of science fiction. He was just hitting his stride when cancer claimed him in 1958 at the age of 35. "The Space Merchants," a collaboration with the legendary Frederick Pohl, has been rated one of the seminal works in the entire field. A quick look at the logo-addicted styles of today will show you just how on-target Kornbluth and Pohl were four decades ago.If you enjoy reading "The Space Merchants," I suggest you prowl the used-book stores for a copy of Kornbluth's "The Syndic," another satire.