Frederik Pohl

Infobox Writer
name = Frederik Pohl

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imagesize = 200px
caption = Frederik Pohl at the 2008 UCR J. Lloyd Eaton Science Fiction Conference
pseudonym = Elton Andrews
birthdate = birth date and age|1919|11|26
birthplace =
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = Novelist, short story author, Essayist, Publisher, Editor, Literary Agent
genre = Science fiction
nationality = United States
influences =
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website = http://www.frederikpohl.com/

Frederik George Pohl, Jr. (born November 26, 1919) is a American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over sixty years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited "Galaxy" magazine and its sister magazine "if", winning the Hugo for "if" three years in a row. His writing also won him three Hugos and multiple Nebula Awards. He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1993.

Biography and writing career

Pohl's family moved a number of times in his early years. His father held a number of jobs, and the Pohls lived in such wide-flung locations as Texas, California, New Mexico, and the Panama Canal Zone. The family settled in Brooklyn when Pohl was around seven. He attended the prestigious Brooklyn Tech high school, but due to the Great Depression, Pohl dropped out of school at the age of fourteen to work. While still a teenager he began a lifelong friendship with fellow writer Isaac Asimov, also a member of the New York-based Futurians fan group.

In 1936, Pohl joined the Young Communist League, an organization in favor of trade unions and against racial prejudice and Hitler and Mussolini. He became President of the local Flatbush III Branch of the YCL in Brooklyn. Pohl says that after Stalin-Hitler pact in 1939 the party line changed and he could no longer support it, at which point he left voluntarily.

From 1939 to 1943, he was the editor of two pulp magazines - "Astonishing Stories" and "Super Science Stories". [cite web |url=http://www.locusmag.com/2000/Issues/10/Pohl.html |title=Frederik Pohl: Chasing Science |publisher=Locus Online |month=October | year=2000] In his own autobiography, Pohl says that he stopped editing the two magazines at roughly the time of German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

Pohl has been married several times. His first wife, Leslie Perri, was another Futurian; they were married in August 1940 but divorced during World War II. He then married Dorothy LesTina in Paris in August, 1945 while both were serving in Europe. In 1948 he married Judith Merril, an important figure in the world of science fiction, with whom he has one daughter, Ann. Merril and Pohl divorced in 1953. From 1953–1982 he was married to Carol Metcal Ulf. He is currently married to science fiction editor and academic Elizabeth Anne Hull, PhD, whom he married in 1984.

Emily Pohl-Weary is Pohl's granddaughter.

During the war Pohl served in the US Army (April 1943-November 1945), rising to Sergeant as an air corp weathermen. After training in Illinois, Oklahoma, and Colorado, he primarily was stationed in Italy.

Pohl started his career as Literary Agent in 1937, but it was a sideline for him until after WWII, when he began doing it full time. He ended up "representing more than half the successful writers in science fiction"--for a short time, he was the only agent Isaac Asimov ever had--though, in the end it was a failure for him as his agenting business went bankrupt in the early 1950s.

He collaborated with friend and fellow Futurian Cyril M. Kornbluth, co-authoring a number of short stories and several novels, including a dystopian satire of a world ruled by the advertising agencies, "The Space Merchants" (a belated sequel, "The Merchants' War" [1984] was written by Pohl alone, after Kornbluth's death). This should not to be confused with Pohl's "The Merchants of Venus", an unconnected 1972 novella which includes biting satire on runaway free market capitalism and first introduced the Heechee.

A number of his short stories were notable for a satirical look at consumerism and advertising in the 1950s and 1960s: "The Wizard of Pung's Corners", where flashy, over-complex military hardware proved useless against farmers with shotguns, and "The Tunnel Under the World", where an entire community is held captive by advertising researchers.

From the late 1950s until 1969, he served as editor of "Galaxy" and "if" magazines, taking over at some point from the ailing H. L. Gold. Under his leadership, "if" won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Magazine for 1966, 1967 and 1968. [cite web |url=http://www.worldcon.org/hc.html#pm |publisher=worldcon |title=The Hugo Awards by Category] Judy-Lynn del Rey was his assistant editor at "Galaxy" and "if".

In the mid-1970s, Pohl acquired and edited novels for Bantam Books, published as "Frederik Pohl Selections"; the most notable were Samuel R. Delany's "Dhalgren" and Joanna Russ's "The Female Man". Also in the 1970s, Pohl reemerged as a novel writer in his own right, with books such as "Man Plus" and the "Heechee" series. He won back-to-back Nebula awards with "Man Plus" in 1976 and "Gateway", the first "Heechee" novel, in 1977. "Gateway" also won the 1978 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Two of his stories have also earned him Hugo awards: "The Meeting" (with Kornbluth) tied in 1973 and "Fermi and Frost" won in 1986. Another notable late novel is "Jem" (1980), winner of the National Book Award. Pohl continues to write and had a new story, "Generations", published in September 2005. A novel begun by Arthur C. Clarke called "The Last Theorem" was finished by Pohl and published on August 5, 2008.

His works include not only science fiction but also articles for "Playboy" and "Family Circle". For a time, he was the official authority for the Encyclopædia Britannica on the subject of Emperor Tiberius.

He was a frequent guest on Long John Nebel's radio show, from the 1950s to the early 1970s.

He was the eighth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1974.

Pohl has been a resident of Red Bank, New Jersey, and currently resides in Palatine, Illinois.

Pohl has been announced as the recipient of the second Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by the University of California, Riverside. [The 2009 Eaton Science Fiction Conference Press Release, University of California, Riverside, September, 19, 2008.]

Works

eries

Undersea Trilogy (with Jack Williamson)

# "Undersea Quest" (1954)
# "Undersea Fleet" (1956)
# "Undersea City" (1958)

Heechee

* "The Merchants of Venus" (1972) (novella in "The Gold at the Starbow's End")
# "Gateway" (1977) ("winner of the Hugo Award and Nebula Award")
# "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" (1980)
# "Heechee Rendezvous" (1984)
# "Annals of the Heechee" (1987)
# "The Gateway Trip" (1990)
# "The Boy Who Would Live Forever: A Novel of Gateway" (2004)

Eschaton trilogy

# "The Other End of Time" (1996)
# "The Siege of Eternity" (1997)
# "The Far Shore of Time" (1999)

Mars

* "Man Plus" (1975) ("Winner of Nebula Award")
* "Mars Plus" (1994) (with Thomas T. Thomas)

Saga of Cuckoo (with Jack Williamson)

# "Farthest Star" (1975)
# "Wall Around A Star" (1983)

Starchild Trilogy (with Jack Williamson)

# "The Reefs of Space" (1964)
# "Starchild" (1965)
# "Rogue Star" (1969)

Space Merchants

# "The Space Merchants" (1953) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth)
# "The Merchants' War" (1984) (published together with "The Space Merchants" under the title "VENUS, INC.")

Other novels (not part of a series)

* "Search the Sky " (1954) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth)
* "Gladiator-At-Law" (1955) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth)
* "Preferred Risk" (1955) (with Lester Del Rey)
* "Slave Ship" (1956)
* "Wolfbane" (1957) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth)
* "Presidential Year" (1958) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth)
* "Drunkard's Walk" (1960)
* "A Plague of Pythons" (1964) (also called "Demon in the Skull")
* "The Age of the Pussyfoot" (1965)
* "Jem" (1980)
* "The Cool War" (1981)
* "Syzygy" (1981)
* "Starburst" (1982)
* "The Years of the City" (1984)
* "Black Star Rising" (1985)
* "The Coming of the Quantum Cats" (1986)
* "Terror" (1986)
* "Chernobyl" (1987)
* "Land's End (1988) (with Jack Williamson)
* "The Day The Martians Came" (1988)
* "Narabedla Ltd." (1988)
* "Homegoing" (1989)
* "The World at the End of Time" (1990)
* "Outnumbering the Dead" (1990)
* "Stopping at Slowyear" (1991)
* "The Singers of Time" (1991) (with Jack Wiliamson)
* "Mining the Oort" (1992)
* "The Voices of Heaven" (1994)
* "O Pioneer!" (1998)
* "The Last Theorem" (2008) (with Arthur C. Clarke)

Collections

* "Alternating Currents" (1956)
* "The Case Against Tomorrow" (1957)
* "Tomorrow Times Seven" (1959)
* "The Man Who Ate the World" (1960)
* "Turn Left At Thursday" (1961)
* "The Wonder Effect" (1962) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth)
* "The Abominable Earthman" (1963)
* "Digits and Dastards" (1966)
* "The Frederik Pohl Omnibus" (1966)
* "Day Million" (1970)
* "The Best of Frederik Pohl" (1975)
* "In The Problem Pit" (1976)
* "The Early Pohl" (1976):
** 'Elegy for a Dead Planet: Luna,' 1937, (writing as Elton Andrews) [a poem, his first published piece]
** 'The Dweller in the Ice,' 1940, (writing as James MacCreigh)
** 'The King's Eye,' 1940, (writing as James MacCreigh)
** 'It's a Young World,' 1940, (writing as James MacCreigh)
** 'Daughters of Eternity,' 1940, (writing as James MacCreigh)
** 'Earth, Farewell!,' 1940, (writing as James MacCreigh)
** 'Conspiracy on Callisto,' 1943, (writing as James MacCreigh)
** 'Highwayman of the Void,' 1943, (writing under Dirk Wylie's name)
** 'Double-Cross,' 1943, (writing as James MacCreigh)
* "Survival Kit" (1979)
* "This Is My Best" (1981)
* "Planets Three", 1982 (a collection of 3 novellas written as James MacCreigh):
** 'Figurehead'
** 'Red Moon of Danger'
** 'Donovan Had a Dream'
* "Midas World" (1983)
* "Pohlstars" (1984)
** 'The Sweet, Sad Queen of the Grazing Isles'
** 'The High Test', 1983
** 'Spending a Day at the Lottery Fair', 1983
** 'Second Coming', 1983
** 'Enjoy, Enjoy', 1974
** 'Growing Up in Edge City', 1975
** 'We Purchased People', 1974
** 'Rem the Rememberer', 1974
** 'The Mother Trip', 1975
** 'A Day in the Life of Able Charlie', 1976
** 'The Way It Was', 1977
** 'The Wizard-Masters of Peng-Shi Angle (né The Wizards of Pung's Corners)', original story 1958, retranslation 1984.
* "BiPohl" (1987)
* "" (1987) (with C.M. Kornbluth)
* "Platinum Pohl" (2005)

Autobiography

* "The Way the Future Was" (1978)

Non-fiction

* "Tiberius" (1960) (writing as Ernst Mason)
* "Practical Politics 1972" (1971)
* "Our Angry Earth" (1991) (with Isaac Asimov)
* "Chasing Science: Science as Spectator Sport" (2000)

References

External links

*
* [http://www.frederikpohl.com/index.htm Frederik Pohl Home Page]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0688333/ Frederik Pohl entry at IMDB.Com]
* [http://www.nndb.com/people/728/000023659/ Frederik Pohl entry at NNDB]
* [http://www.scifihorrorbooks.com/forum/frederik-pohl-vt30.html Frederik Pohl] Bibliography
* [http://www.tor.com/pohl/interview.html an Interview with Pohl] , ca. 2005
* [http://www.locusmag.com/2000/Issues/10/Pohl.html Locus Interview with Pohl] , 2000
* [http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw12818.html Interview with Pohl] , May 2006
* [http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue240/interview.html Interview with Pohl] , 2006
* [http://rs7.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=3626 Library of Congress Webcast of Pohl Speaking] ,October 2004
* [http://www.lib.usf.edu/public/index.cfm?Pg=SpecialCollectionsTampa Frederik Pohl Manuscripts Collection, The Department of Special Collections, The University of South Florida Tampa Library]
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Persondata
NAME= Pohl, Frederik
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Andrews, Elton
SHORT DESCRIPTION= American novelist, short story author, essayist, publisher, editor, and literary agent
DATE OF BIRTH= Birth date and age|1919|11|26|mf=y
PLACE OF BIRTH=
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=