Slashdot Mirror
Sci-Fi Great Frederik Pohl Passes Away At 93
damnbunni writes "Frederik Pohl, one of the last Golden Age science fiction authors, passed away on September 2nd of respiratory distress, as reported on his blog. Pohl is perhaps best known for his Heechee Saga novels, beginning with Gateway in 1977, but his work in pulp magazines in the '30s and '40s helped give rise to science fiction fandom."
I've enjoyed many of his books over the years.
Another master will be greatly missed.
My personal favourite. Amazingly prescient.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Man Minus :(
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Thanks, Frederik, for learning so much in your time with us that you were able to teach, through your example, some of us how to write. Enjoy Heechee heaven, and if you ever figure out how their ships work, come back and see us sometime. (Thanks again. I just realized how the ships work. You pick up a book, you open it to page 1, and *poof*, you're there.)
He's alive and well and will live into his 120s. Meanwhile, in another universe, he never lived and no one lives on this planet. Ah The Coming of the Quantum Cats, such a great introduction to him. He will be missed.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
I read his novels back in the 70's. He truly was one of the greats! He will be missed!
I recall reading "The Cool War" in my single digits; I think it may have contained the first sex scene I ever read about. :p
Of course, most writers I grew up with were already 'old' when I first read their work... Frederik Pohl (and Jack Vance earlier this year) managed to reach a very respectable age, and their passing is only natural. It still saddens me though that such a mind is gone forever.
I'll check later for novel advice here, I surely missed the best ones he wrote.
"Outnumbering the Dead," one of the best science fiction novellas I ever read. But the guy had so many greats. He was one of the greatest modern serious science fiction writers ever, and active almost right up until the end. I don't think he ever had a slump.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Golden Ages end. With Pohl it was his skills as an editor. Pick up any issue of Galaxy Magazine in the 60's and you'll be drawn into how well the thing is put together; and how good the writing is. If you like the Sci Fi genre there really is (current tense intended) no better way to read compelling and idea laden works from new and old writers. And like others from the era, his own novels became interesting rather late. "Gateway" is pretty good. The tropes are compelling. But again, Golden ages end.
While rearranging the top bookshelf this weekend I moved a few of his books around. Farewell but your works will always be remembered
To be replaced by Vampire fiction :_(
As a school library was cleaning out books I've been acquiring a lot of the works of Simak, Heinlein (early sci-fi), Bradbury, et al. There's something enjoyable about reading these things. Sometimes listening to old MP3s of Dimension-X or X-Minus-1 (which you can find on archive.org) is a lot of fun. It was a simpler age with the new sciences of atomic physics and morality to be explored.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Gold at Starbow's End (also sometimes sold as Starburst) is one of my favorite science fiction novellas, or maybe science fantasy, of all time.
In typical Pohl fashion it includes lots of sex. But the basic plot is that civilization is collapsing, and someone devises a plan to send six of the world's top scientists, three men and three women, on a multi-year space journey to a planet near Alpha Centauri with nothing to do during the voyage but scientific research. With nothing else to do but research on the ship and chemicals in their food to suppress sexual desire, they hope the crew will make new breakthroughs in many fields. They do.
Unfortunately, the logical, mathematical, and scientific breakthroughs by the crew swiftly move them beyond what the humans back on earth can understand. They create their own language and mathematical notation. They redesign and reconstruct their space ship while it's in motion. They manufacture their own chemicals to nullify the mechanism that was negating their sexual desires and have all sorts of sex, and even raise children on the ship. In the end they manifest psychic powers and figure out how to live disembodied.
The story takes everything you might have liked about the movies Phenomenom, Limitless (and the book it's based upon, "The Dark Fields"), and Lawnmower Man and the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Nth Degree" and takes the ideas far further. (Except for killing John Travolta, which cannot be improved upon.)
Gateway inspired a couple of classic interactive fiction titles by Legend in the early 90s. These are mouse driven text adventures, with limited illustration. As text adventures go, these are a lot of fun to play. The story is obviously great, the world is portrayed well, and the puzzles are well balanced. It's hard to get stuck, which is high praise for adventures of this era. Anyway, if you liked The Dig and Planetfall, Gateway will be right up your alley.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Fred Pohl was best known by IGNORANT PUPS for the Heechee Saga novels.
He seemed like an old timer to me when I was gobbling up science fiction voraciously in the 1950s. You could hardly open a Galaxy magazine without finding one of his stories. And indeed, though he wasn't nearly as early on the scene as the great E. E. 'Doc' Smith, he was well established by the 1950s. Then he took over editorship of BOTH Galaxy and Worlds of If at the end of the 1950s. His writing really exploded in the 1960s, and it seems like he collaborated with just about every science fiction writer. Oh, those many late late nights listening to the Long John Nebel radio show when he would have Fred as guest (also Poul Anderson so many times)!
This prolific man lived for TWENTY YEARS AFTER receiving the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award, and was active all that time! He was also very hip to the internet.
I miss the dreams about sci fi, however, my big fear is that instead of seeing FTL drives and terraformed worlds, what we will see are ones in crowd control, imprisonment, and torture for the foreseeable future. Just like how the technology went from people like Jobs and Torvalds to corporate leaders like Damon Hininger and others.
We used to have Rama, or even Gay Deceiver. Now, we have sparkly vampires, zombies, and police states that are the topics written about.
I can understand how being a visionary is hard these days. In the 1950s, we actually had a chance of seeing something than a return to groaning, brutal serfdom, but it appears that we are going back to the days of most of the population living in shit and the only tech advances are either for fashion or for putting the pain on someone (be it a perceived enemy, or just outright torture for fun.)
*sigh* I'd give virtually everything to be a Lensman these days.
he got shanghaied to Venus and is working secretly as an ad copywrighter
He's a self-contained eunuch. Er, Unit! I meant Unit!
"The Marching Morons" where the idiots out populate the smart people and force them to come up with fool proof devices.
I just heard a drunk woman fell overboard from a cruise ship. Eventually the cruise ship turned around and picked her up 90 minutes later.
She is suing the cruise line because they took to long to rescue her. In part because they didn't have sufficient safety equipment. No infrared camera for example which would have let them see a passenger in the water at night. Sound familiar?
"The Space Merchants" where advertising pervades our whole life and often times we are being tricked or forced to watch ads. Sound familiar?
RIP Fredrick Pohl.
I didn't say I recommended it to minors. Younger != minor. It's actually been a while since I read this book, but I don't recall that part being a major focus of the story. Maybe I mentally filtered that part of it out. Did you read to the part with the spaceships, etc? If you want "creepy old man sex fantasies" go read some Heinlein- there may be more extreme examples, but I don't want to know who.
I read Gateway last week, as it happens. The protagonist's rolling in the hay with the female inhabitants of the station (often with inhibited judgement thanks to his fondness for grass), as well as his working out his gay sex fantasies with the computer psychologist, take up a large portion of the novel. I was very disappointed to find that the actual science-fiction, the big revelation of his tragic visit to the black hole which was long anticipated, was passed over in just 2-3 pages. I really see little difference between Pohl and Heinlein, or between Pohl and The Ringworld Throne-era Niven.
Jack Vance
Fred Pohl
Iain Banks
Richard Matheson
I don't think we've seen this many giants in the field all pass away the same year before.
If no one else has mentioned it, read Pohl's story "Tunnel Under the World," which is still a great work.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
It's a valid point. Death is a great, scary taboo. So we avert our eyes and say he "passed away", or even "passed".
Fred Pohl has died. Mincing words does not help. My sadness at this is not helped by such euphemisms. In fact, like the AC OP, I, personally, find "passed away" slightly offensive---and "passed" more so.
So, let's accept that Fred has died. Let's rejoice in the life he led, the books he wrote, the pleasure he gave to so many. Let's celebrate him living a ling life, and being productive to the very end.
I read his latest blog post, and then, the next day. saw he'd died. Way to go!
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.