Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is the discussion thread for our chosen July, 2013, Classic SF/F Novel:


The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C. M. (Cyril) Kornbluth (1952)

This dystopian satire about advertising agencies which rule the world was written in 1952. Which means, it was pre-Computer miniaturization, before industrial automation and of course before cell phones and the internet revolution.
Sometimes, this doesn't matter when reading classical sci fi. I simply ignore or smile about actors who stop for a telephone cell to call someone or having to flight in person to achieve something.
But in this novel, the antique technology projection into the future disturbes: The plot depends heavily on loads of manual work done by people - nowadays, most of this work would be done by factory automation.

I wonder if anyone read the sequel of Pohl (but without Kornbluth) The Merchants' War.

Andreas wrote: "it was pre-Computer miniaturization, before industrial automation and of course before cell phones and the internet revolution. I simply ignore or smile about actors who stop for a telephone cell to call someone or having to flight in person to achieve something. But in this novel, the antique technology projection into the future disturbes..."

That's an interesting perspective, Andreas. And as you say, it's a problem that crops up in a lot of classic science fiction. (I remember finally reading "Rama II" a few years back, in which a character wanders about the airport looking for a public phone. Here's Arthur C Clarke, often cited as a great predictor of future technology, writing in 1989 about the 23rd century without cell phones. To his credit, the character also goes looking for a data terminal, so at least he's reached the era of Internet cafés.)

There are certainly places in "The Space Merchants" when a cell phone would come in really handy for Courtenay to contact some friends to bail him out of his predicament. As far as automation goes, given the negligible cost of the indentured labor, perhaps people were cheaper than machines?

On the other hand, the prescience of this story in social areas is totally amazing. It depicts not only a consumer culture run amok and driven by advertisement. And a stratified society where the elite corporate executives are incredibly well-off, while the common working-class struggle to find a sleeping space in their stairwells at night. Jobs are outsourced to South America. The "Chicken Little" and Slime Mold industrial production of food perfectly anticipates Chicken McNuggets :) Pre Mad-Men, pre-Fast Food, pre-Outsourcing.

(It's also a pretty surprising point of view, written in the optimistic period following World War II, to anticipate such class divisions. It also features the WCA (World Conservation Association?) as a sort of conflation of a labor union and ecology group. A lot of these ideas could seem rather subversive back in the John McCarthy / HUAC era.)

So I didn't mind a few missing technological gadgets from the future.

G33z3r wrote: "Andreas wrote: "it was pre-Computer miniaturization, before industrial automation and of course before cell phones and the internet revolution. I simply ignore or smile about actors who stop for a ..."

this is the reason im wanting to re-read this as i cant remember much from first time around other than Chicken Little, which in itself seems a good prediction with the growing of meat in labs.

just finished the second chapter and feel like i want to have a cigarette and im an exsmoker!

these old books dont half play on your willpower with the numerous references to smoking!

Pickle wrote: "these old books dont half play on your willpower with the numerous references to smoking!"

Yeah, I'm currently reading Zelazny's Amber cycle where they are chain smoking :)

Pickle wrote: "just finished the second chapter and feel like i want to have a cigarette and im an exsmoker!"

Yes, a nice hot cup of Coffiest® and a Kiddiebutt® cigarette. :)

“Has security checked this room?"
"Nothing but the usual State Department spy-mikes."

would you eat a chicken little steak?

i like how middle child syndrome has been explained in this book:

not old enough to be respected and not young enough to be the pet

i think i can relate this to a few people i know :)

Pickle wrote: "would you eat a chicken little steak?"

Not me, I'm star-class executive talent. But it makes me sore when I pay new-protein prices and get regenerated-protein shawarma.

It brought to mind an ad from maybe a decade ago on US TV, some fast-food company making fun of Chicken McNuggets with the satirical excuse, "parts is parts".

im trying to find my copy of the book...as i rember the novel is an expantion of Gravy Planet, a novella FP and CMK wrote, i think it was fot Galaxy...i may be wrong tho...FP had long wanted to write a novel about the advertising biz, tried it as a mainstream novel, and it just wasn't clicking...so Fred went and got a job with a ad agency, worked there for 7 years, and The Space Merchants was the final result. FP and CMK worked well together, and did several novels together, includeing Galataor-At-Law and Wolfsbane among others. This is all from memory, if i screwed up somewhere, please feel free to correct me.

I like Frederick Pohl's books and know that I don't read enough of them. I just ordered a used copy of this book and will be joining the discussion as soon as I finish the story.

Thanks for bringing this novel to my attention.

Christopher wrote: "I like Frederick Pohl's books and know that I don't read enough of them. I just ordered a used copy of this book and will be joining the discussion as soon as I finish the story."

Great, Christopher! It'll be good to have another opinion. SFSignal Recently listed it as one of the Successors to Orwell's 1984, and while that might be a bit of an overstatement, the novel certainly deserves more readers.

It is a superb and very short novel that works still both as a satire on advertising and a generally engrossing read.

I do feel there is a little bit of nostalgia going on with sf at the moment with much of what is published these days being nostalgic for the past, full of ideas familiar with the genre but increasingly fantastical as our scientific understanding of what is possible develops. It saddens me that I cannot think of a contemporary example in science fiction covering similar issues with the same panache as this but in part this is because space merchants does it so well. Although there are a few elements where time has been unkind on predictions this still feels quite contemporary and is a book that most sf fans will love and deserves to be checked out.

it always amazing to me how so many of the sf classics hold up so well, dispite getting alot 'wrong' about the 'future'....maybe one day the "lit-crit" crowd will wake up and see sf really has something to add to the lit conversation, and we can tell a crackin' good tale while saying it

Spooky1947 wrote: "maybe one day the "lit-crit" crowd will wake up and see sf really has something to add to the lit conversation..."

Can't happen. "Literary" critics and writers went to college to study literature. They took courses like "existential motifs in Russian literature". They didn't study science, they don't care about technology as long as the car starts, and they think scientists are geeks who speak a foreign language. They never learned to set the clock on their VCR. They don't care about "The Twitter". They think real books must be printed on paper so they can feel the texture with their fingers, and must be purchased at a corner bookstore.

Science fiction is about extrapolating science, thinking about how to terraform another planet, or take a generation ship to another star, or how one might communicate with aliens, or build a space elevator, or what the consequences of genetic engineering might be, or how augmented reality might change life in the future, or how an artificial intelligence might interact with the human race.

These things make the lit crowd's eyes glaze over. By both taste and education, they are incapable of understanding it. It's all muddle of jargon to them, like the language the guy from IT uses when he fixes their computer and begs them not to click on links in e-mail from deposed Nigerian princes.

Spooky1947 wrote: "...so Fred went and got a job with a ad agency, worked there for 7 years, and The Space Merchants was the final result."

Probably my favorite character on the t.v. show Mad Men is Ken Cosgrove who writes science fiction on the side from his ad job (and is given a hard time because of it). I always wonder if he is based on an actual writer.

I read the Space Merchants a little while back I believe just after Pohl supposedly updated it to include some more current references. I chose to read the 1950s version. I love reading these classic scifi novels from the 50s, 60s and 70s. You do have to take some of the cultural and societal backwardness with a grain of salt though. But, it's amazing how many of them are so relevant to today's problems. I love the part in The Space Merchants relating the roles of the U.S. Congress (The Senator from Nabisco and the Congressman from GE, etc.) and the fact that the President of the U.S. has been stripped of so much power and relevance that he has to take cabs to get around. Citizens United in a nutshell.

John Brunner with his novels
The Sheep Look Up and The Shockwave Rider and Stand on Zanzibar was another writer from that time period (50s, 60s, 70s) that seemed eerily prescient.

Mary wrote: "Spooky1947 wrote: "...so Fred went and got a job with a ad agency, worked there for 7 years, and The Space Merchants was the final result."

Probably my favorite character on the t.v. show Mad Men ..."

My thoughts exactly. Even if Pohl was not prescient with the technology he was spot on with the political landscape.

This is a fun book to read, a window in time looking towards the future.

When I was at MIT years and years ago, Pohl spoke at one of our science fiction seminars and he talked about this novel.He said he wrote the first draft before working at an ad agency and had to throw out that draft after he worked there.