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The Space Merchants
It is the 20th Century, an advertisement-drenched world in which the big ad agencies dominate governments and everything else. Now Schoken Associates, one of the big players, has a new challenge for star copywriter Mitch Courtenay. Volunteers are needed to colonise Venus. It's a hellhole, and nobody who knew anything about it would dream of signing up. But by the time ...more
Paperback, 172 pages
Published
August 15th 1958
by St. Martin's Press
(first published January 1st 1953)
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I was blown away by this satirical and cynical novel. I couldn't believe how fresh it felt, even sixty years after it was originally published, it's still so pertinent, so topical. I would not have been surprised to find out it was written twenty years after it was.
Reading up about the origins of this novel, I was amazed to discover that Pohl actually decided to get a job in advertising just so he could know the industry better and write about it with more authority. And yes, one certa...more
Reading up about the origins of this novel, I was amazed to discover that Pohl actually decided to get a job in advertising just so he could know the industry better and write about it with more authority. And yes, one certa...more
Awesome book! Hard to believe this was written like 50+ years ago, because it is so incredibly relevant to our modern times. For example: it takes a look at the dangers of imperialistic corporations & greed, the plight of workers and the ungodly conditions under which some of them have to work, the clear and unmistakeable division of class in society, the total lack of concern for the environment and the treatment of those who care about it and want change. Good grief! To say that it was way ahe...more
Quite simply one of the best science fiction novels published in the 1950s (only Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, Brian Aldiss' Non Stop and Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan truly compare)... This satire on the advertising industry is so far ahead of its time that I was staggered! The world it depicts resembles the future Earth of the film Blade Runner perhaps even more accurately and acutely than Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? does... I must keep a look ...more
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The concept of this book was genius--the authors imagine a world in which advertisers control the world, and citizens are more loyal to their favorite brand names than their country. Mitch Courtenay works for one of the world's super advertising agencies, and he is put in charge of the newest ad campaign: selling the colonization of Venus. With Earth's current overcrowding problem, it shouldn't be too hard of a sell, but a million other factors seem to complicate Mitch's progress. There are the ...more
I can't believe I hadn't read this classic SF novel until now. I was prompted to read this because I just read the book "Jennifer Government", which pays homage to this novel by having one of its characters read it.
In the future, corporations have effectively assumed virtually unlimited power. The vast majority of people are in the underclass known as "consumers", while a small number of elite high-level corporate employees lead a privileged life. The lead charac...more
In the future, corporations have effectively assumed virtually unlimited power. The vast majority of people are in the underclass known as "consumers", while a small number of elite high-level corporate employees lead a privileged life. The lead charac...more
As a dystopian future in which advertising and commerce trump any human considerations in the exercise of power, The Space Merchants hits a little too close to home for comfort. Mitch Cortenay lives a life of relative luxury as a star-class copysmith for the world's most powerful advertising agency. Advertising has grown to subsume entire other industries -- so, it's this dystopia's finance sector, basically. He inhabits a world that is increasingly crowded and used up, but which has so compl...more
A pretty interesting, if somewhat short and too one dimensional, science fiction novel of the near future. The advertising industry has become ascendant and essentially controls the world. With this new setup, the social order has become perverted, with an emphasis more on corporate rights than individual rights. One example of this perversion is "... an ancient, basic tenet of justice is: 'Better that one thousand innocents suffer unjustly than one guilty person be permitted to escape.'"...more
Alan
rated it
Recommends it for:
Your favorite ad exec
Recommended to Alan by:
Gosh, it was so long ago...
Short, sharp and sly, with an action-packed plot to boot, this biting social satire from the 1950s still rings true today, an effective dig at the free marketeers and all they hold holy.
Mitch Courtenay is on top of the world and reaching for the next one as the novel begins. He's an upper-echelon copysmith—an exalted profession, in this crazy and implausible future America where everything depends on how much you can sell. Mitch works for the corporate giant Fowler Schocken, de...more
Mitch Courtenay is on top of the world and reaching for the next one as the novel begins. He's an upper-echelon copysmith—an exalted profession, in this crazy and implausible future America where everything depends on how much you can sell. Mitch works for the corporate giant Fowler Schocken, de...more
A science-fiction satire on advertising and consumerism run amok written in the early '50s (so, yes, parts of it play a little like Mad Men...of the future!). Second half is not quite as good as the first half, some of it is dated, but nonetheless a fun read, with a lot still dead-on, relevant and funny. Part of what helps is that the protagonist Mitch, whose values you are to deplore, is nonetheless very smart and amusing.
A couple of quotes - Mitch's boss talking to him about Mitc...more
A couple of quotes - Mitch's boss talking to him about Mitc...more
review of
Frederik Pohl & C.M.Kornbluth's The Space Merchants
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 13, 2011
WOW. WOW. For those of us who love the writings of Philip K. Dick (just about everyone who reads SF, I reckon) this is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. It's the only bk that I've read that I'd say is PROTO-P.K.DICK. It's as good as Dick, PUBLISHED 3 YRS BEFORE DICK'S 1ST PUBLISHED NOVEL WAS: The Space Merchants was published in 1952? in Galaxy & in 1953 as a bk & Dick's...more
Frederik Pohl & C.M.Kornbluth's The Space Merchants
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 13, 2011
WOW. WOW. For those of us who love the writings of Philip K. Dick (just about everyone who reads SF, I reckon) this is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. It's the only bk that I've read that I'd say is PROTO-P.K.DICK. It's as good as Dick, PUBLISHED 3 YRS BEFORE DICK'S 1ST PUBLISHED NOVEL WAS: The Space Merchants was published in 1952? in Galaxy & in 1953 as a bk & Dick's...more
This pulp sci-fi novel first appeared in 1952, and has much relevance for today. To write much about the plot would be to give the story away. It revolves around Mitch Courtenay, a star-level employee of Fowler Schocken Associates, one of the two big advertising agencies that run the country. A funny thing or two happen on the way to Mitch setting up the first colony on Venus. Could the dreaded "Consies" subvert the domination fantasies of Fowler Schocken with their logical, reasonable...more
After appearing as a serial titled “Gravy Planet” in “Galaxy Science Fiction” from June through August in 1952, “The Space Merchants” by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth was published in book form in 1953. Today the work is clearly regarded as a classic, and its satirical look at what society would look like in a future where consumerism becomes the major driving force is both humorous and a bit profound in terms of how close we have come to it.
There were few awards back in 1952 so...more
There were few awards back in 1952 so...more
...By the standards of its time it was not particularly short but at 186 pages it doesn't waste time making its point. It's quire a fast read.The Space Merchants is one of the few books I have read from the golden age era, where the writing and themes are still relevant and powerful. Although it is clearly over the top at some points, several of the predictions don't seem so unlikely upon closer inspection. A novel that is both entertaining and thought-provoking and one that aged very well. This...more
In Star Trek, Captain Picard once explained to a visitor from the past -- was it Mark Twain? -- that sometime in the future humans would conquer poverty, starvation, the plundering of natural resources and the slaying of animals for food, and that Earth would altogether abandon its desire for material wealth. This is a futuristic fantasy diametrically opposed to that of The Space Merchants.
Published in the early 1950s, the American economy properly relit by World War II, the book is ...more
Published in the early 1950s, the American economy properly relit by World War II, the book is ...more
(I admit that I did not really read the Portuguese edition. I only selected it because the cover (by Vincent di Fate, I think) is pretty much the same as the one on my cheap little mass market paperback.)
This book was fun to read. It is short and the plot moves quickly. There's lots of corporate espionage, double-agents, and tensions between the monied powers and a conservationist group. Identities are fluid, and you never know what the various characters might really be up to or h...more
This book was fun to read. It is short and the plot moves quickly. There's lots of corporate espionage, double-agents, and tensions between the monied powers and a conservationist group. Identities are fluid, and you never know what the various characters might really be up to or h...more
First time I've read this novel in decades. I am quite sure that I considered it "far-fetched" in the 1960s. Hey, how crazy can you get: Congress controlled by corporate entities; conservationists vilified as anarchists; food and beverages adulterated beyond belief, corporate espionage driven to life/death levels; Severe shortages in fossil fuels and clean water. Hmm, so where do "chicken tenders" really come from? Maybe from "Chicken Little".
And in my u...more
And in my u...more
Werner
rated it
Recommends it for:
All science fiction fans
Recommended to Werner by:
It was required reading for I correspondence course in science f
Shelves:
science-fiction
As a young man, Pohl worked for an advertising agency, and the experience left him with both an insider's understanding of, and a profound distaste for, psychological manipulation for profit, hucksterism, and the whole mentality of material consumption for its own sake. That understanding and distaste provide the theme for a lot of his short fiction; and they're very evident in this novel (which is probably the best and most perceptive dystopian vision from its generation), which conjures a futu...more
Pohl and Kornbluth wrote a few brilliant stories, back in the day, and this was one of them. The story is set in a future where the world has been taken over by multinational corporations. They aren't just businesses any more -- they are the government. The remnants of national governments are purely ceremonial and have no power.
In this world, the most powerful of the powerful are the advertising companies which head the combines that form the major power blocks. The story's prot...more
In this world, the most powerful of the powerful are the advertising companies which head the combines that form the major power blocks. The story's prot...more
I didn't much know what to expect from this book. I sure expected more hardcore science-fiction than what I got, but it's actually a good thing I got something else, to feed my fascination with dystopian societies. The story is a very interesting look at a future where the great god of Sales rules over the life of all individuals, to the point the world is divided between the executives... and the consumers, second-class citizens whose only purpose, according to those higher up in the social hie...more
Two of the great masters of science fiction teamed up to write this novel. Sardonic and darkly humorous, it chronicles the the (mis)adventures of Mitchell Courtenay, a star class copysmith in a near future advertising agency. The setting is the United States in the not too distant future, where the advertising agencies have become the most powerful political and economic entities on Earth.
Recommended for teen+
Recommended for teen+
Incredibly fun and prescient satire of marketing and the commercialization of democracy. My only complaint is the brevity of the book, though Pohl and Kornbluth pack a lot into these 170 pages. I'm also not fully convinced by Mitch's "Consie" change of heart at the end of the novel. Far better would have been to jettison the "happy" ending for an exploration of the true heart of cynicism.
Very, very entertaining and most timely book. Given the recent ruling that corporations are legally persons for the purposes of donating money to politicians, a future America in which the government is elected by corporations instead of humans seems possibly too prophetic.
Published in 1952, the most glaring weirdness is the way everyone smokes... even on a spaceship with recycled air!
Published in 1952, the most glaring weirdness is the way everyone smokes... even on a spaceship with recycled air!
One-sentence summary:
Materialistic adman, in a world where advertising agencies hold the power, tries to trickily market the colonization of Venus; he gets shanghaied into a low-class worker camp, and learns about them.
Fun, but throwaway, really. "Uneven pacing", especially the ending. Soft SF definitely describes it.
I'm surprised that...
As with many significant works of science fiction, it was lexically inventive. The novel is cited by the Oxford En...more
Materialistic adman, in a world where advertising agencies hold the power, tries to trickily market the colonization of Venus; he gets shanghaied into a low-class worker camp, and learns about them.
Fun, but throwaway, really. "Uneven pacing", especially the ending. Soft SF definitely describes it.
I'm surprised that...
As with many significant works of science fiction, it was lexically inventive. The novel is cited by the Oxford En...more
http://nhw.livejournal.com/588971.html[return][return]Classic sf, published in 1952, that had somehow passed me by - I thought I remembered a scene where advertising executives were reassuring young politicians that is is just about possible to make a living as a senator, but it's not in this book, so I guess I must have read the sequel written by Pohl on his own decades afterwards.[return][return]The satirical future setting, in which corporate interests have taken over the world, is a little h...more
One of the greatest SF novels of all time. A prelude to cyberpunk, and one of the first SF works to subvert the dominant paradigm of 1950s culture. This belongs on every SF fan's bookshelf. Plus, once you meet Chicken Little, you will never look at spam the same way again.
i remember this one better than i enjoyed it at the time. i thought, in 1980, that it was way over the top. now thirty years later i think it may have been a business textbook. the book was part of the required reading in an SF class in college.
I first read this book when I was in junior high school. I read it again about forty years later for book club. And it holds up well. Observations that Pohl and Williamson made fifty years ago are still applicable today. Great social commentary.
Love this book - 1950's sci-fi classic, so on the ball about advertising and Chicken Little 50 years out. Prescient. Found out Frederick Pohl, who is now in his 90s, blogs over at thewaythefutureblogs.com. Too much fun.
I read this in the 70's and need to revist. Came to mind with the new lab grown meat that's all the buzz. In the novel "Chicken Little" is a giant blog of meat, the protein source for most of the world. A classic
A classic science fiction I had heard good things about and was not disappointed. It was a satire on the advertising industry. It’s funny, thought provoking, and entertaining.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SFF Chronicles: January Read - The Space Merchants by Cyril M. Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl (Spoilers Allowed) | 7 | 5 | Jan 14, 2012 09:14pm | |
| SFF Chronicles: January Read - The Space Merchants by Cyril M. Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl (*No Spoilers*) | 10 | 7 | Jan 10, 2012 02:39pm |
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Frederik George Pohl, Jr. (b. 11/26/1919) is an American science fiction writer, editor & fan, with a career spanning over seventy years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy magazine & its sister magazine IF, winning the Hugo for IF three years in a row. His writing also won him three Hugos & multiple Nebula Awards. He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1993.
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“There are only so many people capable of putting together words that stir and move and sing. When it became possible to earn a very good living in advertising by exercising this capability, lyric poetry was left to untalented screwballs who had to shriek for attention and compete by eccentricity.”
—
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“You can't trust reason. We threw it out of the ad profession long ago and have never missed it.”
—
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