Critical Mass

by Frederik Pohl, C.M. Kornbluth

Contents:
The Quaker Cannon (1961)
Mute Inglorious Tam (1974)
The World of Myrion Flowers (1961)
The Gift of Garigolli (1974)
A Gentle Dying (1961)
A Hint of Henbane (1961)
The Meeting (1972)
The Engineer (1956)
Nightmare with Zeppelins (1958)
Critical Mass (1962)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Collections, Fiction

179 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Frederik George Pohl, Jr. was an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy 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.

Reviews

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Algunos de los primeros trabajos del dúo, aquellos de los que Pohl se sentía menos avergonzado y se atrevió a volver a publicar con su verdadero nombre y el de su fallecido amigo.-

Género. Relatos.

Lo que nos cuenta. Nueve relatos de Ciencia-Ficción de la pareja de autores, escritos todos en su juventud antes de ambos tuviesen que servir en el ejército durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial y publicados en diferentes revistas de género como Astonishing Stories y Super Science Stories siempre bajo seudónimo, y recopilados por Pohl años después de la prematura muerte de Kornbluth, con temáticas que nos llevarán de un Marte pulp casi weird a una Tierra bajo amenaza de guerra, pasando por un viaje en el tiempo bastante particular, entre otros temas.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of collaborative stories by Cyril Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl, who were one of the best teams of collaborators in the earlier days of the sf field. These are unique because the majority of them were completed by Pohl after Kornbluth's death in 1958. There are a few real gems in the collection, including Mute Inglorious Tam (about someone who would be a science fiction writer except he lived in a time before that was possible), the titular Critical Mass, and The Meeting (which won the Hugo for best short the year after it appeared). Pohl added interesting introductions, and the book feels like his tribute to (and celebration of) Kornbluth's legacy.

[Mark White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this on my shelf and couldn't remember anything about it so re-read. You've read the blurb and probably several other reviews so I won't belabour the point by telling what the stories are about. This is a great example of classic old school science fiction. The stories are set on earth and they are about real people in real dilemmas. Many of the stories prompt questions that are still relevant, still unanswered. This book is a great example of the writer's art and still reads well today. Yes it is dated in attitudes and the bits of business - nothing ages faster than our view of the future - but the human stories shine through.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 4 out of 5]

review of
Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth's Critical Mass
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 30, 2012

Another great bk by Kornbluth & Pohl, reinforcing their place in my pantheon of favorite sf writers. In my adult yrs this pantheon consisted originally of Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, & Samuel Delaney. The Strugatsky Brothers were added, then Stanislav Lem. Sometimes 'James Tiptree, Jr'. Vladimir Savchencko & Michel Jeury on the strengths of the single bks I've been able to find by each of them. Other people drifting in & out from time to time. But Pohl & Kornbluth are in there solid now.

Kornbluth was born July 2, 1923, 4 yrs later than Pohl, but had the misfortune to die March 21, 1958. Pohl was born November 26, 1919 & is, as far as I 'know' still alive today. W/ each new successive Pohl introduction to their collaborative works that I read, I feel the loss more of Kornbluth as a major talent more. This particular collection is the most poignant one yet in that respect b/c all of the collaborations were finished by Pohl from works of Kornbluth unfinished &/or unpublished as of Kornbluth's death. From Pohl's introduction:

"Cyril had always been a little plumper than was strictly good for him. When the Army made him a machine-gunner, lugging a 50-calibre-heavy MG around the Ardennes forest, they shortened his life. Exertions damaged his heart, and in his midthirties his doctor told him that he had a clear choice. He could give up smoking, drinking, spices in his food, a lot of the food itself, irregular hours and excitement; or he could die of hypertension.

"For a while Cyril tried doing what the doctor told him. he took his medicine: tranquilizers, mostly, the not-quite-perfected tranquilizers of the fifties, which had such side-effects as making him a little confused and a little intellectually sluggish. He followed the diet rigorously. He came out to visit us during that period, and my wife cooked salt-free meals and baked salt-free bread. We couldn't do much writing. He was not up to it. But I showed him a novel I was having problems with. he read the pages of the first draft and handed it back to me. "Needs salt," he a\said, and that was all.

"So I suppose Cyril made his choice. In his place, I think I might have made the same one. he went back to coffee and cigarettes, gave up the medication, went back to writing, finished the revisions to Wolfbane, wrote two or three of his best novelettes, signed on as an editor for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - his first experiment with editing, rather than writing, science fiction, and one which he enjoyed enormously. ...And then on a snowy March morning I had a phone call from Mary, his wife, to say that Cyril had shoveled out their driveway to free his car, run to catch a train and dropped dead on the station platform.

"He left behind a bundle of incomplete manuscripts and fragments, some of which I was later able to revise and complete. Most of the stories in this volume came out of that bale of paper, and were published after his death."

This was the 1st collection of Kornbluth/Pohl stories that included non-SF. One of these is "A Hint of Henbane" wch Kornbluth had finished but not sold. Pohl reworked it & sold it to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Then there's "The Meeting" about wch Pohl wrote:

"A few years before his death, Cyril wrote a story about a school for "exceptional" children. It was not science fiction; it was not exactly a story, for that matter (being more description than event) and no one seemed to want to buy it. But it came out of Cyril's heart, because one of his children was in just such a school."

All in all, this is a diverse collection: "Mute Inglorious Tam", eg, is set in medieval England w/o being a time travel story, "The World of Myrion Flowers" has black characters (for wch it was criticized despite it's being anti-racist), "The Engineer" is a tale of politicking interfering w/ function - something I witness all the time in the museums where I work. Kornbluth's imagination was fertile, Pohl's still is, I only wish Kornbluth had lived as long.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, along with "Before the Universe," collects many of the collaborative short stories of Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth. "Before the Universe" has older work, from the 1940s. Many are stories that Pohl himself published as editor of a couple of pulp SF magazines. There are no masterpieces in "Before the Universe," only some really old-fashioned stories by a couple of very young and still developing writers.

"Critical Mass," however, reads very differently. The stories here are slick, cynical, not very dated, and effective. All of them are set on Earth (or an alternate Earth); there's no gee-wiz space opera here. One, "The Meeting," won a Hugo for best short story of 1972. Amazingly, each feels like a Kornbluth story, and each feels like a Pohl story, too. So if you like either writer, you shouldn't miss this collection.

[Bill]

An interesting anthology of short stories written in colaboration with C.M. Kornbluth. This is a prime example of the adage "don't judge a book by its cover" - there's barely a single spaceship in this collection, and definitely nothing remotely resembling the scene on the cover! On top of that, a good number of the stories are pretty dated, and not just technologically, but I suppose that is to be expected from stories written before feminism really existed.

[bluetyson]

Critical mass by Frederik Pohl (1977)

[SciFiOne · Rating 3 out of 5]

1980 grade C

with Kornbluth

[Dwer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of short stories. A bit dated, but I still enjoy most of the stories a great deal.

[Steven]

Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth