The Man Who Sees Tomorrow: An Interview with Grand Master Frederik Pohl

by Michael McCarty and Connie Corcoran Wilson

Frederik Pohl has been imagining the future and predicting it with eerie accuracy for over 73 years - ever since he made his first sale, a poem he wrote when fifteen. Frederik Pohl's first poem was published by Amazing Stories when he was sixteen. Thus began a long and illustrious career virtually unmatched in the annals of science fiction writing, and one that has seen Pohl's in-depth knowledge of science, physics, astronomy, politics, medicine and a host of other disciplines merged with his ability to create realistic and unforgettable characters.

By the time he was nineteen, Pohl was editing Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories. He would go on to edit Galaxy, If, and Worlds of Tomorrow as well as to write over one hundred books and many more short stories. He is the author of science fiction classic novels such as The Space Merchants (co-written with C.M. Kornbluth), Man Plus, O, Pioneer!, The Day the Martians Came, The Far Shore of Time, The Boy Who Would Live Forever, Chernobyl: A Novel, Jem, Mining the Oort, Narabedla Ltd., and many, many more.

Now 87 years of age, Pohl has also written non-fiction works such as Our Angry Earth, a collaboration on one of today's most relevant topics, the environment, written with the late, great Isaac Asimov. As a resource work, it is more timely today than when published in 1991. Other notable nonfiction works by Pohl include Chasing Science: Science as a Spectator Sport and his memoir, The Way The Future Was.

This Grand Master of Science Fiction lives with his wife Elizabeth Anne Hull in Palatine, Illinois. He is still writing and enjoying the recent publication of Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories by TOR. In this interview, he speaks his mind regarding topics of today, yesterday and tomorrow; he also speculates about the future, as he has done so well for so many years. As always, he is the man who sees tomorrow.

Frederik Pohl's website is at www.frederikpohl.com.

REFLECTIONS EDGE: What about science fiction makes it a good genre for you to work in?

FREDERIK POHL: The fact that I began writing science fiction because it was my favorite thing to read. I guess I kept on because I was fairly successful at it, and I enjoyed it. Another thing about science fiction is that it has the greatest audience in the world: they're smart; they're feisty. They're rewarding and they're not hesitant about saying so. There's no other audience like it. Science fiction writers go to conventions and they meet their friends and they talk and they tell them what they think. That doesn't happen to mystery writers or western writers or any other kind of writers. Maybe a little bit to poets - but nobody reads poets.

RE: When you were working on The Boy Who Would Live Forever, it was originally over six hundred pages long. What kinds of things did you cut out of it?

POHL: I cut a lot of things down but not out, although I did cut out several side-trips to one place or another. But they were probably mistakes to begin with.

RE: Can we talk about the Platinum Pohl collection? Do you see another collection like that?

POHL: I don't think so, not until I get some new stories that have never been collected. So far, I only have one story that has never been collected, which was published a couple of months ago in Asimov's. But I'll publish some more. When I have a handful of them, I'll probably do a new collection. I didn't choose the stories in Platinum Pohl. Jim Frankel, my editor, did. He asked me if I wanted to, and I said no, so he did. I can't second-guess him; I told him to do it. They wouldn't have been the same choices I would have made. There are a couple I would have included that he didn't; there are several that he put in that I wouldn't have - but it's got a lot of what I consider the better parts of what I've written. Anyway, I'd rather have him blamed for it than me.

RE: This is a quote from "Let the Ants Try" (p. 419) from your Platinum Pohl collection: "Humanity had had its chance - the atomic bomb wasn't enough; we had to turn everything into a weapon. And our weapons have blown up in our faces." Do you want to comment on that quote?

POHL: It's true...perfectly true. All of the advances in electronics and nuclear science and even in space travel have been either exploited for weapons purposes or are about to be. The federal government is now trying to do things with satellites for military purposes. Like most governments, the Americans look for a military advantage. They don't necessarily want to go to war, but they want to be able to win any war that we become involved in. I don't know if I can even blame them for that. The consequences of it are horrible.

RE: You have had so many interesting fictional ideas in your works regarding population control: putting contraceptives in the drinking water of Mexico to hold down their population growth - sterilizing children born in odd years in India ("Spending a Day at the Lottery Fair" in Platinum Pohl). You are aware of the real-world "one child" policy in China, and how it has now created a huge imbalance between males and females, with men outnumbering women 10 to 1 in some areas of the country and a brisk black market in illegal ultra-sound tests out of the backs of trucks or in back room alleys, in order to allow families to make sure that their one child is male. Not to mention the kidnapping of Chinese girl babies. Do you have any thoughts on this particular policy or on today's China, in general?

POHL: I think China is a fascinating place. My wife is an addict. She's been there six times, so far, and she's going back. I've only been there twice, so I'm not as much of an authority as she is, but I know a lot of Chinese and they're a good people. I think they're less selfish than Americans are. They're not as likely to have a house this big for six people.

RE: Is that changing?

POHL: I haven't seen any signs of it. We know some Chinese who are really, relatively speaking, millionaires, because they are from families of great importance and they can do all sorts of things, but I don't think they are as likely to flaunt their wealth as Americans are.

RE: Why do you think the readers have been following the Gateway series for over three decades?

POHL: I admire their pertinacity.

RE: Fame for you came pretty early. How did you know that you were famous?

POHL: I got a tiny bit famous when I was 19 because I became a professional editor.

RE: What is the secret to a successful collaboration?

POHL: Tremendous patience [laughs]. You have to be really friendly. It's a lot like a marriage in many ways. One, you don't know what you're getting into until you're in it. The other, there are inevitable conflicts in style and interest. I don't mean writing style, but in working. Sometimes they can be fatal. The one novel I wrote with Lester del Rey took a year out of my life. It's a terrible book - if you come across it, don't read it. It was originally published under a pen name, and I used to lie about it. Then Lester's wife, Judy Lynn del Rey re-published it with Del Rey Books, and put our names on it - so I can't deny it anymore [laughs].

RE: Are there any of your works that you ever really wanted to see become a movie?

POHL: Yeah. There are several. There's one called Demon in the Skull which I wrote to be a movie, and no one but me has ever seen the possibility of it. I've options on Gateway and a couple that I have sold, but have never been made and apparently never will be made. Space Merchants' rights were sold in 1948 and they never made it, and the copyright is about to run out, anyway. There was one story of mine called "The Tunnel Under the World" which an Italian kid producer just beginning his career named Enrici Cutzi made into a film. It had everything going against it because the person who was putting up the money got killed in a motorcycle accident, and the people who took it over had no interest in it. He did the best he could. It still is, I believe, described as "the worst science fiction film ever made."

RE: Even worse than Battlefield Earth?

POHL: Yes. I don't know if it's worse than Isaac's one called Nightfall. It's one about a planet with 27 different suns, but once every thousand years they all get together and the planet goes dark.

RE: I'd like to see them make a film of "The Greening of Bed-Stuy." That could be great. It has action; it has politics; it has the interesting kid. It would be a natural for an action/adventure film.

POHL: I think that would be a good one, too. I think that would make a pretty good film. There is another book of mine called Terror that I think would make a pretty good film. I have no control over what people do. They give me money from time to time, and I'm glad to take it. Beyond that, I really don't involve myself in it.

RF: A lot of writers suggest that that might be the best approach.

POHL: Yes. It's a lot less trouble.

RF: We've talked about your fiction, but let's reflect on your nonfiction, too - was Chasing Science the book you always wanted to do?

POHL: Yes. I wanted to do it for many years. It's non-fiction, sort of a travelogue for amateurs of science. It's about the wonders of science as a spectator sport. It featured different observatories and research laboratories, places where there are interesting volcanoes.

I feel it is a book that really needed to be published. Most people have not only a wrong view, but a dangerous view of science. They think it's something that can kill them or does terrible things to the environment. That isn't science. Science is an organized way of learning things which is fun. The act of doing science is a lot of fun.

RF: Last question - what was the inspiration behind Black Star Rising?

POHL: It was inspired by one of my trips to China. I thought about if the United States collapsed, China or Russia - or both - could take it over. What would it be like to have a Chinese colony in the states? There were other things, too, but that was the big impetus.

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© Michael McCarty and Connie Corcoran Wilson

Michael McCarty is a former stand-up comedian, musician and managing editor of a music magazine. His books Giants of the Genre and More Giants Of The Genre (Nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Book of the Year; RE's review here) are collections of interviews with the greats of science fiction, horror, and fantasy.

In 2005, Wildside Press published his first fiction collection, Dark Duets (RE's review here). In 2006, he will be writing an article for Writers Digest Books' Writing Horror (edited by Mort Castle), and will appear in the Cemetery Dance anthology In Laymon Terms. In January 2007, the novel Monster Behind the Wheel (co-authored with Mark McLaughlin) will be published in England by Sarob Press. More on Mike can be found at www.geocities.com/mccartyzone and www.myspace.com/monsterbook. He can be reached at monstermike69@hotmail.com.

Connie Corcoran Wilson is a writer, teacher and businesswoman. Connie has written for five newspapers, serving as the book and film critic for the Quad City Times (Davenport, Iowa) for 12 years and also conducting interviews for the Moline, Illinois Daily Dispatch. Her most recent book, Both Sides Now (2004), is a humor anthology of her previously-published newspaper columns.

Mrs. Wilson has taught composition and literature classes at Black Hawk Junior College, Augustana College, Marycrest College, St. Ambrose University, Kaplan University, and Eastern Iowa Community College.