The Space Merchants

Rating:
Summary: a mix of Huxley and Dick ...
Review: The Space Merchants is an interesting little science fiction novel which describes the world in the 23rd century. By then global capitalism, especially the top advertisers, almost literally rule the plant. Excessive population and pollution have driven the masses underground. People are nourished by the flesh of weird genetically modified beasts. Considering this book was written fifty years ago I found the subject matter surprisingly fresh and relevant.

The story involves a top ad man who finds his task of developing a campaign for the colonisation of Venus dramatically undermined by dark forces. In this complex stew of industrial espionage are competing ad companies and the underground conservationist guerillas. The mystery moves along at a good clip although it sputters a bit towards the end.

Overall this book touches some deep issues along the lines of Aldous ('Brave New World') Huxley, and has a satiric (and weird) feel like the works of Philip K. ('Ubik') Dick. Certainly a minor classic in its own right.

Rating:
Summary: I can't believe this book is out of print!
Review: This book should be required reading for everyone. The prescience of the book (written in the early 1950s) is simply incredible.

After you read this book, you will become less tolerant of the advertising around us that incessantly tries to convince us to buy things we do not need.

This is truly a remarkable book.

Rating:
Summary: I can't believe this book is out of print!
Review: This book should be required reading for everyone. The prescience of the book (written in the early 1950s) is simply incredible.

After you read this book, you will become less tolerant of the advertising around us that incessantly tries to convince us to buy things we do not need.

This is truly a remarkable book.

Rating:
Summary: Fun, at times on-target satire, but laden with tired ideas
Review: This book was a collaborative effort written just before budding SF author Kornbluth died in his 30s. It is a satire on corporate America, depicting a dystopian world (ca. A.D. 2200) in which corporations, and especially their advertising departments, have come to dominate daily life, while governments have become merely their handmaids. Although I had been primed to expect a masterpiece (the book was included in John Clute's list of SF "classics"), and indeed it is a fun, well written and, at times, on-target satire, I'm sorry to say I also found it to be a little weighed down with populist/leftist, business-bashing, paranoid, Naderite anti-capitalism. It may be a classic in the sense of serving as a premier example of a large number of SF books of this type, but in view of capitalism's successes and the failure of the left's nightmare scenarios to materialize, that part seems a bit dated and hackneyed.

The main character is Mitchell Courtney, a very successful ad copy writer who works for a leading ad firm. The "Consies" are an underground organization of radical conservationists who regularly stage protests and otherwise attempt to disrupt corporate operations (mostly being only a minor irritant). The Consie arguments boil down to one thesis: Nature's way is the right way! To Mitch, this is silly. Science is always one step ahead of the failure of natural resources. Mitch's latest assignment is to convince people that Venus as an attractive place to live (despite unbreathable atmosphere, intense heat, waterless chemistry and 500-mph winds!).

We meet some interesting characters, including copy writer Tildy (employed by Mitch's firm), whom Mitch describes as one of the world's great lyric poets, right up there with Keats, Swinburne and Wylie. "There are only so many people capable of putting together words that stir and move and sing. When it became possible to make 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." Tildy is artsy, poetic and sensitive, but lacks good sense and is easily seduced ("everyone knows about Tildy"). Mitch explains: "Keats was properly hooked by a designing wench, and Byron didn't have sense enough to stay out of the venereal ward. Swinburne made a tragic mess out of his life. Do I have to go on?."

Caught between Consie and (competitor ad agency) Taunton intrigues, Mitch experiences a surreal adventure after being kidnapped and sold into labor slavery. Seeing the bleak reality of these labor conditions makes him feel guilty about misrepresenting these conditions in his ad copy. He observes that the laborers can never got out of debt, since the system provides both easy credit and irritants that force them to exercise it.

He manages to escape by joining the Consies. He feels bad about using his new Consie "friend," Herrera, but decides not to help him for fear of reprisals to himself. He obviously has a weak conception of friendship. In fact, a major theme of the book is the unbridgable gap between the rich, smart, thinking, rational executives and the poor, dumb, feeling, instinctual consumers (Marxist class warfare). Mitch believes this gap could never "be bridged by anything as abstract and unreal as `friendship.'"

When Herrera takes him into town one weekend, Mitch expects debauchery, but instead finds that Herrera spends hours simply reading old books and magazines in a secret library hidden in the back of a restaurant. Mitch expresses his discomfort, noting that, although some of these volumes would look good in his office, "I could not relax in the presence of so many books without a word of advertising in any of them." He feels this is a giant waste of time that could better be spent pursuing greater sales and profits ... the difference between an executive and a consumer.

After more adventures with the Consies and Taunton, he finally manages to reconnect with his ad firm. When Mitch tells his boss the story, he doesn't believe a word of it, assuming Mitch has been delusional. Mitch realizes his boss simply cannot accept "such frightful things as: the interests of producers and consumers are not identical; most of the world is unhappy; workmen don't automatically find the job they do best; entrepreneurs don't play a hard, fair game by the rules; the Consies are sane, intelligent and well organized."

Mitch eventually takes control of the firm, but by this time he sympathizes with the Consie cause and rejects everything his ad firm stands for. He reconnects with his estranged Consie wife Kathy and agrees to deliver Venus to her cause. As the story ends, they are aboard a rocket heading for Venus where they plan to set up a Consie utopia.

Its hard to see Mitch really buying into the Consie way of thinking (he's already lamenting the loss of his corporate perqs...now he'll be just one of the boys ... yuck!), so realistically there is probably more fighting ahead for these two, but perhaps love and art are more important than science and philosophy (Feyerabend). Love apparently conquers all at the end of this book. The sequel is Pohl's The Merchant's War.

This book assumes the immense power of advertising and basically the inability of regular people to resist its pull. Ad-makers want dumber people, who are thereby more susceptible to their tricks. Consumers are seen as essentially being forced to act in ways not in their best interest and the system is to blame, not themselves (i.e. standard leftist class-warfare themes).

Rating:
Summary: Fun, at times on-target satire, but laden with tired ideas
Review: This book was a collaborative effort written just before budding SF author Kornbluth died in his 30s. It is a satire on corporate America, depicting a dystopian world (ca. A.D. 2200) in which corporations, and especially their advertising departments, have come to dominate daily life, while governments have become merely their handmaids. Although I had been primed to expect a masterpiece (the book was included in John Clute's list of SF "classics"), and indeed it is a fun, well written and, at times, on-target satire, I'm sorry to say I also found it to be a little weighed down with populist/leftist, business-bashing, paranoid, Naderite anti-capitalism. It may be a classic in the sense of serving as a premier example of a large number of SF books of this type, but in view of capitalism's successes and the failure of the left's nightmare scenarios to materialize, that part seems a bit dated and hackneyed.

The main character is Mitchell Courtney, a very successful ad copy writer who works for a leading ad firm. The "Consies" are an underground organization of radical conservationists who regularly stage protests and otherwise attempt to disrupt corporate operations (mostly being only a minor irritant). The Consie arguments boil down to one thesis: Nature's way is the right way! To Mitch, this is silly. Science is always one step ahead of the failure of natural resources. Mitch's latest assignment is to convince people that Venus as an attractive place to live (despite unbreathable atmosphere, intense heat, waterless chemistry and 500-mph winds!).

We meet some interesting characters, including copy writer Tildy (employed by Mitch's firm), whom Mitch describes as one of the world's great lyric poets, right up there with Keats, Swinburne and Wylie. "There are only so many people capable of putting together words that stir and move and sing. When it became possible to make 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." Tildy is artsy, poetic and sensitive, but lacks good sense and is easily seduced ("everyone knows about Tildy"). Mitch explains: "Keats was properly hooked by a designing wench, and Byron didn't have sense enough to stay out of the venereal ward. Swinburne made a tragic mess out of his life. Do I have to go on?."

Caught between Consie and (competitor ad agency) Taunton intrigues, Mitch experiences a surreal adventure after being kidnapped and sold into labor slavery. Seeing the bleak reality of these labor conditions makes him feel guilty about misrepresenting these conditions in his ad copy. He observes that the laborers can never got out of debt, since the system provides both easy credit and irritants that force them to exercise it.

He manages to escape by joining the Consies. He feels bad about using his new Consie "friend," Herrera, but decides not to help him for fear of reprisals to himself. He obviously has a weak conception of friendship. In fact, a major theme of the book is the unbridgable gap between the rich, smart, thinking, rational executives and the poor, dumb, feeling, instinctual consumers (Marxist class warfare). Mitch believes this gap could never "be bridged by anything as abstract and unreal as 'friendship.'"

When Herrera takes him into town one weekend, Mitch expects debauchery, but instead finds that Herrera spends hours simply reading old books and magazines in a secret library hidden in the back of a restaurant. Mitch expresses his discomfort, noting that, although some of these volumes would look good in his office, "I could not relax in the presence of so many books without a word of advertising in any of them." He feels this is a giant waste of time that could better be spent pursuing greater sales and profits ... the difference between an executive and a consumer.

After more adventures with the Consies and Taunton, he finally manages to reconnect with his ad firm. When Mitch tells his boss the story, he doesn't believe a word of it, assuming Mitch has been delusional. Mitch realizes his boss simply cannot accept "such frightful things as: the interests of producers and consumers are not identical; most of the world is unhappy; workmen don't automatically find the job they do best; entrepreneurs don't play a hard, fair game by the rules; the Consies are sane, intelligent and well organized."

Mitch eventually takes control of the firm, but by this time he sympathizes with the Consie cause and rejects everything his ad firm stands for. He reconnects with his estranged Consie wife Kathy and agrees to deliver Venus to her cause. As the story ends, they are aboard a rocket heading for Venus where they plan to set up a Consie utopia.

Its hard to see Mitch really buying into the Consie way of thinking (he's already lamenting the loss of his corporate perqs...now he'll be just one of the boys ... yuck!), so realistically there is probably more fighting ahead for these two, but perhaps love and art are more important than science and philosophy (Feyerabend). Love apparently conquers all at the end of this book. The sequel is Pohl's The Merchant's War.

This book assumes the immense power of advertising and basically the inability of regular people to resist its pull. Ad-makers want dumber people, who are thereby more susceptible to their tricks. Consumers are seen as essentially being forced to act in ways not in their best interest and the system is to blame, not themselves (i.e. standard leftist class-warfare themes).

Rating:
Summary: Classic fiction ... why unavailable?
Review: This is classic science fiction ... all the more so because its reductio ad absurdum premise has come true (maybe with the exception of corporations shooting it out on the steps of their office buildings). Combined with a McCarthy satire and a cute love story this is a GREAT read.

Rating:
Summary: Cultural classic ... why is it unavailable?
Review: This is classic science fiction ... all the more so because the reductio ad absurdum premise has come true (maybe with the exception of corporations shooting it out on the steps of their office buildings). It is fun, witty, and even contains an adult romance that has you cheering for the less than perfect protag.

WHY IS IT UNAVAILABLE, O AMAZON WISE ONES?

Rating:
Summary: One of the Great Classics of SF
Review: When you put together a list of possible best novels ever written in the SF field, this novel has to make the short list.

Fred Pohl and Kornbluth wrote a great novel about what advertising has, more or less, become over the corse of the last 50 years. They take it to a greater exterm... but nobody thought that a company would really make people addicted to their product in order to incress sales. But then, look at what all the documents now tell us about the tabocco companies and when they knew it.

Pohl and Kornbluth were more dead on they even they dared to understand.

Rating:
Summary: truly stands the test of time
Review: Written 50 years ago, you might expect this book, set in "the future", to be hopelessly trite and dated, but it holds up remarkably well. If anything, many of the issues in the book resonate more today than they may have when it was first published. The characters are believable and well constructed, and Pohl gives them a story to tell that moves quickly. He avoids the pitfalls of some authors who write future-based morality plays -- there's no preaching or sidebar pontificating here, just a very good read. My only complaint is that I wish it had been longer!

Rating:
Summary: At last, its back in print.
Review: Written over 50 years ago, this book anticipated much of what is wrong in the world we now live in -including corporate imperialism, environmental degradation and the villification of conservationists, the replacement of humanity with two categories of people -those who sell and those who consume, the death of spiritual values and the total ascendancy of materialism. Pohl and Kornbluth have created a materialist, consumerist dystopia that ranks with Vonnegut's Player Piano (also written in the early 1950s), and anticipates books like Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero and Joseph Heller's Catch 22. And, like the latter books, it manages somehow to be funny much of the time. What a tremendous loss it was for science fiction, and literature in general, when Cyril Kornbluth died prematurely. He had the makings of another Swift, if only he could have lived another 20 years.