Frederik Pohl has died

[DavidDvorkin]

I don't know any details. He was 92, I think.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Wow ... the last of the giants of old. RIP, Mr. Pohl. What an extraordinary life.

His was some of the first SF I read that used satirical humor to comment on society -- present and future.

Think I'll go read "Day Million" -- http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/literature/fiction/science_fiction/Day%20Million%20by%20Frederik%20Pohl.txt

[intaglio]

2. A little more here

http://io9.com/rip-frederik-pohl-the-man-who-transformed-science-fict-1241405614

[bmbmd]

3. "Gateway"

was one of my favorites. Then came "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon", then "HeeChee Rendezvous" . The trilogy was fabulous until
Robinette died-then it got weird.

[BlueJazz]

4. Brought many a sci-fi fan hours of enjoyment.

[Posteritatis]

5. Damn. He was blogging right up to this morning, too. (nt)

[getting old in mke]

6. Off to his own Hee-Chee Rendevous

Rest in peace, and thanks for the great reads.

[SheilaT]

7. I met him several times.

First in 1993 when I attended the two week writing workshop taught by James Gunn (another master of s-f) at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. I more or less grew up on Fred Pohl's writing, and I simply could not get over being in the same room with him, listening to him critique my writing.

I saw him a year later at my Writer's of the Future workshop, although he didn't seem to remember me. I saw him several more times at other Campbell Conferences.

He was a giant, and I was privileged to know him, however slightly.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

8. I heard him give a talk on the state of SF in 1965 or 66.

Very tall and slender, bad teeth, excellent speaker. The thing I particularly recall of the speech was that the manuscript of Samuel R. Delaney's Babel-17 had just landed on his desk, and he was praising Delaney to the skies.

[Babel_17]

9. Nice anecdote, thank you for sharing it

The Space Merchants is a classic and of course the Heechee saga is a must read. It's great SF and powerful stuff. Pohl was ahead of his time in talking about the importance of health insurance/care. The lack of it was an important motivator in the first book.