Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Frederick Pohl has died, aged 93. The highly respected author and editor (as well as ‘about everything that it is possible to be in the field of science fiction’ to quote his own description) passed away on 2 September.

Described by David Gerrold as the editor ‘I most wanted to impress’, Pohl made his first professional sale aged just 17 in 1937, with his last published book, All The Lives I Led, appearing 74 years later. From 1939 to 1943 he edited Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories, and in later years he was editor of Galaxy and If magazines, with the latter winning Hugo Awards in three consecutive years under his leadership. He also acquired books for Bantam including Samuel Delany’s Dhalgren and Joanna Russ’ The Female Man.

His own fiction included the highly satirical look at advertising, The Space Merchants, published in 1953, and the ground-breaking Gateway in 1977, which spawned various sequels. He frequently collaborated with other writers, including Cyril M. Kornbluth and Jack Williamson, and completed Arthur C. Clarke’s The Last Theorem in 2008 shortly before Clarke’s death. “You can’t really predict the future. All you can do is invent it,” he told Vice magazine four years ago in an interview headed “Science Fiction’s Hidden Hero“.

He published his autobiography, The Way the Future Was, in 1978, and continued to write a blog until the day of his death, leaving a number of postings already prepared.