< previous page page_169 next page >

Page 169
If it is chancy for a critic to try to discern an author's purposes, it is even more adventurous for a writer to assume that what is true of himself must be common among all other writers. Still, I do not doubt that every writer does necessarily put something of himself into everything he writes; that personally unique and idiosyncratic view of the world is really all that any writer has to sell. Indeed, as some perceptive person-identity unfortunately not known to meonce pointed out, the true and proper title of any book should be How to Be More Like Me. And, of course, in this political age (with frequent political change institutionalized in countries like the United States, irregular and sometimes extraordinarily violent in others), our politics is one of the ways by which we define ourselves.
So it is inevitable that politics should be a part of science fiction. And fortunately, I think, for how much better it is to attempt to work out the consequences of political change in a science fiction story than to play them out in the bloodier, harsher, and less-forgiving real world we live in.
Frederik Pohl, "The Politics of Prophecy," Extrapolation 34, No. 3 (Fall 1993): 2057
Bibliography
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Beyond the End of Time (editor). 1952.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
The Space Merchants (with C. M. Kombluth). 1953, 1985.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Shadow of Tomorrow: 17 Great Science Fiction Stories (editor). 1953.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Danger Moon. 1953.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Star Science Fiction Stories. 195359. 6 vols.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Search the Sky (with C. M. Kombluth). 1954, 1985.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Assignment in Tomorrow (editor). 1954.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Undersea Quest (with Jack Williamson). 1954.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Star Short Novels (editor). 1954.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Preferred Risk (with Lester del Rey). 1955.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
A Town Is Drowning (with C. M. Kornbluth). 1955.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Gladiator-at-Law (with C. M. Kornbluth). 1955, 1986.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Undersea Fleet (with Jack Williamson). 1956.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Presidential Year (with C. M. Kornbluth). 1956.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Alternating Currents. 1956.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
Sorority House (with C. M. Kornbluth). 1956.
ce798b5ef163c3580ef142fbd570a210.gif
The God of Channel 1. 1956.

 
< previous page page_169 next page >