Gateways (33 page)

Fred has always respected science; following his lead, I was careful to make sure the story violates no paleontological findings. In fact, a few years ago new pieces of Neanderthal art were found that confirm their artistic sophistication and corroborate the story.

—E
LISABETH
M
ALARTRE

I first met Fred Pohl at the world SF convention in New York, 1967. I had just finished my doctorate and was about to start a research career, hired by Edward Teller. I had sold a few SF stories, but had stopped writing while I finished my thesis. I wanted to get out of graduate school, after four years in La Jolla, but the SF fire still smoldered, embers glowing.

Fred looked at my youthful, optimistic face and said, “You’ll do better spending your time on science.” This echoed sage advice I had heard before: if you can be dissuaded from writing, by all means let that happen.

But I couldn’t be. He then introduced me to James Blish, the only time I ever saw the man—who then gave me the best advice I ever got about writing stories. “Think of some future innovation, find the person most hurt by it. That person is the center of your story.” Fred nodded as Blish said this.

I’m sure Fred has utterly forgotten this little moment in a crowded room party—but I haven’t, and can quote from memory. Those two helped me enormously.

Thanks, Fred. Any more advice . . .?

—G
REGORY
B
ENFORD

If I had never met Fred Pohl, I would still love him for his short stories. And especially for his short story, “Day Million,” which I consider to be a perfect science-fiction short story.

Science-fiction short stories are a rare art form. They have to combine complex ideas, a complete world, heart, pyrotechnics, and style, in a field full of literary conventions that must be acknowledged if not followed, and in an incredibly small amount of space. While pretending to be writing commercial fiction.

And if the story’s
really
good, it has to resonate long after you’ve read it, showing up in your thoughts at odd times and in odder places, becoming more relevant and prescient as time goes by, not less. Doing it’s sort of like spinning plates while turning somersaults. On the back of a galloping, spitting camel.

Most writers attempt only one or two aspects of perfection. But Pohl stories do them all—and make it look effortless. That may be the best thing of all about “Day Million,” that it looks so easy. It’s written in a breezy, deceptively simple style that makes you think you’re reading something ordinary. Until the last line bursts on you like a fireworks display.

It also—nearly thirty years after it was written—remains a very modern, day-after-tomorrow story about timeless themes, written with humor and an observing eye, and over the years I’ve found myself reciting its last line when reading about online dating, Twitter, corporations, and countless other nonsensical aspects of modern life. Quite an impact, and all in under six pages.

And it’s only one of dozens of wonderful Pohl stories. Some of my favorites are “Fermi and Frost”; “The Midas Plague,” which is possibly the truest story every written about our modern consumer culture and should be posted at the front doors of Walmarts everywhere; “The Gold at the Starbow’s End”; “Shaffery Among the Immortals”; “We Purchased People”;
and “The Quaker Cannon,” which I read long before the name Frederik Pohl meant anything to me and which made my list of best science-fiction stories ever. And has stayed there ever since.

Frederik Pohl’s short stories are literary science fiction at its best—ironic, funny, often heartbreaking, multilayered, intelligent, subtle, and so smoothly told that you don’t realize you’re bleeding till much later.

I said I would have loved Fred Pohl even if I hadn’t met him, but luckily, I did get to meet him—I think the first time I got to spend time with him was at one of James Gunn’s writers’ conferences in Kansas—and then got to know him and his wife Betty Anne Hull better at Jack Williamson’s lectureship, and ever since then I’ve been lucky enough to have both of them for friends, a friendship enhanced by the fact that all three of us share the same political passion. (And when we get together we talk politics a mile a minute and only get to science fiction later.)

Fred is a lovely person, a gentleman and a scholar, a wonderful editor, and someone who loves science fiction
and
science, and who has helped it to become the smart, stylish, literary, well-written thing it is today. He’s also a skeptic (a quality growing rarer and rarer in our world and one I’ve learned to cherish).

One of my favorite things about Fred is that when he and Jack Williamson were two young guys and heard about the UFO crash at Roswell, they both decided to go see for themselves whether there was anything to it—and promptly concluded it was a weather balloon, a conclusion it’s taken the rest of the world over fifty years to arrive at (and lots of them still aren’t there yet).

My other favorite thing about Fred is that while he’s a skeptic, he’s not a cynic. And he’s still as in love with science fiction and as enthusiastic about it and its future as he was when he started out as a young writer. Listening to him is not only interesting but inspiring. I think that’s because in spite of all the many hats he’s worn over the years—book editor, magazine editor, literary agent—Fred is first and foremost a writer and has always wanted science fiction to be as well-written as possible.

I’ve learned something new about science fiction and writing and literature every time I’ve come anywhere near him, and I recommend to any beginning writer who wants to learn to write that he or she study Frederik Pohl’s stories. And to anyone else to read them. They’re wonderful. But terrific as they are, Frederik Pohl is more wonderful. I hope all of you have the chance to get to know him like I have.

At the time of its discovery, Lee’s World was the most earthlike exoplanet known. If you are old and naïve, you might think that the second expedition would consist of a fleet of ships, with staff and vehicles to thoroughly explore the place. Alas, even back in ’66, that was not practical. The Advanced Projects Agency had too much else to survey. APA paid me and my starship the
Frederik Pohl
to make a return trip, but they eked out the funding with some media-based research folks. And they insisted on renaming the planet. Lee’s World became “Paradise.”

Ah, the “Voyage to Paradise.” That should have given me warning. Over the years, I’ve had some good experiences with APA (in particular, see chapters 4 and 7), but that name change was a gross misrepresentation. The planet is in the general class of Brin worlds—about the only type of water world that can maintain exposed oceans for a geologically long period of time. Those oceans are extraordinarily deep, almost like an upper layer of mantle, but with no land surface—except in the case of Lee’s World, where some kind of core asymmetry forced an unstable supermountain above sea level.

More important than the name change, APA gave the mission’s science staff way too much independence. When you are on a starship in the depths of space, there has to be just one boss. If you want to survive, that boss better be someone who knows what she’s doing. I have a long-term policy (dating from this very mission as a matter of fact): scientists must be sworn members of the crew. Even a science officer can cause a universe of harm (see chapter 8), but at least I have some control.

In fact, there were some truly excellent scientists on my “Voyage to Paradise,” in particular Dae Park. Most legitimate scholars consider Park’s discovery as making this expedition the most important of the first twenty
years of the interstellar age. On the other hand, several of my so-called scientist passengers were journalists in shallow disguise—and Ron Ohara turned out to be something worse.

We landed near the equator, on the east coast of the world’s single landmass, an island almost one hundred kilometers across. It was just after local sunrise. That was the decision of Trevor Dhatri, our webshow producer—excuse me, I mean our mission documentarian. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve seen the video. It’s impressive, even if a bit misleading. I brought the
Frederik Pohl
in from the ocean, along a gentle descent that showed miles and miles of sandy beaches, bordered with rows of glorious surf. The shadows were deep enough that details such as the absence of cities and plant life were not noticeable. In fact, the human eye has this magical ability to take straight lines and shadows and extrapolate them into street plans, forested hills, and colors that aren’t really there. Blued by distance, mountains loomed, clouds skirting along the central peaks, and there was a hint of snow on the heights.

I have to admit, the video is a masterpiece. It could be showing a virginal Big Island of Hawaii. In fact, there are no trick effects in these images. They are simply Lee’s World shown in its best possible light. The beach temperatures were indeed Riviera mild, and there really was scattered snow high in the far mountains. Of course, this artfully ignored the
minor
differences such as the fact that half the world—all the mid- and high latitudes—was encased in ice, and the fact that there was essentially no free oxygen in the atmosphere. Hey, I’m not being sarcastic; those aren’t the big differences.

Fortunately my passengers were not as ignorant of the big differences as the presumed webshow audience. Within an hour of our landing, the geologists were out in the hills, following up on what their probes had reported. Within another hour, Dae Park had her submersible and deep samplers cruising toward the oldest accessible sea floor.

My crew and I had our own agenda. Coming in, my systems chief had been monitoring the seismo probes. Now that we were grounded, we were stuck for a minimum of eight hours before we could boost out. Crew was quietly working at a breakneck speed to get everything ready in case we had to retrieve our passengers and scram.