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Loading... The Space Merchants (1953)by Frederik Pohl, C.M. Kornbluth
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Fantasy.
Fiction.
Science Fiction.
HTML: In a vastly overpopulated near-future world, businesses have taken the place of governments and now hold all political power. States exist merely to ensure the survival of huge transnational corporations. Advertising has become hugely aggressive and boasts some of the world's most powerful executives. Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that all the products on the market improve the quality of life. However, the most basic elements are incredibly scarce, including water and fuel. The planet Venus has just been visited and judged fit for human settlement, despite its inhospitable surface and climate; colonists would have to endure a harsh climate for many generations until the planet could be terraformed. Mitch Courtenay is a star-class copywriter in the Fowler Schocken advertising agency and has been assigned the ad campaign that would attract colonists to Venus, but a lot more is happening than he knows about. Mitch is soon thrown into a world of danger, mystery, and intrigue, where the people in his life are never quite what they seem, and his loyalties and core beliefs will be put to the test. .No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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One problem with SF written before the computer era is that the futures they depict fail to predict how ubiquitous computers have now become, and the implications for humanity. I do not really consider this a failure, because these people are writers, not fortune tellers, but when reading it it's true that nowadays we need to suspend disbelief in this sense and accept this "retrofuture" with no internet and no smartphones. Also, socially it's extrapolated from the 50s, so the marketing companies depicted work a bit like what we see in the Mad Men TV show.
Pohl did work as a marketing copy writer, so he knows his stuff and it shows. The dystopian element is also very relevant now, with echoes of Huxley's Brave New World. Unlike Brave New World, this novel adds a thriller/action plot, so it's not going to be considered respectable literature. It's well-written, and although it does have outdated elements I still thought it entertaining and worth-reading, particularly if you enjoy classic SF. ( )