Advice on books by Frederik Pohl

I recently read A plague of pythons by Frederik Pohl and really liked it. It reminded me a bit of John Wyndham, the tone of the books are rational, but you still want to keep reading to find out what is happening. I think I should read some other books by this author, but I see he has quite a number of them, and I was a bit daunted... Does anyone here know this author and can you recommend other of his works?

Gateway is my all time favorite science fiction book. I read Gateway almost twenty years ago and I still think of some of the themes and characters. Maybe I should read it again?

Gateway is a good place to start. You'll probably end up reading the rest of the Heechee Saga.

It's all good.

The novels he wrote with Cyril Kornbluth are classics; The Space Merchants and Gladiator-at-Law.

At one time I counted Fred Pohl as one of my favorite authors. It has been too long since I read him to give recs, but The Space Merchants and Plague of Pythons were two of my favorites when I was young. What I really enjoyed were his short stories and his Galaxy anthologies. He was a great editor for mags and anthologies. Since his recent death I have been wondering also what I should read/re-read and intend to do so before too long. Plague of Pythons will be on the shortlist. Also The Day The Martians Came.

I never finished the last book in the Starchild trilogy he wrote with Jack Williamson although the I hear the first book The Reefs of Space was much better than the other two.

I recently reread Man Plus and felt that it still held up, even if the particulars of the science didn't. A great story about alienation from one's own humanity.

Thanks, people, I put a few of these on my wishlist!

Quite apart from his sf, Fred Pohl had a well-developed social conscience. He was also ready to take contrarian views - he wrote a non-sf novel dramatising the Chernobyl disaster (called Chernobyl, oddly enough). Also check out his memoir, The Way the Future Was, with a lot of early fan history of the New York Futurians.

Read few of his works recently enough to offer an opinion except for World at the End of Time. Didn't care for it. Felt like I had to sit through physics lecture after lecture. Plot was based on big idea but I couldn't have cared less about the characters. Gave the book away.

I have owned Homegoing for several years but I have not got around to reading it.

Man Plus is a cracking book. Also worth looking at his short story collections like Digits and Dastards or Day Million, to name the first two that come to mind.

I've had copies of his Gateway and Man Plus floating around forever but have managed to get to neither. So many books...

It's worth noting here that one of his collaborative novels with C.M. Kornbluth mentioned above (The Space Merchants) was included in the prestigious Library of America's American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s.

Additionally, LT informs me that today would have been Mr. Pohl's 94th birthday. :)

The Coming of the Quantum Cats is Pohl in a comedic vein and sort of fun.

The Years of the City is another interesting one to look at, an episodic novel about different periods in the future history of New York City.

I can recommend Wolfbane too.

I also love Gateway, an all-time favorite. Of the Pohl / Kornbluth collaborations I'd join OJM in recommending Wolfsbane. The Space Merchants was by far the most lauded of their books in the 50s, but I've wondered in recent years if it's held up. Pohl's story Day Million and his novella The Gold at the Starbow's End are both excellent.

Another thanks for all the people who have posted here. It will still be difficult to choose...

> 16 lansingsexton, I read both Wolfbane and The Space Merchants for the first time in the last year or so. IMHO they hold up very well.

Like others have said in this thread, the Gateway series is probably one of the best series in science fiction, so I highly recommend it.

I also recommend Gateway and the others in that series. I also enjoyed The Voices of Heaven.

I've read several of his short story collections, including The Best of Frederik Pohl. I enjoyed them very much. He's high on concept, maybe not as much with character development, but they were extremely thought-provoking.

I came across Wolfbane in a second-hand bookstore this weekend. Snapped it up!