C. M. Kornbluth (1923–1958)

1958's posthumously published 'Two Dooms' has a dystopian future, but a conditional one.

Protagonist Dr. Edward Royland is a theoretical physicist working on the Manhattasn Project. (I'm pleased that women using adding machines for calculations are mentioned, even if Dr. Royland would have rather have a differential analyzer machine.) One of the women brings Royland the latest calculations. He realizes it will work, but is horrified contemplating what an atomic bomb could do.

Dr. Royland visits his Hopi medicine man friend, Charles Miller Nahataspe, on his reservation. Charles gives him mushrooms called 'God Food'. Charles thinks it will be safe because whites' eyes are clouded. They do not see clearly, as Hopi do. Charles is horrified to find out that Royland does see clearly.

Royland finds himself in the year 2105, 150 years after the War of Triumph (1940-1955). Royland learns how the Germans and the Japanese won and what happened after. Too say that things are not well (unless one is German or Japanese) is putting it mildly. At least they insisted on using American speech so that no subjected race's language is dominant.

Royland puzzles the folks in charge whom he meets because he has no tattooed numbers. He escapes, spends some time in a village of mostly Chinese and Hindu people, has to escape again, and makes his way to a city. Will Royland be able to make it back to 1945? If he does, will he have changed his mind about the atom bomb?

It was a very good story.… (mehr)

According to Mr. Pohl's introduction, 1953's 'Dominoes" was inspired by a conversation between Messrs. Pohl and Kornbluth about the causes of the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

It's April, 1975 and stock broker William 'Will' J. Born is worried that the Great Boom of 1975 is going to crash. He's even paid money to inventor Loring to build a time machine so he can go to the future and find out when that crash will be.

The time machine works. It's what Born does with his knowledge that earns him his unhappy ending. I'm not sorry for him. I did think it was an interesting coincidence that this New York City man arrived in the future on September 11, 1977, even though '9/11' had no significance back then.… (mehr)

1952's 'The Altar at Midnight' is set in a future that's pretty much as things were in the 20th century, except we have regular space travel - at least to the moon, Mars, and Venus.

Our narrator is unnamed until the end. He's in a bar when he sees a young man disfigured by 'redlines' on his skin and hard radiation scars on his eyes. He's a spacer. They talk and drink. The narrator takes the spacer to 'Gandytown,' the place where the disabled railroad workers hang out. We meet them and learn what disabled them, as we also learn what disfigures spacers. The spacer gets lucky with one woman. The narrator and spacer take a walk. The spaceman calls out a speaker in the park. They part. The narrator sees to it that the young man gets safely to the Y.M.C.A. We learn what wrecked the narrator's life.

For such a brief story, Mr. Kornbluth managed to convey quite a bit about some of those to whom Life Has Not Been Kind.
Notes:

1. A rum blossom is a big red nose with large pores and widened blood vessals. People thought it comes from drinking alcohol too much, but rhinophyma (the medical term) can happen to people who don't drink alcohol.

2. Skid Row is the run-down part of a town or city. Alcoholics, drug addicts, and persons down on their luck (don't have much money or are in a bad situation) live there. Skid Row can be violent and dangerous.

3. In this case, a 'Boxcar Bertha' is a female hobo, not the union organizer.

4. To be on a soap box or be a soap-boxer is someone who talks to crowds in public, standing on something to raise them up.

5. To be mush-mouthed (also spelled 'mushmouthed) is to speak with a voice so low it's hard to hear or mumbling.

6. 'Miz' is Southern dialect for what we now spell as 'Ms.'

7. To be in the doghouse means to be in trouble with one's spouse or boss.… (mehr)