Customer Reviews

The Space Merchants

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Brilliantly written in the 1950s, "The Space Merchants" is a deeply cynical and darkly prescient dystopian novel in which advertising, conspicuous consumption and capitalism have run rampant in a world beset with overpopulation and environmental degradation.

Mitch Courtenay is an executive copywriter with Fowler Schocken, an advertising agency that has been given the task of selling the notion of colonizing Venus, an environmental hell-hole, to an over-populated and environmentally stressed earth. Courtenay, born with a proverbial silver spoon in his mouth and unaccustomed to anything but a pampered lifestyle is attacked by a deadly corporate conspiracy, robbed of his identity and imprisoned in an impoverished third world environment, the very existence of which came as a complete shock to him.

At the end of the day, whether you believe Courtenay to be an incorrigible villain or a reformed conservationist, "The Space Merchants" is a soft sci-fi classic well ahead of its time that explores thought-provoking themes and disturbing political issues that will be with us for many years to come. A gripping novel that well deserves it place in classic sci-fi libraries.

Paul Weiss

Written over 50 years ago, this book anticipated much of what is wrong in the world we now live in -including corporate imperialism, environmental degradation and the villification of conservationists, the replacement of humanity with two categories of people -those who sell and those who consume, the death of spiritual values and the total ascendancy of materialism. Pohl and Kornbluth have created a materialist, consumerist dystopia that ranks with Vonnegut's Player Piano (also written in the early 1950s), and anticipates books like Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero and Joseph Heller's Catch 22. And, like the latter books, it manages somehow to be funny much of the time. What a tremendous loss it was for science fiction, and literature in general, when Cyril Kornbluth died prematurely. He had the makings of another Swift, if only he could have lived another 20 years.

"The Space Merchants" is one of those science fiction novels that succeeds as social criticism and political satire even though its literary merits are slim. On the negative side, the book has flat characters, ridiculous plot twists, and not one cool scientific idea. Even worse, the story races from scene to scene, never fully imagining the world it tries to create. But in the context of the era in which it was written -- the insane McCarthyite 1950s -- "The Space Merchants" was surely a subversive bombshell. It depicts a crazy 23rd century world in the grip of Big Business and market fundamentalism: ad agencies brainwash the public, private companies own Senate seats, conservationists are hunted down like Reds, and food is laced with opium (the better to build brand loyalty). "The Space Merchants" had a lot of anger hidden beneath its irreverent humor. It must have prompted smart teenagers to think about the warped social values of capitalist America in the 1950s. Smart teenagers will still enjoy it today.

In a dystopian future, uncontrolled population growth and environmental exploitation have been allowed to run rampant and it is producing a world of diminishing horizons and potential. Mitchell Courtney, an ad executive with Fowler Schocken, is just as happy with the world as are any of the executives who sit atop the all-powerful corporations. However, when he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a deadly conspiracy, he realizes that the world is not his oyster after all.

Overall, I found this to be a very interesting book. Frederik Pohl is one of the titans of the science fiction genre, and it is easy to see why. Now, admittedly, your political viewpoint might color your view of this book, it is extremely heavy-handed in its anti-capitalism. But, even if you don't agree with the underlying politics of the book, it is still excellently written, and a very gripping read. I loved this book and highly recommend it.

Not available in print? Both me and my partner have a copy, in Dutch, for over 20 years. It is a shame indeed that it is not available at Amazon or any shop. This book is the perfect warning for what can happen when the marketing boys and girls can do to our world if we let them.

If you hate McD's burgers, CC's or P's cola, MS's monopolistic world domination strategy and so on, you should read this book, because you will like it. If you don't hate those things and don't understand why I do, you really really should read this book and try to understand the difference between marketing and information.

It is pityful enough that lots of things in this book are reality nowadays. People are addicted to hamburgers, cola, cigarettes, medicines, television, coffee, beer, and so on. People do accept the most stupid advertisements between and in television shows, in movies, on buses and everywhere else in real life. It is astounding how many people seem to believe all of the things that are said, shown or otherwise transfered in commercials and advertisements.

In the book, the marketing people are very happy with the decrease in average intelligence of the world population. When I look around, I am afraid that indeed the average intelligence of the masses is dropping.

Fortunately, the world is not owned by marketing companies. Unfortunately, the companies that do own the world are not that concerned with our well-being either.

Read this book about the top manager of the largest marketing firm of the world who gets the biggest project he ever had, looses grip, faces reality, realises what effect his work has caused and who is able to fight back to the top, ignoring everything he just learned. The end is a wonderful anti-climax. The world is saved, but not just yet.

Actually, I would have expected a follow-up, in which the marketing-free world of Venus to come will free the dummy-filled marketing-laden Earth.

One of the more frustrating things about Science fiction is the way that many of the premier titles in the genre go out of print and remain unavailable for long periods of time. It would be really great to see a couple of publishing houses attempt to keep some of the greater Sci-fi novels from the past in print.

THE SPACE MERCHANTS is remarkable for the way it combines advertising, corporate culture (especially relevant today with the Enron and Worldcom scandals), and reflections on ways it might be possible to exploit the solar system economically in the future. Like the best of Sci-fi, it presents a plausible vision of the future that seems equally to life today, while also managing a great plot. The ending (which, of course, I cannot describe without giving too much away) is one of my favorites in all of Sci-fi. The book feels like it was written much more recently than 1952.

Definitely worth seeking out.

He has been largely forgotten by the mainstream now, but C.M. (Cyril) Kornbluth was one of the giants of science fiction. He was just hitting his stride when cancer claimed him in 1958 at the age of 35. "The Space Merchants," a collaboration with the legendary Frederick Pohl, has been rated one of the seminal works in the entire field. A quick look at the logo-addicted styles of today will show you just how on-target Kornbluth and Pohl were four decades ago.

If you enjoy reading "The Space Merchants," I suggest you prowl the used-book stores for a copy of Kornbluth's "The Syndic," another satire.

Written 50 years ago, you might expect this book, set in "the future", to be hopelessly trite and dated, but it holds up remarkably well. If anything, many of the issues in the book resonate more today than they may have when it was first published. The characters are believable and well constructed, and Pohl gives them a story to tell that moves quickly. He avoids the pitfalls of some authors who write future-based morality plays -- there's no preaching or sidebar pontificating here, just a very good read. My only complaint is that I wish it had been longer!

In the early 1950s, Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth looked at the USA and extrapolated to a world run by advertising hucksters: an overpopulated, polluted world where production was the handmaiden of marketing, and privacy an impossible dream. This satiric _reductio ad finem_ (extrapolation to an extreme) predicted our world with an accuracy highly unusual for SF. And Pohl and Kornbluth gave a diagnosis of how this disaster could happen, and suggestions for a radical conservation movement that might bring a cure: positive elements rare in satire. _The Space Merchants_ belongs not only with the best of SF but among the finest works of satire, from Aristophanes through Chaucer to Shakespeare's _Troilus and Cressida_ to Swift's _Gulliver_ and beyond. ( )

The Space Merchants was written in 1952 and was ahead of it's time, one of the first popular sci-fi novels to tackle environmental issues and overpopulation head on. It's about an advertising executive in a future America where huge corporations rule, and he hasn't a clue what life is like for the common working stiffs. It's somewhat like in the movie Soylent Green, as he finds out when a rival has him shanghaied to work at a bizarre futuristic hydroponic farm. The title refers to his firms new project - to sell the colonization of Venus to the working class.
The novel is easy to read and both suspenseful and humorous. My favorite author is Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers, Space Cadet, etc.) and I found this to be about as good as some of Heinlein's work of the period, but from a more liberal perspective. In fact in the Venus colonization aspect, it's like a Heinlein book from the point of view of the antagonists (like the organizations behind the colonization of Mars in Red Planet, or Ganymede in Farmer In The Sky). The authors gave the hero this viewpoint not because they share his attitudes, but for humor, contrast, and impact.
I've read a couple other books by C. M. Kornbluth lately, The Syndic and Outpost Mars, which I also recommend.