Frederik Pohl, Sci Fi Author, Dies Aged 93

Attended the first sci-fi convention in Philly in 1936

SFWA Grandmaster, author, editor, agent, and fan Frederik Pohl, 93, died September 2, 2013.

Frederik George Pohl, Jr. was born November 26, 1919 in New York City. He was one of the earliest SF fans, attending the first SF convention in Philadelphia in 1936, and was one of the founders of the Futurians and the Hydra Club. He attended Brooklyn Tech, but dropped out without graduating. From 1939-43 he was editor of new magazines Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories. He sometimes published his own fiction, often in collaboration with fellow Futurians C.M. Kornbluth, Robert W. Lowndes, and James Blish, under assorted house names and pseudonyms including James MacCreigh and S.D. Gottesman.

Comments

[SIV]

From one of Frederik Pohl's last blog entries

Hell, everything else I ever read by him was written before I was born.

[PapayaSF]

Looks like he never got over his leftism. Good writer and editor, though.

[SIV]

I greatly enjoyed his collaborations with CM Kornbluth.

[PapayaSF]

Yes, those blew my mind as a teenager. Too bad Kornbluth didn't live as long.

[JWatts]

Pohl was a Communist in his youth. He did write some good stories, back in the day though.

[JeremyR]

If you read his blog, he pretty much still was

[Killazontherun]

Big fan. I remember reading Beyond the Event Horizon when I was eleven. I was more familiar with the science at the core of the story than the sex at that age. Damn, who else is alive at this point of the old guard? Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance (nope just checked, passed away May 26), Samuel Delany?

[PapayaSF]

Wolfe (first book 1970) and Delany (first book 1962) are relative children. Pohl was the last of the Golden Age figures, I think. Jack Williamson died in 2006, and published his first story in 1928(!) and his last in 2005. Not many writers have a 77 year career.

[Killazontherun]

Notice how I intentionally skirted around mentioning the Golden Age? It's to imply even the New Wavers took up the posts of the old guard.

[Snark Plissken]

I keep expecting to hear the bad news about Gene Wolfe, he's certainly getting up there.