Showing results by author "Frederik Pohl" in All Categories

When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!

Frederik Pohl was on a streak when this Hugo Award-finalist novel was published in 1980. Now back in print after an absence of nearly a decade, this unique science fiction novel is as fresh and entertaining as ever. The story begins when the hero of Gateway finances an expedition to a distant alien spaceship that may end famine forever. On the ship, the explorers find a human boy, and evidence that reveals a powerful alien civilization is thriving on a transport ship headed right for Earth....

Advanced Heechee technology had enabled Robinette Broadhead to live after death as a machine-stored personality, enjoying his life by flitting along the wires from party to party with a host of other machine-people. But suddenly his decadent existence ends when an all-powerful alien race intent on the utter destruction of all intelligent life reappears after eons of silence, and threatens the lives of all heechee and humans.

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.

The historic collaboration between Frederik Pohl and Arthur C. Clarke is both a momentous literary event and a fittingly grand farewell from the great visionary author of 2001: A Space Odyssey

This is a story of one man's mathematical obsession, a celebration of the human spirit and the scientific method, and an intellectual thriller in which humanity, facing extermination from all-but-omnipotent aliens, must overcome differences of politics and religion and come together or perish.

After millennia had passed, Mankind discovered the Heechee legacy (an alien culture that fled to the relative safety of a black hole) - in particular an asteroid stocked with autonavigating spacecraft. Robinette Broadhead, who had led the expedition that unlocked the many secrets of Heechee technology, is now forced once more to make a perilous voyage into space - where the Heechee are waiting. And this time the future of Man is at stake....

A walk around the block, a quick drive, before shutting down your PC ? these short story collections are perfect for when you only have a few minutes to listen."

The biggest collection yet of favorite sci-fi stories - 16 full hours!

The Boy Who Would Live Forever has a sense of wonder and excitement that will satisfy those who loved Gateway and will delight new listeners as well. In Gateway, long after the alien Heechee abandoned their space-station, Gateway (as humans dubbed it) allowed humans to explore new worlds. The Heechee, alarmed by the alien Kugel whose goal was to destroy all organic lifeforms, had already retreated to the galactic core, where they now lived in peace.

A scientist who can transfer minds from one body to another seeks to keep his work from the military. Based on the story by Frederik Pohl, this episode of X Minus One originally aired on July 25, 1957.

Roger Torraway watched in horror as the monster lurched, toppled over and died. Project Man Plus had gone suddenly and drastically wrong. The race to colonize Mars was too important, too costly, and America was already too committed, for plans to be scrapped. They would have to make a new Martian. And Roger Torraway was it, candidate for the endless surgery, operation after painful operation, that would enable him to survive on that faraway planet.

Wan-To was the oldest and must powerful intelligence in the universe, a being who played with star systems as a child plays with marbles. Matter occupied so tiny a part of his vast awareness that humans were utterly beneath his notice.

The Earth has been ripped from the solar system by a runaway alien planet, whose inhabitants have their own sinister plans for Earth's resources. Humankind is dying out, but there are those who defy convention and refuse to give in. Feared by ordinary citizens, these wolves are preparing to fight back against the aliens. Wolfbane is widely regarded as one of the very best science fiction stories from the 1950s. 

"The Knights of Arthur" by Frederik Pohl, published in 1958, is a humorous sci-fi tale. The sum total population of the entire U.S. is now less than 10,000(!) as the listener is taken on a wildly funny ride, an Arthurian quest, actually; but of a very eccentric nature indeed, as Arthur is an entity with very strong and particular opinions... without body and limbs, by the way.

In a desperate attempt to stave off nuclear armageddon, a man goes back in time to kill the person responsible for bringing the world to the brink: Albert Einstein. Based on a story by Frederik Pohl, this episode of X Minus One originally aired on December 26, 1957.

The pythons had entered into Mankind. No man knew at what moment he might be possessed! On Christmas, the world's freedom died. Every man, woman and child lay in the grip of fear, for no one knew at what moment his nearest friend or a casual stranger might suddenly be possessed by some brutal mind... and begin to murder and destroy.

For Chandler it was worse than for most. He was both victim and executioner.

Incredible Science Fiction: Amazing Tales from the 50's and Beyond, Volume Two collates a collection of some of the very best science-fiction stories published in the '50s together. All these stories (with the exception of The Anatomy of Fear) are now in the public domain and were original published in various science-fiction magazines that were very popular in the 1950s. This is a lovingly curated collection of some of the very best stories published during this time. This collection includes a further story from the Hugo Award-nominated Rog Phillips.

"The Tunnel Under the World" is a science fiction short story by Frederik Pohl. It was first published in 1955. Guy and Mary Burckhardt wake up in their house in Tylerton on June 15, having both had terrible nightmares, but they can't recall the events of their dreams. Guy dismisses the dream and goes to work as usual, the downtown offices of Contro Chemicals, which operates a highly automated and robot-staffed petrochemicals plant. But something isn't right at all.

McCauley is a secret agent of Tri Planetary Justice, the only law for almost 30 inhabited worlds. His assignment is to visit the asteroid world of Palas, a lump of rock floating through space with no apparent value. However, not all is as it seems on the underground world of Palas. A narcopeen drug trade flourishes among the con men and thieves that populate Palas.     

In this story, a young man from the far future is bored, so he escapes in a time portal to find a more exciting life in the past. His goal is to take some weapons from the future and join up with "The Mafia" in New York City. One of the groups of people he meets is a street gang called "The Boomer Dukes." He asks them to "take me to your Mafia." Very interesting results follow