1983: Midas World (Pohl, Frederik)

Consumption of abundance spawns misery (4/5)

Reviewing my library, I've become aware that while I dislike much of Pohl's work in novels, it's his work in the short story form which has won me over. The short story The Man Who Ate the World has been featured in over ten publications, but only now have I come around to (1) realizing what Pohl was grasping at and (2) actually liking it. Plushly surrounded with similar stories of the consumption of abundance, The Man Who Ate the World sits on a sturdier platform than the collection with the same title.

With the advent of fusion power, humanity puts all the power to work! Everything is put into mass production so that everyone has everything. Where the proletariats struggle to consume their consumption quota, the lumpenproletariats suffer much worse as they live in huge houses with everything imaginable and live their days endlessly consuming. The privileged live in blissfully sparse one-room studios and savor the sensations of hunger and penury. But when the weight of the world presses down on society's shoulders, revolution takes on a form which no one saw coming. Rendering themselves useless, humans take to orbit to escape the robots who produce for the sake of their own consumption. Pohl's universe of run-away consumerism spawned by plentiful energy only becomes sillier and sillier through the pages.

The Fire-Bringer (1983) - 4/5 - Amalfi Amadeus invents fusion power, the world rejoices, the materialism of the world's people blooms, and Amalfi doesn't get any of the glory. Even with statues and mentions in history textbooks, Amalfi wallows in his profitless fame. 4 pages

The Midas Plague (1954) - 5/5 - Morey Fry is a Class Three consumer with his wife Cherry. Their rate of consumption is lagging, as the National Rations Board has told them, and extra rations must be consumed during the next month. When Morey visits a shady bar after his blissful one day of work per week, he discovers fellow consumers who have a hatred for the robots who produce for the sole reason so that the humans can consume. After a drunken night out, Morey learns that he unintentionally solved his own problem of his consumption quota. 77 pages

The Servant of the People (1982) - 3/5 - Fiorello O'Hare is running for his 23rd term as Congressman. His competition this year is a vote-casting robot named Mayor Thom, who has suffrage thanks to O'Hare's legislature. But the shifty campaigning of Mayor Thom catches the eye of O'Hare's wife when visiting robots at a factory, where robots build robots. 26 pages

The Man Who Ate the World (1956) - 4/5 - The poorest of the poor, Anderson Trumie grows up in a world bombarded by perpetual mass consumption. For want of nothing but his sister's teddy bear, Anderson is punished by having yet another lavish birthday party. Twenty years later when humans don't need to mass consume, Anderson continues his habitual consumption as he commandeers an island, his own Robot Central, and a small chunk of the world's resources. It's up to psychist Roger Garrick and statistician Kathryn Pender to make Anderson realize this tyrannical wars are petty. 44 pages

The Farmer on the Dole (1982) - 5/5 - Zeb Josephson is a robotic soybean farmer. When the government allows the farm to go bust, Zeb is shipped to Des Plaines for reprogramming. Losing his farmer accent in favor of a properly punctual literature critic with an expansive vocabulary, Zeb is programmed to become a mugger in Chicago, under the tutelage of fellow robot Timothy. After being busted for robbing a human rather than another robot, Zeb meets robo-hooker Lori who introduces him to a group of wanna-be revolutionaries. 42 pages

The Lord of the Skies (1983) - 3/5 - Orbital resident Michael Pellica-Perkins spends his luxurious days casually browsing the alphabetical list of nearby females and delinquently hunting Von Neumann machines returning earthside with some intersolar ore. Michael's landlubber brother Rodney isn't as much as a voluptuary as Michael and disdains humanity's use of earth as one big power generator for the people in orbit. Michael soon learns that his 21st sequential wife is in on Rodney's plans for saving earth. 78 pages

The New Neighbors (1983) - 4/5 - Homiform Ralph and his organic dog Cissie are befriended by the only human tenants in their Chicago apartment block--Mr. and Mrs. Albright. His fellow homiform residents witness his rubbing shoulders with the humans and air their grievances about the couple's petty complaints. As an archaeologist/historian, Ralph finds inspiration for the solution in a secret notebook of Amaldi Amadeus. 36 pages

1977: High Justice (Pournelle, Jerry)

Strife against big government and big corporate (3/5)

High Justice in my fourth solo Pournelle novel (excluding five Larry & Jerry novels). Most of Pournelle's work, in my opinion, has a military/political scope which really doesn't inspire me to read more of his work, but Pournelle has writes some fiction about government/corporate struggle and advocacy for space development (a must read would be the collection Survival of Freedom co-edited by Jerry Pournelle).

Rear cover synopsis:
"The interplanetary corporations of the future--man's highest creation or blood-sucking monsters? Fed by expanding technology, fueled by the struggle for universal power, they grow and expand, overthrowing the superpowers of Earth and becoming an all-powerful government! Finally, they are the sole inhabitant of their planet--and face a terrifying showdown for all of space itself!"

Besides the bit a grandeur above, Jerry Pournelle's collection entitled High Justice contain seven stories which all involve people's struggle against big corporations and big government. The first few stories carry their own weight, but after the collection-titled High Justice, the flavor of the stories becomes to be monotonous. There's not much progression in the universe Pournelle has plotted out, there doesn't seem to be any strides made where one side will prevail over the other, be it the government, the corporation, or the people. In the end, literally, there IS no ultimate conclusion. The last story concludes itself but leaves the series as a whole flapping in the wind by its own threadbare tatters.

A Matter of Sovereignty (1972) - 4/5 - Assistant to the Chairman of Nuclear General Company, Mr. Adams, is flown to the island of Tonga in order to lend a hand in the retrieval of the plutonium-laden ship hi-jacked by the Fijians. With a profitable interest in collected ice floes, perhaps Mr. Adams can come to an agreement about the wants and needs with the Tongan king. 27 pages

Power to the People (1972) - 3/5 - Mr. Adams is now off to the Namib desert coats where a glacier-fed irrigation and desalination plant have been heavily invested in. However, local power struggles aims to topple the budding industrialism at the cost of profit and the peoples' well-being. 21 pages

Enforcer (1974) - 3/5 - An ice floe has been towed to a mineral/ore rich lode located over a thousand kilometers from the Argentinian coast. Operating for eight years, no international laws have been breached until a coup in Argentina has thoughts of dissolving contracts with the international economies (INTERECS). Naturally, INTERECS has a problem with this and will go to any length, much as Colonel Ortiz did, to find a suitable one-sided compromise. 27 pages

High Justice (1974) - 5/5 - Ex-solicitor General of the United States, Aeneas MacKenzie meets his ex-girlfriend Laurie Jo Hansen, who now has great power at the head of Hansen Enterprises, whose laser space port is sending men and material
into orbit from Baja, Mexico. When a crime is occurs aboard the construction orbiter, no law but a lawman can settle the issue. 40 pages

Extreme Prejudice (1974) - 4/5 - Gideon Starr is on assignment. His destination is the Dansworth underwater laboratory under the Pacific ocean. His mission is to feign interest in underwater mining, electricity production, and dolphin language research all the while keeping close tabs on this personal guide and target, Hank Shields. 32 pages

Consort (1975) - 3/5 - With the help of Senator Hayden, corporate empress Laurie Jo Hansen and Aeneas MacKenzie aim to tangle the president of the United States up in a criminal scandal so that their dreams of escaping earth's tired ways, establishing a moon base, and heading for the deeper regions of our solar system. 22 pages

Tinker (1975) - 2/5 - Captain Kephart, his wife, and their two children make rendezvous with the Jefferson planetoid in order to do some profitable trade. However, the local independent colonists don't much care for the traders' profit margin and force the couple into a oddly well-prepared scheme... when an approaching vessel sends a distress call. 41 pages

1960: The Man Who Ate the World (Pohl, Frederik)

Pohl the unique social critic? Sure! (4/5)
From July 27, 2010 

I've read a load of Pohl and I consider his novels to be... a great disappointment (with the exception of Gateway and Merchant's War). This short story collection along with Pohl's Pohlstars is, however, a great read. Specifically in this collection, Pohl pens some satire poking fun at mass production, consumerism, an industrialization. It's a fun sort of satire along the exact same lines as Space Merchants and Merchant's War.

Collectively, a great collection of short stories (3 of 6 being social criticism), with the exception of The Man Who Ate the World where Pohl takes a jab at the American consumer and the expectation for them to consume, buy, destroy and repeat the cycle (still rings true, huh). The Wizards and The Waging follow along the same lines as Pohl's Space Merchants series where advertising takes the central role and looking at how humans react to the every commercial product pushed into their faces. Pohl makes it fun (hello, Marlene Growshawk!), unique and timely even considering it's 50 years of age. The Snowmen is a short but very bizarre story which manages to slowly unfold the whole scenario and entertain at the same time. The Seven offers a smart set-up on the planet Venus followed by an equally like clever solution to the problem of the protagonist.

The Man Who Ate the World (1956) - 2/5 - Spoiled brat of a child told to consume and consume, only to continue to construct, destroy and consume for twenty years. Construct robots to maintain robots to produce robots that destroy robots, etc. All he needs is teddy's love. 28 pages

The Seven Deadly Virtues (1958) - 4/5 - Wife-stealing Venus newbie is ostracized for his past actions by a powerful man. Newbie looks to a newer newbie for protection and includes him in the plot to destroy the powerful man and at the same time regain his citizenship. 29 pages

The Day the Icicle Works Closed (1960) - 4/5 - Distant planet becomes cut off from trade and some factory workers attempt to kidnap the mayor's son for needed cash... it's either that or rent your body to tourists while you perform hard mental labor. 33 pages

The Snowmen (1959) - 5/5 - Trysting couple are visited by an alien craft. While the woman converses with the naked being, the suited man loots the alien craft looking for metal objects and food. A good, full belly is best during the long, cold winter. 8 pages

The Wizards of Pung's Corner (1958) - 5/5 - Advertiser comes to Pung's Corner hoping to open the post-war secluded town to new products through advertising and diligence, only to be subverted by an old-hand of the same ilk (Tighe), who manages with simplicity. 29 pages

The Waging of the Peace (1959) - 4/5 - Buick salesman inundated with new and old Buicks takes his complaint straight to Tighe in the Capitol, only to be recruited in attacking and stopping production at the National Electro-Mech fortified factory. 28 pages