I’ve been aware of The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth pretty much since I started looking seriously at science fiction. I remember seeing copies of it at used bookstores when I was in high school and I knew it was supposed to be one of the great classics of the genre.
But I only got around to reading it last month.
It’s one part thriller, two parts social commentary and three parts satire with a hefty focus on character development.
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In this world of the future, industry rules the world to the point where governments are not even figureheads. And advertising firms runs industry. The world is on the edge of ecologic ruin but advertising campaigns mask and hide that fact.
Michael Courtenay is a high level advertising executive in one of the leading firms. To give an idea of the scope, the company incorporated the entire subcontinent of India. They are now in the process of colonizing and owning the planet Venus.
So, of course, Mitch ends up getting shanghaied into a position at the bottom of the barrel, skimming algae and locked into a contract designed to bury him in forever debt so he gets to see life on the other side.
Mitch is a really well designed character. He starts off an an anti-hero. And not a Wolverine anti-hero but a Willy Loman anti-hero. More than that, he isn’t a Bertie Wooster child of privilege. He is fiercely intelligent and aggressive. When he hits rock bottom, he immediately starts digging up.
And it takes most of the book for Mitch to hit his redemption point. I remember hearing DiMartino and Konietzko, the creators of Avatar the Last Airbender, say that Zuko had to regain his privilege to give him to sacrifice for his heel face turn to mean anything. Mitch has taken over the company that owns India before he become a conservationist and a good guy.
While the thriller aspect of the book is the least important one, at least in my opinion, Pohl and Kornbluth do deliver on it. The plot keeps on making unexpected swerves and they keep on ratcheting up the tension.
I found the satire to be milder compared to works by, say, Kurt Vonnegut. However, I also wonder if it would have felt more extreme in 1952 compared to a far more social media saturated world.
The Space Merchants felt like a piece of classical literature disguised as pulp science fiction. I’m glad that I read it but I’m also glad I waited to read it.
