Pohl, Frederik - Books - Page 4

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Mathenauts

Isaac Asimov, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Martin Gardner, Douglas Hofstadter, Norman Kagan, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, Robert Sheckley

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The Coming of the Quantum Cats

Frederik Pohl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Doppleganger 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

In my opinion, "Coming of the Quantum Cats" is Pohl's best book. In an alternate America ruled by Arabs, Nicky DeSota is a timid real estate agent who gets arrested for swimming topless with his girlfriend. Agent Nyla "No Thumbs" Christophe interrogates Nicky about surveillance pictures taken of him breaking into a secret laboratory. He has an alibi and she releases him, but he knows he's in trouble. How could the person in the pictures look exactly like him? Nicky covertly visits a former movie star named Ron Reagan who may be able to help, and the adventure begins.

Great sci-fi 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 19 people found this review helpful.

By far Pohl's best book. I read a lot of sci-fi and this is one of my all time faves. If you like good character development and solid quantum theory with people jumping between alternate earths then read this book. It's out of print but worth finding!

Standard SF genre fiction about interesting idea 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I first read the beginning half to two-thirds of this story in serial form, back in the days when I subscribed to Analog. Having re-read the story almost twenty-years later, I'm sorry to report that this is a standard genre SF novel. It explores the possibilities of the multiple-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is not bad at all, and the author even has fund creating "alternate reality" variations on the characters, but there's nothing outstanding about the novel either.

Outnumbering the Dead

Frederik Pohl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A good read 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

A soft scince fiction look at how immortality would affect us. Like any science this one isn't perfect and anomalies crop up. The part that truly captivated me was more how the background characters dealt with being immortal than than how he dealt w/ impending death. To be able to change jobs from doctor to engineer just because you want to. Or to learn the ancient greek dialect that Oedipus was originally written in because you have the time. That gave the story more depth and feeling than what it would've had.

Relatively shallow future utopia 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

An interesting enough idea to base a story on, but it didn't quite get over the line for me as a fully realised novel. Maybe better just as a short story?

But Pohl has tried to flesh out the notion of one of `us' mortals living in a future utopia: no death, no poverty (except the former for our hero). Unfortunately it's not really fleshed out, it's just stated: nobody dies, there's limitless available energy. He has a bit of a go at it, but there's nothing like the intellectual depth of Iain M. Banks' comparable `culture', or Huxley's Brave New Word: we don't get taken somewhere else, we don't feel or sense this place as anything more than a fairly thin construct.

Apart from the lack of potency, there are irritations along the way. It's not as overblown as in Asimov's painfully egotistical Foundation and Earth, but there is still the arrogance (or is it insecurity in this case?) of name dropping high culture ("Look, I've read Oedipus,") and foreign phrases (although strangely in this future there's only a mix of European languages - you'd think if we all merged that there'd be a fair bit of Mandarin in there). Also some of Asimov's (and a few other 60s SF giants) propensity for try-hard voyeurism: a teenaged outlook that embarrassingly venerates Hugh Hefner as having a mature and sophisticated understanding of sex. It's not that he's trying particularly to titillate, more to be cool.

Pohl isn't really bad here, and you can see elements of the imagination which established him as a professional SF writer (such as the alternative means of gestation) - it's just that that's not enough anymore. SF isn't a brand new genre now, and a few decent ideas aren't going to get you over the line. This book was written in 1990, but just about any of the stories, for example, in Dozois' - Year's Best - 9th Annual Collection (1991) leave it behind for craft and depth of character. There's really only one character in Pohl's book, and even he is fairly shallow.

Editorial Review:

In a future where medical science has all but eliminated death, vid star Rafiel is faced with his own demise and learns many poignant lessons about life as he struggles with this reality. By the author of Our Angry Earth.

The Day The Martians Came

Frederik Pohl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Wooooow! 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

You gotta be kidding me! This isn't a book, it is a collection of randomly chosen words. If you give this book to someone who have never read a book before, you'll be sure that person will never read another...

Most boring SF-book I`ve read! 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book is annoyingly boring, I read it only to say "Of course I`ve read that one." In this book Martians are not what you`d expect. They are boring little creatures, nothing to it. The explorations of the planet and the techie stuff was enjoyable but the beginning, the middle, and the end destroyed it. Waste of time.

Ironic, but not his best 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

How will strange people react to strange beings? This is the main frame of this book. I found it easy to read, nice to understand and the story flows with some surprises. The well written pace and narrative helps, and the stereotypes included are just what you need for a smile or a thought. It takes five days to end it, if you only read at night and it is an enjoyable text before you go to sleep.

Editorial Review:

Henry Steegman is hardly "Mr. Personality" aboard the Mars-bound Algonquin 9. Yet it is he who bungles upon the spectacular Macy's-like city beneath the Red Planet's crust. For better or worse, the name Steegman will be immortalized by a discovery that will transform millions of lives.

Drunkard's walk

Frederik Pohl

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Farthest Star

Frederik Pohl, Jack Wiliamson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

from the book cover... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

CUCKOO WAS COMING...No one knew what it was--but everyone knew it was trouble. Designated Object Lambda when it first appeared on the fringes of the galaxy, 20,000 light-years away, it was traveling at one-sixth the speed of light. The astrophysicists said that it was vast...light....and had the potential for utter destruction. So an existing space probe was reoriented to intercept; it was staffed with replicates of both humans and aliens. Then the probe began to leak radiation....

FRom top info page:

Tachyon transmission was a marvelous invention. A man could send infinite replicates of himself anywhere in the galaxy---wherever duty called. If one of the copies got killed, so what? The original would still be alive and well back on his home planet, and he could always send replacements. Such a man Ben Pertin, who lived on Earth. And then there was:

Ben Charles Pertin---stationed on Sun One, central headquarters of the intelligent races in the galaxy.

Ben James Pertin--sent to the probe ship Aurora after Ben Frank Pertin was reported missing on board.

Ben Linc Pertin---dispatched to the artificial satellite orbiting Cuckoo.

Ben Yale Pertin---one of the several Pertins sent to explore the surface of Cuckoo. Some returned---many did not. And most of them were in love with the same woman!"

Mars Plus

Frederik Pohl, Thomas T. Thomas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Seek the Original "Man Plus"!!! 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Not particularly interesting nor intriging. Just when the plot began to go somewhere, I ran out of pages. Not particularly bad, but if you are a Sci-Fi fan, and are intrigued by the character of Roger Torraway (as I am) then seek the prequel titled "Man Plus".

INTERNET GROWS A FACE 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is an oldie but it's amazing how man continues to plod on toward a Martian landing as did the characters in this story. I kept wondering for 17 chapters who the narrator,"We," was who told the story? In a cutesie, laconic way this question was sort of answered in Chapt 18, the four page ending. I won't, but I don't think it would spoil anything by revealing the ending, in fact, not knowing the "We" identity sort of spoiled the book for me. I like to know who is telling me a story. Still, much was attempted for the 1970's so I will only spank the author with the brevity of this review.

Editorial Review:

Fifty years after the colonization of Mars forced its new residents to undergo genetic and cyborg alteration, the Martian computer net, upon which all Martian life depends, develops a dangerous mind of its own. Reprint.

Gladiator at Law

Frederik Pohl, C. M. Kornbluth

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

1950s social satire as relevant today as when it was written 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Pohl and Kornbluth's's sharp satire of the consumer society and corporate corruption of government is as relevant today as when it was first published 50 years ago. "Gladiator at law" describes a possible future for the 1950s in which the working and middle classes are kept under control by the threat of losing their job and with it their tied housing--and the unemployed masses are kept quiescent with bread and circuses, Roman style. Reality tv may not have gone quite as far as the entertainment for the proles depicted in this novel, and science fiction is an exploration of possible futures rather than a prediction of an actual future, but Pohl and Kornbluth's depiction of one of those potential futures is uncomfortably close to present day reality.

There are some nicely drawn characters, and a realistic look at the hazards of battling powerful vested interests -- while there is a happy ending, it comes at a price. The novel is short by today's standards, but a good read, and well worth hunting down a copy at a reasonable price.

Undersea Quest

Frederik Pohl

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Page 4 of 15 - Go to page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 15

Pohl, Frederik Books - Page 4

Isaac Asimov, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Martin Gardner, Douglas Hofstadter, Norman Kagan, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, Robert Sheckley

Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl, Jack Wiliamson

Frederik Pohl, Thomas T. Thomas

Frederik Pohl, C. M. Kornbluth

Frederik Pohl