Frederik Pohl Books in Order

Advertising executive Mitch Courtenay is assigned to sell colonization of inhospitable Venus to an overpopulated Earth. In a society ruled by corporations, his campaign draws him into intrigue that challenges his comfortable assumptions about consumers, power, and loyalty.

Edited by Frederik Pohl, this anthology gathers original science-fiction stories by writers including Alfred Bester, Theodore Sturgeon, and C. M. Kornbluth. Its selections range across speculative dangers and strange encounters, including Jerome Bixby's unsettling tale It's a Good Life.

When an arriving generation ship reports losing contact with other colonies, Ross leaves declining Halsey's Planet to investigate. Traveling between isolated human worlds, he encounters societies distorted by their own customs and must uncover what threatens interstellar civilization.

Residents of a small northeastern town expect a passing hurricane to leave them unharmed. Although the storm itself misses them, its rains unleash a devastating flood, forcing trapped neighbors to confront disaster and discover how they respond under pressure.

In a future dominated by corporations and their lawyers, secure employment means comfortable automated housing while unemployment means dangerous slums. A struggling criminal attorney and a displaced entertainment designer confront the machinery that keeps wealth and power tightly controlled.

Ten stories include Guy Burckhardt’s terrifying awakening in The Tunnel Under the World alongside The Mapmakers, Pythias and Target One. Strange experiences, imagined technologies and unfamiliar circumstances unsettle the lives of the people at their centers.

Constitutional-law professor Houck joins the campaign of a senator he admires, expecting to put his ideals into practice. As the presidential contest intensifies, political maneuvering and personal sacrifices expose a gulf between democratic principles and the realities of campaigning.

In a future global conflict, military telepaths serve as spies and covert operatives while a mysterious fatal condition strikes their ranks. Suspected enemy manipulation makes the war increasingly difficult to understand, drawing naval personnel into dangers beyond conventional combat.

Strange machines seize Earth and carry it away from the Sun, forcing humanity into a precarious existence in interstellar space. As survivors adapt to their captors' demands, resistance depends on understanding the technology and purpose behind their planetary imprisonment.

A successful mathematics lecturer in an overcrowded future develops inexplicable impulses toward self-destruction. With ordinary medical explanations failing, he must discover why his own mind has become dangerous and whether the threat extends beyond his seemingly comfortable life.

Civilization reels from a wave of apparent possession that leaves people committing violence beyond their control. Accused engineer Chandler insists he was another victim, and his struggle to survive draws him toward the forces responsible for humanity's collapse.

Charles Forrester wakes centuries after his death to find his insurance payout barely sufficient for survival. Searching for work in a radically changed world brings unfamiliar relationships, legally sanctioned danger, and an alien employer with problems of its own.

This collection gathers short fiction from three decades of Frederik Pohl’s career, including The Midas Plague, Day Million and The Tunnel Under the World. An author’s afterword accompanies stories exploring imagined futures and unsettling changes to ordinary life.

With Earth's future increasingly precarious, scientists transform astronaut Roger Torraway into a cyborg capable of surviving on Mars. The project promises humanity a new home, but its physical and psychological costs force Roger to confront what remains of his human identity.

This collection gathers Pohl’s early science fiction, including stories first published during the 1940s and an earlier poem. Its contents include The Dweller in the Ice, Daughters of Eternity, Conspiracy on Callisto, and Double-Cross.

Abandoned alien spacecraft offer desperate prospectors a chance at riches or death on voyages to unknown destinations. Robinette Broadhead survives and becomes wealthy, but sessions with a computerized psychiatrist reveal how profoundly his experiences at Gateway have damaged him.

Frederik Pohl recalls his life as a science-fiction fan, writer, and editor, tracing the field's growth from a marginal magazine culture into a major publishing presence. Personal memories and portraits of fellow creators illuminate the people behind that transformation.

Rival Earth factions discover the resource-rich planet Jem and see an escape from shortages and political deadlock. Their competition draws three intelligent native species into human conflicts, threatening to turn an opportunity for survival into a catastrophe for both worlds.

Wealthy former prospector Robin Broadhead finances an expedition to an abandoned Heechee food factory, hoping to ease Earth's hunger and unlock alien secrets. The explorers' discoveries raise new questions about the vanished civilization and the technology humanity has inherited.

Pohl combines personal reminiscence, accessible scientific explanation, and travel guidance in an account of exploring science firsthand. Visits to museums, laboratories, and natural wonders show how curious observers can encounter discovery beyond textbooks and conventional classroom lessons.

Frederik Pohl and Frederik Pohl IV trace science-fiction cinema from its early beginnings through films such as Frankenstein, Forbidden Planet, and Star Wars. Their examination considers how filmmakers translated speculative ideas into an evolving form of popular screen entertainment.

In an energy-starved future, nations undermine one another through covert economic sabotage rather than open warfare. Reverend Hake becomes entangled in these operations, discovering how seemingly ordinary international activities can conceal destructive agendas and competing schemes for survival.

Advertising executive Tennison Tarb struggles with addiction and professional insecurity in a society still controlled by commercial persuasion. Rival interests on Earth and Venus pull him into a conflict that forces him to question his loyalties and the industry he serves.

Three science fiction adventures follow people confronting danger on different worlds. An alien holds Earth captive, an explorer investigates suspicious accidents at a lunar mining operation, and rebels on Venus prepare to challenge their planet’s rulers.

Carefully selected astronauts aboard the Constitution believe they are traveling to explore another star system. Their mission's architect has concealed its true purpose, and the crew's response to isolation produces consequences that surpass even his ambitious and unethical expectations.

Predictions that a planetary alignment could trigger disasters unsettle a near-contemporary society. Scientists, politicians, religious figures, and opportunists respond to the approaching event, revealing how uncertainty and fear shape public behavior when a supposedly cosmic threat becomes a social crisis.

This illustrated volume presents paintings commissioned for Science Fiction Book Club editions, accompanied by artists' biographical sketches and portraits. Frederik Pohl's introduction considers cover illustration's role in publishing, placing the collected imagery within the visual culture of science fiction.

Controlled nuclear fusion gives humanity seemingly unlimited energy, but abundance creates a new crisis. Consumer goods multiply until they exhaust Earth’s resources and threaten to bury its inhabitants beneath the products meant to improve their lives.

A mysterious outbreak of involuntary violence has shattered social order, leaving victims blamed for crimes they could not control. Electronics engineer Chandler seeks an explanation for the apparent possession in this revised version of A Plague of Pythons.

Robinette Broadhead must return to space as humanity's understanding of the Heechee and their abandoned technology deepens. Contact with the elusive alien civilization promises answers, but also reveals dangers that could determine the survival of the human species.

This collection explores imagined futures through stories of ocean mining, alien pilots, dangerous lotteries, and extraterrestrial employers. Politics, mind control, and robots provide further settings for encounters between ordinary ambitions and the unfamiliar conditions created by technological change.

Five connected stories follow New York City's evolution toward a more hopeful future. From neighborhood change to vast engineering projects, successive generations confront the social tensions and human resistance that complicate ambitious attempts to improve urban life.

After nuclear war turns the United States into a Chinese agricultural colony, farm laborer Pettyman Castor becomes involved in an investigation. An approaching alien vessel demanding contact with America's president thrusts him into an unexpected diplomatic role with dangerous implications.

Astronomer Harry Malibert escapes to Iceland when nuclear war breaks out. Surviving inhabitants must use the island’s geology to prepare for nuclear winter, while he considers whether humanity’s predicament helps explain the absence of observable extraterrestrial civilizations.

A series of terrorist attacks transforms Hawaii's tourist paradise into a place of fear. Meanwhile, an underwater volcano and a heavily guarded research fleet suggest another threat, linking apparent scientific activity with the islands' mounting violence and uncertainty.

A breakthrough allows travel between alternate universes, exposing countless timelines to invasion by a conquering army. Men and women from different versions of history must cooperate to defend their worlds as the boundaries separating possible realities collapse.

This fictional reconstruction follows the people caught in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and its aftermath. Drawing on technical information and firsthand accounts, Pohl explores the human decisions, institutional pressures, and personal experiences surrounding the reactor's catastrophic failure.

A space explorer preserved as a machine-stored personality investigates the mysterious Assassins, energy beings whose activities threaten the universe. Humanity's alliance with the Heechee brings extraordinary possibilities, but surviving their shared enemy requires understanding intentions that seem almost incomprehensible.

An accountant who once dreamed of singing notices talented clients disappearing after accepting mysterious performance contracts. Investigating the company behind their tours draws him into an interstellar entertainment business whose appreciative audiences and comfortable arrangements conceal a troubling loss of freedom.

Henry Steegman's discovery of a hidden Martian city changes far more than the fortunes of one space expedition. Linked stories follow people seeking opportunity, influence, or meaning in first contact, exposing the familiar human ambitions beneath an extraordinary event.

Raised aboard an alien starship, Sandy Washington returns to Earth as part of its visitors' liaison team. His unfamiliar view of human society collides with questions about the aliens' intentions, forcing him to reconsider the family and loyalties he has always known.

In a society where immortality is routine, celebrated performer Rafiel faces death because his treatment failed. As his final stage role approaches, his relationships and reflections expose the loneliness of being mortal among people who can scarcely understand his predicament.

Young prospectors Stan and Estrella explore abandoned Heechee technology and seek a future beyond ordinary human limits. Their journey intersects with the aliens' refuge in a black hole, a mysterious cosmic enemy, and humans whose hatred threatens fragile interstellar coexistence.

Tales and vignettes follow humanity’s discovery and exploration of artifacts left behind by the Heechee. These accounts expand the world surrounding the saga’s novels, examining encounters with the remnants of a civilization whose technology opens unfamiliar possibilities.

A human colony expedition and an immensely powerful intelligence living inside stars pursue survival on vastly different scales. Their intertwined histories carry questions of settlement, rivalry, and adaptation across immense stretches of time toward the universe's distant future.

Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl examine environmental dangers including population growth, fossil-fuel dependence, global warming, and ozone depletion. Their nonfiction argument connects the causes of ecological damage with proposed technological responses and the changes needed to protect humanity's future.

Young Martian Dekker DeWoe travels to Earth to train as an Oort Cloud miner, hoping to help transform his harsh home world. When the project is canceled, rumors of a deadly scheme to restart it threaten millions.

An interstellar cargo ship stops at Slowyear, an isolated planet with a nineteen-year orbit. Its crew encounters unsettling local customs, including a lethal lottery for criminals, while the sheep-raising colony harbors dangers its visitors do not understand.

Barry di Hoa enjoys a settled life on the Moon until a rival drugs him and sends him aboard a departing ship. Stranded on frontier planet Pava, he must adapt to earthquakes, primitive conditions, and demanding physical work.

Strange messages from space lead government agent Dan Dannerman and a small team to investigate an abandoned orbital station. Alien technology turns their expedition into an abduction, drawing the humans into experiments and a conflict they barely understand.

Computer hacker Evesham Giyt emigrates with his girlfriend to Tupelo, where humans share a colony world with five alien races. Elected mayor, he faces pressure from an Earth representative whose schemes threaten the planet’s fragile coexistence.

Dan Dannerman and fellow alien abductees return to Earth to discover that copies of themselves are already there. Captured aliens offer technology and warnings, entangling the humans in a wider war over the promise of eternal life.

Government agent Dan Dannerman has been imprisoned, tortured, and duplicated by the alien Beloved Leaders. As Earth faces their expanding threat, his struggle against his captors raises difficult questions about survival, retaliation, and the identities of his copies.

Stories drawn from decades of Pohl’s career explore people confronting scientific change, political pressures, and unfamiliar futures. The collection includes Fermi and Frost, The Meeting, The Gold at the Starbow’s End, and The Greening of Bed-Stuy.

This collection brings together five of Pohl’s science fiction stories: The Hated, Pythias, The Day of the Boomer Dukes, The Tunnel Under the World, and The Knights of Arthur. It gathers shorter works from his early career.

In 2079, Brad Sheridan works at a theme park recreating ancient Pompeii as its destruction’s anniversary approaches. Personal troubles and suspicious events unfold beneath Vesuvius, while terrorists threaten to turn the planned celebration into another catastrophe.

Guy Burckhardt wakes from a terrifying dream and resumes his ordinary life in Tylerton, but intrusive advertisements and strange events undermine his confidence in reality. This edition pairs The Tunnel Under the World with additional early Pohl stories.