Frederik Pohl has a problem. It`s early January, and in attempting to wrestle the Christmas tree out the front door of his Palatine home, the Renaissance man of American science fiction has deposited a trail of pine needles throughout much of the den and nearly all of the front hallway.
In six decades as a writer Pohl has tackled such topics as overpopulation, cryogenic life preservation, the doming of cities, quantum mechanics and the adaptation of human physiology for life on other planets, yet the solution to the pine-needle puzzle has him baffled.
Scratching his head, Pohl frowns uncertainly at the mess. Finally, inspiration strikes: Of course–the vacuum cleaner! The only problem is, Pohl has no idea where to find it, even though he`s been living in the house he`s dubbed ”Gateway” (the title of one of his best-known books) for two-and-a-half years. He calls out to his stepdaughter Cathy, in bed nursing a case of the flu several rooms away. She answers in horror: ”You can`t use the vacuum cleaner on that!”
Back to square one, with some more scratching of his thinning salt-and-pepper hair, which this morning is sticking out a bit in several different directions. A tall, pear-shaped man, Pohl wears a blue warm-up suit that refuses to hide a slightly expanded waistline, the apparent result of a writer`s sedentary lifestyle. A bookshelf in the den is filled with multiple copies of several of his novels, including ”Man Plus,” ”JEM” and
”Gateway.” The original Galaxy magazine cover art from
”Gravy Planet,” Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth`s classic satire on the future of advertising, which was novelized as ”The Space Merchants,” hangs on one wall.
Finally he decides that a less high-tech approach will suffice, that is, if he can just locate a broom. Some more searching goes on. Broom eventually secured, Pohl makes a half-hearted attempt to sweep up, awkwardly handling the broom as if it was an artifact left behind by the enigmatic alien Heechee race that figures prominently in several of his books.
Having finally swept up a few of the needles, he stops, satisfied that he`s given it his best shot. On display in the hallway is a bronze plaque given to him by a fan with a quote from ”Gateway”: ”Anyway, that`s what life is, just one learning experience after another.”
Since the late 1930s Frederik Pohl has been one of the major figures of science fiction, with a career that spans from the days of the pulp magazine space operas to today`s hard-edged, high-tech cyberpunks. At various times he`s worn the hats of magazine and book editor, literary agent, advertising copywriter, critic, poet, fan, teacher and lecturer. Most science fiction fans, though, know him as a writer who, at age 67, has refused to rest on his laurels.
In Kingsley Amis`s study of science fiction, ”New Maps of Hell,” Pohl was singled out as ”the most consistently able writer science fiction, in its modern form, has yet produced.”
His writing has recapitulated the history of the field, and in some cases it has led the field in new directions,” says A.J. Budrys, himself a noted science fiction author and critic. ”I don`t know how he ranks up there with H.G. Wells and Mary Shelley, but I think he`s pretty damn good.”
A Brooklyn, N.Y., native, Pohl has lived alternately in New York and Red Bank, N.J., for most of his life. He moved to Palatine two-and-a-half years ago, after his marriage to Harper College English professor Dr. Elizabeth Anne Hull–better known as Betty Anne–who has been teaching at the junior college for 16 years.
”Gateway” is a roomy though unostentatious house located in a quiet subdivision near Harper College. The only hint that a writer resides within is the ”Gateway” sign on the front lawn. Stored in the garage until spring arrives is Pohl`s baby-blue 1975 Eldorado convertible, which Betty Anne calls his ”dream car.” The car sports an ”F POHL” license plate; the plate on Betty Anne`s Chevy Citation is ”MAN PLUS.” The car, and a penchant for traveling to the exotic locales that pepper much of his work, appear to be his only extravagances.
Although Ray Bradbury spent most of his childhood in Waukegan, Chicago has
never particularly been a haven for science fiction writers. Most of the big names live in either California or New York, with only a sprinkling of writers such as Budrys, Gene Wolfe, Phyllis Eisenstein and Roland Green found in the Chicago area.
Pohl seems happy to be living semianonymously in suburbia, with few distractions to keep him from his writing. He jokes that not only don`t his neighbors know what he does for a living, he has no idea of what they do for a living, either.
He hasn`t been completely invisible, though. He`s done book signings at area bookstores, schools and colleges and has talked about writing science fiction for several of his wife`s classes at Harper. And while he`s a member of the Museum of Science and Industry and regularly attends the Lyric Opera, Pohl estimates that he`s spent more time in Moscow in the last year than he has in the city of Chicago.
With more than 100 assorted novels, collections and anthologies and nonfiction works bearing the ”Frederik Pohl” imprint, Pohl seems to have little interest in playing up his celebrity-hood.
”I like the fact that I get a certain amount of respect, and I like the fact that people are willing to buy my books,” he says. ”I also like the fact that people ask me for my autograph and that sometimes I come across a hotel clerk or an immigration official who tell me they`ve read one of my books.
”That`s all great for my vanity, but I don`t know if it`s good for my personality.”
While much of Pohl`s work has been set in his native New York (”The Years of the City” revolves around a future, domed Manhattan), Chicago figures prominently in some of his recent writing. ”The Coming of the Quantum Cats,” a novel about parallel universes, is replete with tongue-in-cheek references to the ”Daley Expressway,” Old Orchard Field, WGN, the Cubs and the corner of Randolph and Wacker–site of the ”richest mosque in
Chicagoland.”
Pohl does his writing in a converted bedroom on the second floor of the house. He writes hunched over his Tandy 1000 computer amid a clutter of boxes, books, papers and files, listening to classical music on WNIB as he writes.
Going into his 50th year as a published writer, and despite the fact that he`s won just about every plaudit and award the science fiction world has to offer, Pohl remains amazingly prolific. He sticks religiously to his self-imposed regimen of ”four pages a day, every day.”
”The most important thing about Fred Pohl is that he`s one of the few people who have grown as a writer after he passed the age of 50,” says Charles Brown, publisher of Locus, a monthly science fiction newspaper read by most of the movers and shakers in the field. ”James Branch Cabell said 40 years ago that most writers have said everything they really have to say by the time they`re 50. They may write better, but they usually end up repeating themselves. That may be true of most writers, but I think that Fred`s important work has all been done since the age of 50.”
Down the hall from Fred`s is the comparatively neat-as-a-pin office of Betty Anne, who also is a writer. Since she suffered a heart attack in October, they`ve slowed down their traveling, though the next few months will find Pohl speaking at Princeton and Georgia Tech and visiting Katowice, Poland, where he will be the guest of honor at a science fiction convention.
Fred first met Betty Anne at a ”meet the authors” party at the 1976 World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City. At the time Pohl was still living in New Jersey. Upon his separation from his fourth wife, Carol, Fred and Betty Anne began what she calls a ”long-distance romance.” They were married in July, 1984, and shortly after moved from Betty Anne`s condominium in Schaumburg to ”Gateway.”
Last year Pohl and Betty Anne co-edited ”Tales from the Planet Earth,”
an anthology of science fiction short stories written by international writers. Part of the proceeds from the book will go to World SF, an organization that fosters communication between science fiction professionals around the world. Pohl had previously coedited several anthologies with Carol in the 1970s. An earlier (and more short-lived) marriage was to science fiction editor and writer Judith Merril.
Pohl has just turned in his first nonscience-fiction novel in quite some time, ”Chernobyl,” which will be published in September. He`s concurrently working on two science fiction novels–”Land`s End,” with long-time collaborator Jack Williamson, and ”Narabedla.” He recently won his sixth Hugo, an award named for SF publishing pioneer Hugo Gernsback and voted on by fans at the annual World Science Fiction Convention, for ”Fermi and Frost,” cited as the genre`s best short story of 1986. Pohl is the ony man to have won Hugos as both a writer and an editor.
Most of Pohl`s awards are half-hidden on the upper shelf in the wardrobe closet in his office. Sharing space are the silver rocketship-shaped Hugos, and the more esthetically pleasing, cube-shaped Nebulas, awarded by members of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
The library in the Pohl-Hull living room lacks the pretension that many writers fall victim to. To be sure, a good portion of Pohl`s published work is displayed, including dozens of anthologies that he`s edited, yet it`s by no means a complete collection and is stored in no particular order.
Sharing space with the science fiction books are scientific reference books, a set of Funk and Wagnall`s dictionaries, encyclopedias and the occasional book about baseball. A newly bought Kimball organ takes up a corner of the room, where Pohl makes several unsuccessful attempts to play Bach`s
”Invention No. 3” before giving up.
It`s time for lunch, anyway.
Fred Pohl is a soft-spoken, thoughtful man with a professorial demeanor. At times a hazy, preoccupied look comes over him, as if he`s mentally thrashing with a story in midstream.
Over a steaming bowl of his wife`s homemade pea soup, Pohl is talking about the new-found ”respectability” of science fiction. As he talks, he plays with a one-dimensional Rubik`s Cube-like puzzle that refuses to be manipulated into a square. He occasionally gets up for a refill of instant coffee, made with hot tap water.
In the last 20 years science fiction (and its first cousin, fantasy) has become a big business. If you have any doubts about its popularity, take a look at names like Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Anne McCaffrey and Piers Anthony, whose books regularly make the best-seller lists. Even better, take a glance at the sheer numbers of science fiction titles in your local bookstore. According to Locus, 1,502 science fiction books were published in 1986, more than half of them new titles.
Bookstore chains like B. Dalton and Waldenbooks have started science fiction book clubs, publishing newsletters and offering members discounts. Waldenbooks` ”Otherworlds” club has signed up more than 400,000 members so far.
The money has also trickled down to the writers, with many of the top names regularly commanding six-figure advances. For his upcoming book, ”The Sail Beyond the Sunset,” Robert A. Heinlein has received a reported advance of close to $2 million from Putnam.
Also doing big business are science fiction films. Blockbusters like
”Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” ”Cocoon,” ”Back to the Future,”
”Aliens,” ”The Fly” and the ”Star Wars” series have made a huge impact at theater box offices.
”Science fiction has produced some really big sellers in the last four or five years,” Pohl observes. ”Maybe it has something to do with the popularity of the films, but it`s become big business. Still, the
respectability of science fiction has taken me completely unaware.”
”It`s still not that respectable,” interjects Betty Anne, who, among other duties, teaches a class on science fiction once a year at Harper.
”No,” he admits, ”but it`s respectable enough that there are a lot of people like you who teach it in colleges and don`t get thrown off the faculty. It`s even getting respectable in places like Japan and England, where they`re beginning to teach science fiction and encourage it at places like Oxford and Cambridge.”
Beginning as a teenage editor for pulps like Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories in the late 1930s, Pohl has a unique perspective on the growth of science fiction in the last 50 years.
As a literary agent in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he represented most of the genre`s top authors: Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Judith Merril, James Blish, Jack Williamson and C.M. Kornbluth. Through most of the 1960s, as the editor of the science fiction magazines Galaxy and If, Pohl regularly published such authors as Larry Niven, Fred Saberhagen, James Tiptree Jr., Harlan Ellison, Keith Laumer and Joe Haldeman.
In the 1970s he was an editor at both Ace Books and Bantam Books, where he published such groundbreaking work as Samuel Delaney`s ”Dahlgren.” It was at Bantem that Pohl jokes he became known as ”the man who turned `Star Wars` down,” although George Lucas` brainchild was still only an outline for a book at the time.
