The Space Merchants

Description

Time: the near future Place: Madison Avenue, New York An overcrowded world is dominated by a few unscrupulous advertising agencies who have reduced the population to drug- and ad-conditioned consumers. Fowler Schocken Associates, who successfully organised India into a single giant cartel, have a new mission -- the development and exploitation of Venus. Mitchell Courtenay, star-class copysmith, is chosen to sell it to potential colonists. But the Consies, a subversive conservation group, and a rival ad agency also want Venus, and Courtenay finds himself in the midst of a deadly struggle.

Pohl and Kornbluth started writing together as early as 1940, although both authors produced a wide variety of stories separately, under their own names and psuedonyms. Each wrote sections, starting where the other left off, and through long experience they developed an almost telepathic awareness of each other's intentions. Frederik Pohl was born in 1919 and has been professionally involved in sf as an editor and writer since his teens. Among his many books are A Plague of Pythons, Gateway, Man Plus and JEM: The Making of a Utopia. C.M. Kornbluth (1923-1958) was the bureau chief of a Chicago news agency until 1951 when he took up fiction writing full time. He established himself very quickly as a brilliant short-story writer with works such as 'The Little Black Bag', 'The Marching Morons', 'The Cosmic Charge Account' and 'Two Dooms'. Pohl and Kornbluth started writing stories together in 1940 and their collaborations include The Space Merchants, Search the Sky and Gladiators-at-Law.