Frederik Pohl. The Abominable Earthman (1963)

     Frederik Pohl. The Abominable Earthman (1963) Pohl is one of the greats of the Golden Era of the commercial short story, those two or three decades of pulp fiction that began just before the second world war and petered out when TV displaced cheap fiction and the general interest magazines in the 70s. This collection shows the range and the limits of Pohl’s art. He liked to write stories of how humans, despite their obvious flaws and weaknesses, nevertheless manage to win against beings that seem overwhelmingly superior, as in the title story. Here a lazy petty crook of the most pathetic kind discovers that the Sirians get drunk on CO2, which leads to their eventual defeat.
     Pohl also has a knack for thinking through the consequences of different cultural assumptions. In “The Martian Stargazers” he combines this skill with historical speculation in an elegiac tale of how myths can become lethal when taken literally, The Martians called Sirius the Sleeper, and when a nova appears near that star, they imagine that the Sleeper has awoken. In a frenzy of fear they destroy themselves. Sometimes the irony is darker: in “Punch”, an advanced race suffering from terminal ennui has given humans their technology, so that they may become game clever enough to provide a real challenge to the hunters. Punch goes hunting with some humans, and discovers that they, like him, do not like to shoot sitting ducks.
     Pohl’s general attitude is ironic: humans (and other sentient beings) hold solipsistic views of the world that as often as not lead to their undoing, or shift the balance of power in unexpected ways. One could say that he specialises in the tale of the unintended consequence. His stories are well done, and often forgettable, but loads of fun to read. *** (2010)