Humans rule, except when they don't: A Fred Pohl collection

Frederik Pohl. The Abominable Earthman (1963) Collection of some of Pohl’s early pieces. The title story tells about a sociopathic but genial ne’er-do-well who inadvertently becomes humankind’s saviour when he discovers how to control the insectoid invaders (from a planet trailing Sirius) by offering them regular hits of CO2, which for them is an addictive and mind-addling drug.
     Several of the other stories have an equally shaggy-dog denouement, e.g. Punch, which warns us to beware of aliens bearing gifts. This genre was very popular at the time, and Pohl’s work is better than most, I think because he takes his serious themes seriously, even in his comic writing. He uses SF to explore what it means to be human. Like Ambrose Bierce, he “sees things as they are, not as they are supposed to be.” Which makes him a cynic, but an entertaining one. In his longer, more ambitious works (like the novella, Whatever Counts, included here) he tends to portentousness.
    Still, he’s one the best writers of the era, and any of his books is worth reading. ** to ****.