FREDERIK POHL (1919 – ) is an American Science Fiction author, author’s agent, magazine/book editor and SF fan, with a professional career in SF spanning more than sixty years. Pohl edited SF magazines for nearly two decades, off and on, and worked as a literary agent for a decade or so, but he primarily known as a Science Fiction author. For his writing he was named a SFWA Grand Master in 1993. A frequent collaborator with Cyril M. Kornbluth, and other, together they co-authored many fine novels and short stories. Pohl’s writings are often identifiable by distinctive themes and settings. Themes like psychiatry, sexuality, satire, and advertising appear in his fiction often, along with many other unique ideas. His prodigious intellect and scholarship, ever present in his stories, also made him, for a time, the official authority to the Encyclopædia Britannica on the subject of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Too little of his prodigious output is available in the audio format, that is to say there is only a very small amount. Here’s all that we know of…
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Podcast fiction:
Day Million and We Purchased People
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Spider Robinson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 67 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcast: Spider On The Web
Podcaster: August 2008
Two groundbreaking SF stories, recorded with permission, for Spider Robinson’s podcast.
Commercial Audiobooks:
Preferred Risk
By Frederik Pohl & Lester del Rey; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
7 hrs. – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: August 2008
Availiable at Audible and iTunes
The Company was a powerful, efficient, and monstrous insurance organization that controlled the entire world, scientifically regulating everything in life: war, epidemics, one-a-day food pills and test-tube sex…all through the use of its patented, terrifying human deep-freeze vault. Claims Adjuster Wills, a great believer in the Company, begins to have second thoughts when he meets beautiful and sorrowful Rena, whose radical father lies in a frozen subterranean vault.
Wolfbane
By Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
Audible Download – Approx. 5 Hours 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: June 26, 2009
The Earth has forcibly been taken from its orbit. It began with an extra-terrestrial pyramid on top of Mt. Everest. And then a “runaway planet” took the Earth as its binary. And now harsh generations have passed since the inhabitants last saw the light of their sun, Sol. Society has grown rigid. The meek lambs have inherited the Earth, even if it’s a very poor Earth, indeed. It’s a hard world for all. But Glenn Tropile is no lamb, and if his citizens finds out he’s a wolf, it will be the wolf that goes to slaughter.
Plague Of Pythons
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
Audible Download – Approx. 4 Hours 9 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: June 26, 2009
The pythons had entered into Mankind. No man knew at what moment he might be possessed! On Christmas, the world’s freedom died. Every man, woman and child lay in the grip of fear, for no one knew at what moment his nearest friend or a casual stranger might suddenly be possessed by some brutal mind… and begin to murder and destroy. For Chandler it was worse than for most. He was both victim and executioner. He had suffered himself, and he had committed a violent crime while under the strange domination. Accused of hoaxing, he was driven from his home. He wandered the world and found it smashed like a spoiled child’s plaything. Now Chandler was in the very presence of the destroyers! But what could one person do against such power? The power of gods!
The Greatest Science Fiction Stories Of The 20th Century
By various; Read by various
4 Cassettes – 6 Hours [Unabridged]
Publisher: Dove Audio (now available through Audible.com)
Published: 1998
ISBN: 0787116807
Includes Pohl’s short story “Fermi And Frost”
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The Voices Of Heaven
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Johnny Heller
8 Cassettes – 11 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 1998
ISBN: 0788718908
When a rival slips Barry di Hoa a mickey, he awakens from space-travel hibernation on an alien world 18 light years from earth. Suddenly, everyone di Hoa loves has had 20 years to move on. In anguish and marooned on an alien world, he makes friends with the leps, the large, gentle caterpillar-like beasts indigenous to the planet. Can di Hoa—with the leps’ help—create a world fit for human existence, or will he return to seek justice 40 years delayed?
The Other End Of Time
By Frederik Pohl; Read by George Guidall
8 Cassettes – 11 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 1997
ISBN: 0788713019
Leaving a mechanized and overcrowded New York City for the vastness of space, a group of scientists arrives at a research station that has been receiving messages from aliens calling themselves the Beloved Leaders. Without warning, the scientists are kidnapped, confined to a sterile cell under close observation, and cloned. Their survival, and that of all intelligent life, now hangs on one question. Are these replicas capable of reason, or will they automatically follow the Beloved Leaders? Science fiction fans, and all listeners who enjoy exciting adventures, will be swept up by this intriguing story that takes a genetic conundrum to intergalactic levels.
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine – “Stirkebreaker” by Isaac Asimov, “Sitting Around The Pool, Soaking Up The Rays” by Frederik Pohl, “It’s Such A Beautiful Day” by Isaac Asimov
By Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl; Read by Peter Marinker
2 Cassettes – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Listen For Pleasure
Published: 1986
ISBN: 0886461847
Includes one short story by Pohl: Sitting Around The Pool, Soaking Up The Rays
Gateway
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Oliver Wyman
Audible Download – Approx. 8 Hours 37 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009
Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe…and on reaches of unimaginable horror. When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is…in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!Includes an introduction by Robert J. Sawyer. “Some changes were made to the original text with the permission of the author.”
Man Plus
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Dennis Boutsikaris
Audible Download – Approx. 7 Hours 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2009
Roger Torraway watched in horror as the monster lurched, toppled over and died. Project Man Plus had gone suddenly and drastically wrong. The race to colonize Mars was too important, too costly, and America was already too committed, for plans to be scrapped. They would have to make a new Martian. And Roger Torraway was it, candidate for the endless surgery, operation after painful operation, that would enable him to survive on that faraway planet. Man Plus is a thrilling race against time – to land on Mars on schedule, to insure that Roger’s system will withstand the stress that killed the previous candidate. And meanwhile, somewhere, somehow, there has been a breakdown in the computer network…. With the edge-of-the-chair excitement and suspense, four-time Hugo Award winner Frederik Pohl tells the story of the remaking of man into Man Plus, creating in Roger an unforgettable character, grotesque in appearance but totally human in feeling – capable of yearning, depression, love, jealousy, terror. Includes an introduction by Robert J. Sawyer.
The Last Theorem
By Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl; Read by Mark Bramhall
10 CDs – Approx. 11 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books ?On Tape
Published: 2008
Two of science fiction’s most renowned writers join forces for a storytelling sensation. The historic collaboration between Frederik Pohl and his fellow founding father of the genre, Arthur C. Clarke, is both a momentous literary event and a fittingly grand farewell from the late, great visionary author of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Last Theorem is a story of one man’s mathematical obsession, and a celebration of the human spirit and the scientific method. It is also a gripping intellectual thriller in which humanity, facing extermination from all-but-omnipotent aliens, the Grand Galactics, must overcome differences of politics and religion and come together … or perish. In 1637, the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat scrawled a note in the margin of a book about an enigmatic theorem: “I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.” He also neglected to record his proof elsewhere. Thus began a search for the Holy Grail of mathematics–a search that didn’t end until 1994, when Andrew Wiles published a 150-page proof. But the proof was burdensome, overlong, and utilized mathematical techniques undreamed of in Fermat’s time, and so it left many critics unsatisfied–including young Ranjit Subramanian, a Sri Lankan with a special gift for mathematics and a passion for the famous “Last Theorem.” When Ranjit writes a three-page proof of the theorem that relies exclusively on knowledge available to Fermat, his achievement is hailed as a work of genius, bringing him fame and fortune. But it also brings him to the attention of the National Security Agency and a shadowy United Nations outfit called Pax per Fidem, or Peace Through Transparency, whose secretive workings belie its name. Suddenly Ranjit–together with his wife, Myra de Soyza, an expert in artificial intelligence, and their burgeoning family–finds himself swept up in world-shaking events, his genius for abstract mathematical thought put to uses that are both concrete and potentially deadly. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone on Earth, an alien fleet is approaching the planet at a significant percentage of the speed of light. Their mission: to exterminate the dangerous species of primates known as homo sapiens.
Public Domain Audiobooks:
The Tunnel Under The World
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: August 9, 2010
Pinching yourself is no way to see if you are dreaming. Surgical instruments? Well, yes—but a mechanic’s kit is best of all! First published in the January 1955 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. The X-Minus One adaptation was first broadcast March 14, 1956.
Pythias
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Sure, Larry Connaught saved my life—but it was how he did it that forced me to murder him! From Galaxy Science Fiction February 1955.
The Day Of The Boomer Dukes
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 45 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: February 21, 2009
Just as medicine is not a science, but rather an art—a device, practised in a scientific manner, in its best manifestations—time-travel stories are not science fiction. Time-travel, however, has become acceptable to science fiction readers as a traditional device in stories than are otherwise admissible in the genre. Here, Frederik Pohl employs it to portray the amusingly catastrophic meeting of three societies. First published in Future Science Fiction No. 30 1956.
The Hated
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibirVox.org
Published: August 4, 2009
After space, there was always one more river to cross … the far side of hatred and murder! From Galaxy Science Fiction January 1958.
The Knights Of Arthur
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite
2 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 1 Hour 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: July 1, 2010
With one suitcase as his domain, Arthur was desperately in need of armed henchmen … for his keys to a kingdom were typewriter keys! From Galaxy Science Fiction January 1958.
Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/4456
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
Radio Drama:
CBS Radio Workshop – The Space Merchants
Based on a story by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth; Performed by a full cast
2 MP3s – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS Radio
Broadcast: February 17th and 24th, 1957
Provider: Internet Archive
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3|
a future where Madison Avenue rules the world and the morals of advertising are the law of the land. But what happens when one Mitchell Courtenay, Copysmith Star Class, is given the ultimate in sales campaigns: to sell the American people on emigrating to Venus.
Mindwebs – The Meeting
By Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth; Read by Michael Hanson
1 |MP3|- [SEMI-DRAMATIZED READING]
Broadcaster: WHA Radio (Madison, WI)
Broadcast: 1978
X Minus One – “Tunnel Under The World”
Based on a short story by Frederik Pohl; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: March 14, 1956
Provider: Internet Archive
X Minus One -“The Haunted Corpse”
Based on a story by Frederik Pohl; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: July 25, 1957
Provider: Internet Archive
X Minus One – “The Map Makers”
Based on a story by Frederik Pohl; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: September 26, 1956
Provider: Internet Archive
X Minus One – “Target One”
Based on a story by Frederik Pohl; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: December 26, 1957
Provider: Internet Archive
The Shape of Things to Come – The Midas Plague
Based on a story by Frederik Pohl; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – 45 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio
Broadcast: September 4, 1991
Tunnel Under the World
Based on a story by Frederik Pohl; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC
Broadcast: 2000
Future Tense – Tunnel Under the World
Based on a story by Frederik Pohl; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: WMUK
Broadcast: 1974
Convention Panels:
“The Art, Science and Combat of Collaboration”
Panelists: Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson
1 |MP3| – [CONVENTION PANEL]
Podcaster: The Time Traveler Show
Podcast: March 2007
A 1977 panel discussion that was made at “ConFusion.”
Interviews:
Hour 25 Interview with Frederik Pohl
Hosted by Warren James
7 Parts – Approx. 1.5 Hours [INTERVIEW]
Provider: Hour 25 Online
Released: July 2003
Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3| Part 3 |MP3| Part 4 |MP3| Part 5 |MP3| Part 6 |MP3| Part 7 |MP3|
Miscellanea:
Tales Of Time & Space – “The Day After The Martians Came”
By Frederik Pohl;
1974
Seeing Ear Theatre – The Other End Of Time
By Frederick Pohl; Read by Frederik Pohl
RealAudio – [EXCERPT]
Publisher: Seeing Ear Theatre
Published:
A reading of an excerpt from his then new novel.
NPR – The Boy Who Would Live Forever
By Frederick Pohl; Read by Frederik Pohl
[EXCERPT]
Broadcaster: NPR
Broadcast: 2004
A brief extract from The Boy Who Would Live Forever read by Pohl.
Notable Paperbooks:
