The Space Merchants

The tag-line that hooked me was "Mad Men in Space". Seeing as how the book predates the TV series by over half a century (and even precedes the shows 1960's setting by almost a decade)I was intrigued, and not disappointed.
Satirizing rampant advertizing and an overwhelming corporate culture more effectively then one could do in a current-day setting, Pohl & Kornbluth cement themselves not only as Sci-Fi visionaries but as social ones as well.

The Space Merchants has a very 1984 feel: the underground movement, the profession of the main character... but it's very different as well. A similar situation, if you like, but with a capitalist society taken to the extremes rather than a socialist one. I'm surprised at people saying it feels outdated; I'm with the people who feel it still seems surprisingly relevant for something written in the 1950s.It's a very quick read, and one worth reading not so much for characters or relationships, but for the way the idea plays out.

Not my usual cup of tea, and read as part of my university course, but very engaging and entertaining nonetheless.

Lots of tongue and cheek stuff. Two men out of their depth go into space to try to make money.

Satire. The beginning is very funny, and throughout the touch is light & deft.
I enjoyed this reread as much as I recall my first, over a decade ago.
Read for June 2019 BotM in Evolution of SF group, q.v.

The attitudes towards women are sufficiently respectful, imo. I appreciated that Tildy, the poet of the copyrighting division, had both girls and *boys* working under her, for example. The technology never jarred me as ridiculously underdeveloped, and indeed some bits seemed prescient. Smoking on board the space craft seemed a bit off, though....

I really like Pohl and admire some of his work. I had head so many good things about this book I had to have it. Now that I've read it I am less enthusiastic. It is a OK SF book and I'm sure it was well ahead of it's time in the 1950s. His "Gateway" books are better.

Good sci. fict. novel.

The Space Merchants is still relevant after 7 decades since publication. Pohl’s and Kornbluth’s observations of where corporate influence on the political system were very prescient. But the novel is quite dated regarding gender roles and the complete absence of any role for computers. Regardless, this is still an interesting read. I’m sure I’ll eventually read Pohl’s follow-up, The Merchant’s War.

This possibly the ur-text for advertising/consumer-driven dystopian futures.

It's a shame that the story isn't told all that well. It's difficult to determine, at times, whether the authors had planned the entire thing out from the start, or just started making things up every time they got bored. To be fair, there are no glaring plotholes, and the story is satisfyingly concluded. It just feels a bit slapdash, like a cheap crime novel from the same period.

Genre writing, eh?

When Advertising Rules the World

The dystopian satire The Space Merchants ranks as one of the best Science Fiction novels of all time, compared in importance to Brave New World by some critics for good reason. Pohl (1919-2013) and Kornbluth (1923-1958) present a plausible world of extreme consumerism in which the ne plus ultra profession is advertising, because of its power to convince consumers, the people, that they live in a Panglossian best of all possible worlds. It diverts their attention from reality, that they really live in a world plagued by overpopulation, environmental ruin, gross inequality, and scarcity of basic resources, a world in which corporations and wealth reign supreme. These themes remain with us to this day and though some have been mitigated all remain urgent issues worldwide.

Mitch Courtenay is a star-class copywriter at one of the most prominent and powerful ad agencies, Fowler Schocken. This puts him at the pinnacle of the agency and the corporate world that controls the U.S. (though he can only afford an apartment about the size of a closet). Through much skullduggery, the business process of the day, Fowler Schocken wins the right to colonize and then exploit the resources of Venus. Mitch gets the assignment of persuading consumers that Venus is a potential paradise, a place where they can have everything they can’t have on Earth. Mitch, though, faces two problems: his rivals within his own agency and a competing mega agency, and the desire to resume his relationship with Kathy before their one-year trial marriage contract expires. As Mitch ramps up the project and courts Kathy, he finds himself shanghaied, stripped of his identity and status, and shipped off to a food processing colony in Central America.

There he hooks up with the bane of the advertising and corporate elite, the consies. The consies, slag for conservationists, are an underground radical movement that stand in direct opposition to every thing the corporate elite promote. They seek a world with clean air and water and basic equality. He decides to join up as a ploy to get back to New York and reestablish himself at Fowler Schocken and take his revenge on his opponents. However, the table turns on him when he discovers that, among other things, Kathy is a leading consie and that the wedge between them has been his loyalty to a debased system. In the end, he wins back his leadership position and uses it to give Kathy what she most desires, the right to colonize Venus as a consie world. The novel concludes on Venus with their relationship restored, a new world growing, and Mitch as just an ordinary guy.

The pleasure of the novel isn’t so much the intrigue, of which there is plenty, but the graphic world portrayed by Pohl and Kornbluth, best epitomized by extreme branding and loyalty to brands and products like coffiest, a narcotic based version of coffee that like cigarettes addicts consumers from childhood to death. Even if you are not ordinarily a fan of the Science Fiction genre, you may enjoy the authors’ extrapolation of a consumerist society gone wild.

A bit dated (despite it being the "Revised 21st century edition, which basically means mentions of Enron and AIG). I would have loved more context and less individual adventure stuff. A good and fun read though, even with all the loose ends.

The world is governed by large corporations, consumerism dominates everything, and the means is through advertising pushed to extremes, capable not only of convincing the public to consume a particular product but also of making them irreparably addicted. It was published in 1953 (not in 1901) and today it is shockingly relevant. (Translated from Spanish)

There's talk these days of good retro-scifi, and in its own way I think this accidentally fits. Not because it's retro - it was written in its time - but because it has that perfect blend of 50's vernacular with future society problems. Pohl and Kornbluth took a stab at what the future would look like, and for all that they failed and missed with, they still managed to hit a few things dead on. A good read.

Published in 1952 this novel is included in the Science fiction masterwork series. It is science fiction very much of it’s time with its central hero Mitch Courtenay bulldozing his way through seemingly impossible odds to marry the girl of his dreams while defeating all his enemies. It is also a very fast paced thriller which despite its title is very much earthbound. What makes it stand out from the crowd of science fiction writing of the time is the scenario of an America (and the world) in hock to advertising corporations that shape society in order to increase sales. They have become so powerful that they control the government and in allegiance with production companies have addicted much of the population to their products. These huge companies’ creation of a totally free market driven by greed for more and more sales probably strikes a chord with some readers as it does not seem a million miles from our current situation. Perhaps then this short punchy novel lingers more in the realms of rosy reminiscence than actuality, because in my opinion it is not great science fiction.

It is written in the first person and starts off well in plunging the reader into the viscous world of a board room struggle at the Fowler Schoken associates who we are told have achieved a corporations dream by merging a whole sub continent into a single manufacturing complex. Mitch Courtenay gets to be named head of the latest project which is to control advertising and production for a manned space flight to Venus. He has to juggle his new responsibilities which include fending off the resentment of other unsuccessful executives with his prolonged courtship of Kathy who blows hot and cold and at the moment seems to be trying to avoid any commitment. It is very much a sort of here and now scenario with any background to the rise of the conglomerate companies kept to a minimum as the novel is intent in taking off on its path through action and adventure country. Not only does Mitch have to fend off attacks from within the company, but there is also a rival conglomerate who will stop at nothing to achieve their ends and in addition there is an underground group of “consies” the WCA or World Conservation Association. In no time at all there are attempts on Mitch’s life and he finds himself stripped of all authority working as a labourer amongst the slave like conditions of much of the addicted population. The rest of the story is the struggle to regain his position and an unconvincing conversion to the “consies” cause.

The book paints a picture of a dystopian future with a small minority of executive figures manipulating the lives of the vast majority of addicted consumers, but too much is taken for granted as far as this reader was concerned. We get glimpses of this future world which seem to me to serve more as a convenient background for the thrills of the action adventure and the working of the plot. It is in keeping with much American science fiction of the time with the central premise that energy, hard work and a dare devil approach to life will lead to success. In my opinion this novel deserves its position as one that stands out from the crowd (early 1950’s science fiction) because of its plethora of ideas and glimpses of a believable future and the writing is decent enough, but it wasn’t much of a crowd. A thriller dressed up as science fiction or science fiction that wants to be a fast paced thriller, it seems to be caught between the two and so 3.5 stars.

Dan Bittner did a fantastic job narrating this science fiction novel.

I don't know what I had expected, probably a space opera, but this sci fi book wasn't that. Some parts of its view of the future in which the United States society and government are run by advertising agencies made me laugh and others made me wince.

A classic science fiction tale written in 1952 of a dystopian future where advertising firms rule all.

Asides for the absence of wireless technology it would be hard to say this novel wasn't written today; it's a gloomy view of the future that seems closer today than in the 1950s in view of multinational companies and their ever growing mergers (eg Bayer-Monsanto controlling a good portion of the farming supply chain). Terrorism, cut throat unethical behaviour, dirty tactics, it's as relevant today as it was when it was written.

The story involves an advertising agency that steals an account from another firm for the habitation & colonisation of planet Venus, meanwhile the country struggles under the attacks of the World Conservationist Association who believe that reckless exploitation of natural resources has created needless poverty and human misery which will mean the end of human life on Earth if it continues unchecked.

There's a sequel called 'The Merchants War' also.

Having read this revised edition I know I read the original many years ago, but I have little memory of the older version except the encounter with the massive growing lump of chicken meat. It still has its attractions, good plot, points of satire, but I was not particularly absorbed until about two thirds of the way through. I enjoyed it and I can imagine it set a standard for other writers back in the 1950's.

This is an amazing work of speculative fiction. Originally written in 1952, it posits a world where consumerism rules (the highest ranking pooh-bahs being those in the advertising industry), senators do not represent people but corporations, and a vast mass of "consumers" are dominated by a very small elite class. So much in the dystopia resonates with the world we now live in, and the book was written even before the age popularized by "Mad Men"!

I did the love the book, but I can't give it 5 stars for the same weakness present in much science fiction: the authors create a highly intriguing universe, but the plot they set in motion sputters in comparison. A romance lies at the center of The Space Merchants, but it's not really very convincing. Further, the plot proceeds to an ending which is underwhelming.

Still, I'll remember this book for a long time.

"Consumerism is bad" and "advertisements are just capitalist propaganda" are two of those ideas that have been unoriginal and overdone since shortly after their conception, but the messages carry enough inevitable resonance with anyone living in the modern world that such sentiments can still be powerful when done right. Pohl is unfortunately not the man to do them right. Instead, Pohl gives us an equally unoriginal premise to go with these main ideas, namely a secret group of underground conspirators trying to bring the monolithic system down, with the book gradually revealing that nearly everyone of any importance has actually been a conspirator the whole time! By experiencing how the other half lives the narrator comes to learn that consumerism and capitalism isn't that great for everyone, and once he's been converted he gets the girl and life is looking up. Gee, thanks Mr. Pohl! Any nuance or creativity would've confused us readers! Do you think Pohl realized the irony in publishing a bland and entirely by-the-numbers science fiction book for mass consumption wherein he satirizes this exact sort of thing? My money is all on "no."

Lately I've been getting a big kick out of classic SF from the 1950s. The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth is a dystopia with a twist: it imagines a future ruled by advertising.
When star ad-man Mitch Courtenay (a sure inspiration for Mad Men's Don Draper) lands the job of insuring his agency is the first to get their claws into Venus, he discovers how brutal office politics can be: his identity is stole from him and he's hurled to the back of the rat race his world has become.
Recent developments in lab-grown meat make this book's most famous episode (concerning a monster known as 'Chicken Little') more topical than ever. But this snappy, thrilling satire would be a treat anytime.

It was ok for a beginning SF novel. This particular copy had been edited for the 21 century though. Just couldn't get into the characters and it left me feeling like "so what?" with their lives. I had to read it for a class so no harm done.

Space Merchants is the story of how the US could be. In the futuristic society where advertising is king: the little people are still the ones to suffer. It takes living as one of the lower classes for one of the upper classmen to understand what it means...but it doesn't mean he has to change.

A fun book with some hilarious plot twists--a good quick read. :)

I really enjoyed this cynical and satirical sci fi novel. It's about Mitchell Courtenay, a high ranking ad exec in a futuristic American society dominated by advertising. Indeed, it's virtually un-patriotic to not adhere to advertising's role in society. Mitch is given the assignment of leading his firm's intention of colonizing Venus, even though it's not remotely habitable, by making American suckers go there based on his expertise in advertising. The book starts taking some bizarre twists at that stage, leading to his being essentially kidnapped and put to work as a "crumb," a common consumer, his escape, his workings with the Consies, or conservations, a Greenpeace-like group which attempts to overcome America's fixation with rampant consumerism and its negative impact on the world, and more.

This book was written 60 years ago, but it was seriously ahead of its time. To quote another Goodreads member, Nancy Oakes wrote:

"Awesome book! Hard to believe this was written like 50+ years ago, because it is so incredibly relevant to our modern times. For example: it takes a look at the dangers of imperialistic corporations & greed, the plight of workers and the ungodly conditions under which some of them have to work, the clear and unmistakeable division of class in society, the total lack of concern for the environment and the treatment of those who care about it and want change."

This book is frighteningly applicable to our current times. Pohl (the book was co-written with CM Kornbluth) was a true visionary. The satire is witty and funny. One scene that had me laughing was Mitch's dissing of Moby Dick due to its lack of advertising. LOL! My only complaint, and the reason I'm only giving it four out of five stars, is that the scene transitions are often lacking. You're in a scene and then, boom, something happens in the course of a sentence to radically change the plot and you're left picking up the pieces, trying to figure out what just happened. This occurs several times in the book and I found it very distracting. Nonetheless, it was a good, quick read and I heartily recommend this book.

This follows Mitchell Courtenay, and the television series Mad Men has nothing on this advertising executive of the future trying to sell the idea of colonizing Venus. This is a world where Advertising executives are the ruling class--and the rest of the gray mass are "consumers."

OK, at the risk of being labeled a capitalist tool without a sense of humor, I have to admit I don't like this book, while seeing while it may appeal to some. This is a sharp satire of consumer culture and capitalism, and unlike many a science fiction work of its era, it's not too dated--some parts very current. I think because the critics of capitalism have been saying the same thing about it--and it's defenders--forever. I'm no fan really of the kind of books that make Big Business the villain, I'm rather sick of them and how predictable they read, but mostly I was amused not irritated in the first half--I found this particular passage...well, resonant of attitudes of some:

The Conservationists were fair game, those wild-eyed zealots who pretended modern civilization was in some way "plundering" our planet. Preposterous stuff. Science is always a step ahead of the failure of natural resources. After all, when meat got scarce, we had soyburgers ready. When oil ran low, technology developed the pedicab.

And the picture Pohl and Kornbluth painted of a dystopic society was imaginative--even if I was sick of the gazillionth novel that tells us our future is soy burgers--although this should be forgiven because back then it might have been original. This was published in 1952. What made me lose patience actually is when the authors gave us a bit of the Consies (the Conservationists) Samizdat. The rift on demanding "planning of population, reforestation, soil-building, deurbanization, and the end to the wasteful production of gadgets" *clutches etablet* made me think of the Unabomber's treatise--and these are obviously supposed to be the good guys. The novel just stopped being even a little bit fun for me after absorbing that. I think if it had stuck to a satirical view of selling Venus, I'd have enjoyed it more, and even mulled over its points more. I think Sayers' Murder Must Advertise is a funnier, and more effective, critique of the advertising world. Bottom line: I can't honestly say I like this novel, even though I could see recommending it to a friend who finds this worldview more congenial.

This is a book that has aged well. The first half is way better than the last one and the prose seems somewhat disjointed in the second half comparatively, but even then this was a good experience.

It has a dystopian setting where the world is divided essentially in two parts. The producers and the consumers. Mitchell Courtenay works with Fowler Schocken Associates which is an advertising agency and is assigned the ad campaign that would attract colonists to Venus; more accurately, duping them to believe what an opportunity and comfort Venus presented.

While the story is interesting in itself, I was more fascinated by the backdrop that Pohl and Kornbluth created with extraordinary flair and brilliance - and that too 59 years ago!

Let me just give you a glimpse of that world.

There is immense air pollution and people either use soot-extractor nostril plugs or a bulky oxygen helmet outdoors. Over population is a major problem and space is so dear that ordinary people sleep on stairs of high-rise buildings. Meat is grown chemically and harvested to feed ever growing population. Water is scarce and very expensive and so on.

Again consider the fact that this book was written 59 years ago, so it was really really way ahead of its time. And to top it all off, the tone is satirical.

A very strong 3 stars.

It's almost like watching a sci-fi version of Mad Men. It's a story in a consumerist future Earth, where everything is driven by advertising. The beginning is a bit slow and confusing, because not much is actually explained, but once the plot starts to take some crazy turns it becomes a fabulous ride.

Perhaps this book is not so popular these days, but I love it nonetheless. It's has a lot to say about the despicable nature of marketing, which is great because I just hate marketing :) That said, it's a deep novel with lots of interesting characters. Highly recommended for fans of classic SF with a strong message.

Love this book - 1950's sci-fi classic, so on the ball about advertising and Chicken Little 50 years out. Prescient. Found out Frederick Pohl, who is now in his 90s, blogs over at thewaythefutureblogs.com. Too much fun.

A great short work of science fiction that satirizes the advertising industry. A classic must read for anyone who loves science fiction.

Reading this novel felt like an episode of Mad Men, played out on an old-time radio show, in the future. The Space Merchants is about a future where consumerism is king and Mitch Courtenay is tasked with selling a new product - Venus. The writing was easy to read and fast paced. I was never bored and the length of this book was just right. Coming in a only 158 pages, this novel was as long as it had to be. The details definitely date this book to the 1950's but that, in my opinion, is a large part of its appeal. The action was intense while the imagery was still vivid. I highly recommend this book to any sci-fi fans out there.