Remembering Frederik Pohl

September 4, 2013

Science Fiction Grand Master Fred Pohl passed away on September 2, at age 93.

“I called Fred the ‘essential’ science fiction author. In much the same way that the other ‘pole’ of science fiction — Poul Anderson — was the greatest natural storyteller I ever knew, Fred Pohl was the SF writer who cared most about the gedankenexperiment or what-if thought experiment,” notes scientist/futurist/science-fiction author David Brin in a moving tribute.

“Fred would start with a question: ‘what if ____?’ and fill in some fascinating possibility. Only then the magic would ensue as he fleshed out a vivid world of possible consequences from that one whatif — consequences that might be good, bad, and weird, but always strikingly plausible. […]

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