The Space Merchants

In the future, instead of the two-party monopoly, there is a two-COMPANY monopoly. Instead of 95% of citizens/consumers voting for either a Democrat or Republican, they either buy only Starzellius products or only Tauton products.The quality of life has deteriorated to the extent that it is worse for the rich and powerful executives of these two companies than for a middle class person today. Most people rarely get real meat or cheese. Most people can't afford cars. People are guilty until proven innocent.The whole point of the book is to demonstrate how bad life could become if businesses had more power than government. However, the book never explains how life became that bad. Nor does it explain why these things wouldn't happen even sooner if government had more power than businesses.Remember, this book was written in 1952, which was before the authors would have known that the unbearable future they foresaw after 200 years at the hands of businesses was already a reality in Communist countries.Nevertheless, it is a very good and humorous story about what the future could hold if too much power were in the hands of too few.

In my opinion, a good SyFy story reflects the time period when it's written while forecasting a plausible future. The Space Merchants accomplishes both of these feats. I first read a version of the story in Galaxy Magazine back in the 1950's. Recently, I read the updated version and was pleasantly surprised at how well the story stood up 70 years later. Of course, the writing reflects some the sexism of the time, but the portrayal of the effects of marketing on social mores (while satirical) is spot on. Also, as as ex Ad Agency Guy, I appreciated the parody of ad agency politics.

Excellent story by one of the founders of the Futurian Club, a group of science fiction fans and writers in New York City. The book has some great satire, for 1953 that is. Too much of the satire has become cliché over the years so it has less of an impact on 21st century sensibilities. Mr. Pohl’s slight revisions added back some of the flavor of the original satire but it’s sort of like eating a stale taco chip or watching the same SNL skit for the tenth time. That said, "The Space Merchants" isn’t just a 1953 satirical novel. It’s a great story as well and perfectly hits some hard science fiction buttons while lampooning others. And it’s a short read by today’s standards. I’m glad Mr. Pohl didn’t succumb to the expansion virus when he revised this edition (St. Martin’s Griffin). Who really wants to read 500 pages of the same stuff? All in all, Mr. Pohl wrote a story with a Futurian consciousness that meets—and sometimes exceeds—the high standards set during the Golden Age.

Great dystopian book. There's one scene that I have a hard time reading. Ee-ugh. But an interesting supposition of humanity's future (based off of current events in the authors time) but written in the 60s (?) and eerily close to being possible, despite being written so long ago. That's what I like about old dystopian works, they were more about socio-economic impact on the future v. the science and technology we see in modern dystopian works.

Written 50 years ago, you might expect this book, set in "the future", to be hopelessly trite and dated, but it holds up remarkably well. If anything, many of the issues in the book resonate more today than they may have when it was first published. The characters are believable and well constructed, and Pohl gives them a story to tell that moves quickly. He avoids the pitfalls of some authors who write future-based morality plays -- there's no preaching or sidebar pontificating here, just a very good read. My only complaint is that I wish it had been longer!

An awesome story of the future were advertisement is king but without giving away any plot you will journey with the protagonist from having it all to fighting for his life back, and seeing his views change the deeper he gets.

I was assigned this book for my English class and thought I would hate it. Turns out it was actually a really good book! The plot was different from that I had expected and it was really more of a pleasure read than an assignment. If you're into the whole futuristic and advertising/marketing idea, READ IT.

This book was written in 1952 and is showing its age as a science fiction book. The future this novel shows does not match the world as we know it now. I am aware that this book is one of the best known and loved science fiction novels from the 1950s. The plot moves fairly fast and the characters are realistic. Still, the world the exist in does not register to me as being realistic. I cannot recommend it unless you are deep into science fiction novels of the 1950s.

Hadn't realised Gollancz was republishing its SF titles. That yellow dust jacket on Public Library shelves was the hallmark of reading pleasure when I devoured SF in my early teens. This was as good and as bad as much SF was then. I shall purchase more.

Er; I wasn't too impressed, given the impression that this was the greatest science fiction novel ever (see the last paragraph for a redemption on this opening statement). It simply isn't. For someone who had worked in the advertising business, the author gave every product and institution in this novel the most grinding and awkward names possible. He was either aiming to be irritating or simply lacked imagination or style. I don't know which.The plot's OK, it's workmanlike and it sparkles from time to time but it isn't great writing.The concept is pretty straightforward, you have to accept it was written around 1952, but even so, it only has one thing going for it. And, some of the paltry ideas of how one might live in such a dystopian future are genuinely disappointing.Having said that; it is a bold statement, given the time it was written, when the immediate post-war US consumer economy was bursting forth unstoppably. And, to stand in its way was to be denounced as an enemy of the state, which is exactly what it is about, is the foresight that makes it prophetic, but not necessarily science fiction.

I urge everyone to read this. Like madmen meets NASA. Kornbluth was a genius. Netflix should pick this up.

A must read for consumer sheep! Still relevant, still exposing the myths of consumerism.

Good quality, would repeat