The Space Merchants

No cover — Frederik Pohl, C. M. Kornbluth: The Space Merchants (Paperback, 2011, Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Griffin)

Paperback

English language

Published April 23, 2011 by Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Griffin.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-00015-6
OCLC Number:: 1037472991

(1 review)

In a vastly overpopulated near-future world, businesses have taken the place of governments and now hold all political power. States exist merely to ensure the survival of huge transnational corporations. Advertising has become hugely aggressive and boasts some of the world's most powerful executives.

Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that all the products on the market improve the quality of life. However, the most basic elements are incredibly scarce, including water and fuel.

The planet Venus has just been visited and judged fit for human settlement, despite its inhospitable surface and climate; colonists would have to endure a harsh climate for many generations until the planet could be terraformed.

Mitch Courtenay is a star-class copywriter in the Fowler Schocken advertising agency and has been assigned the ad campaign that would attract colonists to Venus, but a lot more is happening than he knows about. Mitch is …

In a vastly overpopulated near-future world, businesses have taken the place of governments and now hold all political power. States exist merely to ensure the survival of huge transnational corporations. Advertising has become hugely aggressive and boasts some of the world's most powerful executives.

Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that all the products on the market improve the quality of life. However, the most basic elements are incredibly scarce, including water and fuel.

The planet Venus has just been visited and judged fit for human settlement, despite its inhospitable surface and climate; colonists would have to endure a harsh climate for many generations until the planet could be terraformed.

Mitch Courtenay is a star-class copywriter in the Fowler Schocken advertising agency and has been assigned the ad campaign that would attract colonists to Venus, but a lot more is happening than he knows about. Mitch is soon thrown into a world of danger, mystery, and intrigue, where the people in his life are never quite what they seem, and his loyalties and core beliefs will be put to the test. --back cover

3 editions

[email protected] reviewed The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl

Big Brother is selling advertising

4 stars

This 1952 novel has new currency in the age of surveillance capitalism. Pohl and Kornbluth conjure a dystopian future where the advertising industry has come to dominate human affairs. Politicians no longer represent districts, they are instead controlled by one of several all-powerful advertising conglomerates. Anyone who speaks against sales and marketing is immediately suspect as some sort of traitor or terrorist. When a new industrial project is developed, it is not owned by the traditional industrial leaders, like the factory maven or the shareholders. Instead, the company which advertises the product has control.

The biggest ad agency takes it to a new level when an international plan is hatched to modernise and industrialise India. The ad company ends up effectively running the country, which is now referred to as "Indiastries". Then they move on to the ultimate prize - the colonisation of Venus. The dream/nightmare is of a whole …

This 1952 novel has new currency in the age of surveillance capitalism. Pohl and Kornbluth conjure a dystopian future where the advertising industry has come to dominate human affairs. Politicians no longer represent districts, they are instead controlled by one of several all-powerful advertising conglomerates. Anyone who speaks against sales and marketing is immediately suspect as some sort of traitor or terrorist. When a new industrial project is developed, it is not owned by the traditional industrial leaders, like the factory maven or the shareholders. Instead, the company which advertises the product has control.

The biggest ad agency takes it to a new level when an international plan is hatched to modernise and industrialise India. The ad company ends up effectively running the country, which is now referred to as "Indiastries". Then they move on to the ultimate prize - the colonisation of Venus. The dream/nightmare is of a whole planet where all affairs are completely dominated by advertising from the very first day the colony is established.

In 1952 the authors couldn't conceive of the internet, but the coercive control advertising now has over populations hypnotised by their personalised social media feeds, is redolent of the world Pohl and Kornbluth describe. The Martian fantasies of certain ego-maniacal billionaires in the real world of 2023 also make the scenario in this novel seem prophetic.

I knock off a star because the second half of the book loses some of the compelling storytelling rhythm established in the opening. But for its prescience this is well worth a read.