A quiet Labor Day; Fred Pohl, RIP

View 788 Monday, September 02, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 31, 2009

It has been a pleasant day to spend with family and friends. The end of summer. Time to put away my white pants – which I guess I never wore this year. Sable is still happy most of the time, and we had a pleasant walk in the evening just before sundown. And Time Warner made peace with CBS so I don’t have to make a change in cable companies or worry about getting a better antenna…

Fred Pohl, RIP

Fred was one of the first of the legendary writers I met after I started hanging around science fiction conventions in the 1960’s, and one of the first to befriend me when I turned pro. He had an intuitive grasp of science, and no actual education. This was generally more than good enough, and in fact his lack of formal education allowed him a free reign of imagination that many can’t have, but it also led him to make some pretty dreadful scientific mistakes that marred otherwise really great works. It also led him to believe some strange misconceptions about the world of war, and we quarreled over several of those. What we didn’t quarrel about was the writing profession. Fred was scrupulously honest his opinions, and could and did change his views when presented with the right evidence. It just took patience. And I suspect he understood QED better than I did.

When I left office as President of SFWA one of my tasks was to insure that the outfit would be headed by conscientious writers who understood the professional aspects of a writer’s life. That made the decision simple: I talked Fred into running for the office. He accepted on the condition that I would continue to do certain tasks I had undertaken as president, and we worked together splendidly. I always looked forward to seeing Fred at conventions and at the annual get together put on by the Writers of the Future, and I was sad when his health got bad enough that he stopped coming to them; and of course neither of us have gone to many conventions in this millennium, so we have seldom seen each other for a decade and more. But I’ll damned well miss him. He was one of the giants.

http://io9.com/rip-frederik-pohl-the-man-who-transformed-science-fict-1241405614