Day Million

This took me a little while to get through the book. Overall, the stories are hit-or-miss and very few stuck around in my head for any length of time. My favorite story was Schematic Man. It was a tale in conversational form, a nice short one, about a man who has transcribed his mind to computer storage with a disturbing ending. I also liked Day Million, a “love story” where the pair of lovers are only connected via a VR simulacrum of the other. One of the two would be considered transgendered. I was impressed by the progressive attitude of the story as it was first published in the 1960's.
There are also bits here-and-there that I found interesting.
The tapes had only four sounds – a “white” hiss as they entered, a five-minute show more 420-cycle whine for conversation, an ecstatic eep! eep! And an infrasonic drone diminishing at the end. It was the mind of the patron that put meaning into the electronic squeal, just as it was his mind that painted features on the caricature of a face and saw landscapes in the abstract play of light on the walls. [pg.65]
This passage reminds me of listening to Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, which I have done several times, the last time, about two weeks ago.
The colonel threw himself into a chair, breathing hard. “Later,” he said. “Oh, that roar! You have to come and hear it for yourself, Sutherland. But let me get my breath first. Grogan takes a lot out of you, you know. There’s plenty of them that can put out a dull beat, but for real emptiness there’s nobody like Grogan.” [pgs.83-84]
It Almost seems as if Pohl was predicting a combination of punk rock and hip-hop. However, that passage is from a story, Way Up Yonder, that I didn’t like very much. It’s a plantation drama with African slaves replaced with robots who practice ultrasonic voodoo in the dark while the other side in an interplanetary civil war brainwashes the leadership of this inexplicably antebellum Southern plantation planet through subliminal soundwaves hidden in transgressive music. It sounds much cooler than it was.
Which brings us to my least favorite stories. It’s a Young World, an adventure story where it follows a primitive tribesman as he avoids enemies and becomes a council member or something like that, it sucks. Under Two Moons, the last story in the book, was a future super-spy story which I just felt was blah. My least favorite story was Speed Trap. I found it uninteresting and utterly boring, I can’t even remember anything about it and I’m not going to try to refresh my memory either.
Overall, this book was okay. But I don’t think I would recommend it to anyone either, there are some interesting ideas in here but the reading experience for me was just bland. show less

This collection of Frederik Pohl stories left me disappointed. The title story "Day Million," which describes a brief courtship in a far future very different from today, is the best of the bunch. "Small Lords," about a group of explorers that encounter small, but deadly problems on an uncharted planet, and ""Way Up Yonder,"" about a plantation planet during an interstellar war, were passable. The rest were middling to worse. The final story, "Under Two Moons," was a James Bond spoof that seemed to be almost deliberately awful; only a very funny scene where the hero met the arch villain across the casino table for a high stakes game of . . . Monopoly! saved this story from a truly awful rating. "Speed Trap" is based on an idea that the show more brothers Strugatsky would use much more effectively in their novel Definitely Maybe. In sum, a few decent stories, but far from Pohl at his best. show less

Collection of short stories by Golden Age writer Frederik Pohl. I'm a fan of some of his novels. But like many writers his short stories are a mixed bag. This collection is mostly average. I really like the satirical story "Under Two Moons"

Day Million
The Deadly Mission of P. Snodgrass
The Day the Martians Came
Schematic Man
Small Lords
Making Love
Way Up Yonder
Speed Trap
It's a Young World
Under Two Moons

It even has the phrase "met cute" in it. I wonder if trans ppl think it's ok.... V. concise, no time to go into anything except to make a quick point that in the future gender identity and relations will be different.

(Just the short story, not the whole collection.)

Indeholder "Introduction", "Day Million", "The Deadly Mission of P. Snodgrass", "The Day the Martians Came", "Schematic Man", "Small Lords", "Making Love", "Way Up Yonder", "Speed Trap", "It's a Young World", "Under Two Moons".

"Introduction" handler om ???
"Day Million" er et gæt på verden om 1000 år hvis udviklingen fortsætter med at gå stærkere og stærkere.
"The Deadly Mission of P. Snodgrass" handler om en tidsrejsende, der bringer penicilin og andre lignende gode teknologier til Rom ca år 1. Det resulterer i en eksponentiel befolkningsvækst, så man i 1970 i den grad ville have brugt alle jordens resourcer, solens med og mere endnu, så man sender en tidsrejsende tilbage i tiden og dræber den første.
"The Day the Martians show more Came" handler om en ekspedition til Mars, der vender tilbage og har marsboere med - det skildres helt udramatisk gennem Mr Mandala som er moteldirektør.
"Schematic Man" handler om ???
"Small Lords" handler om ???
"Making Love" handler om ???
"Way Up Yonder" handler om ???
"Speed Trap" handler om der mon faktisk er et formål med at man spilder al ens produktive tid på møder og den slags.
"It's a Young World" handler om ???
"Under Two Moons" handler om ???

??? show less