Pohl, Frederik

The Merchant's War [Signed copy, sequel to The Space Merchants, corporate satire, Cold War–era science fiction]

New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Signed Frederik Pohl sequel to The Space Merchants, sharp corporate satire in mass-market format.

A signed mass-market paperback of Pohl’s return to the advertising-dominated future first imagined with C. M. Kornbluth. Issued at a time when The Space Merchants was being rediscovered by a new generation of readers, this edition brings Pohl’s sharpened late-career voice to one of science fiction’s most enduring satirical worlds.

The bindings are tight and square. Text is clean; light, even age-toning. Minor lower spine creasing, unread appearance overall. Cover remains bright with strong color saturation and no losses. Signed on the title page by Frederik Pohl. Second printing of the St. Martin’s Press mass-market edition.

The Merchants’ War extends the world of The Space Merchants into a future where advertising agencies, corporate states, and consumer manipulation have only grown more sophisticated. Pohl revisits themes of manufactured desire, ecological collapse, and political control through commerce, but with a more reflective and sardonic tone shaped by decades of observing real-world media culture. The novel reads briskly, with satirical set-pieces that balance humor and unease, reinforcing Pohl’s reputation as one of science fiction’s most incisive social critics.

Frederik Pohl was a central figure in mid-20th-century American science fiction, both as a writer and editor, and The Space Merchants remains one of the genre’s definitive corporate dystopias. The Merchants’ War is significant as a late sequel that does not merely repeat the premise but reframes it for a more cynical, media-saturated age. There has been long-standing interest in adapting The Space Merchants for film or television, but there is no major film adaptation of The Merchants’ War.

Subjects: power, advertising culture, consumerism, political satire, future societies, media manipulation, sience fiction, dystopian fiction, satirical fiction.

Item #21386

Price: $34.00