Frederik Pohl
From Philosopedia
Frederik Pohl (26 November 1919 - )
Pohl, a freelance/self-employed writer, was born in New York City, the son of salesman Fred George and Anna Jane (Mason) Pohl.
Although he attended Brooklyn Tech High School, he dropped out at the age of 14 during the Great Depression and never graduated.
While a teenager, he co-founded the Futurians fan group and became lifelong friends with Isaac Asimov, Donald Wollheim, and others interested in science fiction.
In 1936, he joined the Young Communist League (UCL), agreeing with its stand in favor of trade unions and against racial prejudice, Mussolini, and Hitler. After being president of the YCL's Flatbush III Branch in Brooklyn, he left following the 1939 Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact.
Pohl has been married five times. In 1940 his first marriage, to Leslie Perri, ended in a 1944 divorce. In 1945 while both were serving in Europe, he married Dorothy LesTina in Paris, and the marriage ended in 1947. In 1948 he married Judith Merrill, divorcing in 1952. He married Carol Ulf in 1953. He has fathered five children - Ann (m. Walter Weary); Karen (m. Robert Dixon); Frederik III (deceased); Frederik IV; and Kathy. Divorced in 1981, he then married Elizabeth Anne Hull in 1984. His grandchildren include writer Emily Pohl-Weary.
A Unitarian and Democrat, Pohl has maintained a website that includes his biography, his works, events, and a blog.
The Last Theorem (2008), written with Arthur C. Clarke, is about a man's mathematical obsession and a celebration of the human spirit and the scientific method.
The Boy Who Would Live Forever (2004) has the positive message that humans can learn to live with extraordinary challenges. The plot describes how humans as they spread through space ally themselves with the alien Heechee, then realize that they now have the option of having their personalities preserved forever electronically in the company of dazzlingly accomplished AIs, but this involves deciding what to keep and what to give up.
In addition to the above two, Pohl has written thirty novels.
His sci-fi series include seven: Undersea Trilogy (with Jack Williamson); Heechee; Eschaton; Mars; Saga of Cuckoo (with Jack Williamson); Starchild Trilogy (with Jack Williamson); and Space Merchants.
His non-fiction includes Tiberius (1960, written as Ernst Mason); Practical Politics 1972 (1971); Science Fiction Studies in Film (1981, with Frederick Pohl IV); Our Angry Earth (1991, with Isaac Asimov); and Chasing Science: Science as Spectator Sport (2000).
Pohl lives in Palatine, Illinois.
(See New York Times article (22 August 2009) by Susan Dominus.)
