PLATINUM POHL

A thrilling collection of stories spanning Pohl’s 50-year career.

Featuring memorable characters and deft writing, these tales are must-reads for any serious fan. “The Merchants of Venus” features a vagabond pilot desperate for money for a new liver. “The Gold at the Starbow’s End” tells a wonderfully layered story through communiqués between a doomed exploratory spaceship and its unenthusiastic funders on Earth. In the poignant “To See Another Mountain,” ailing nonagenarian genius Noah Sidorenko discovers that even an old, damaged mind can accomplish incredible feats. The collection ends with the Hugo Award–winning “Fermi and Frost,” written near the end of the Cold War, which with horrifying realism demonstrates the effects of a nuclear war on Earth through the experiences of two survivors: an orphaned boy and a SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) scientist.

A fine sampler.