Book Review: Pohl & Kornbluth -- Gladiator-at-Law

This is an old review I posted to Amazon a couple of years ago, but I seem to have missed posting it to my LJ at the time.

Frederick Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth -- Gladiator-at-Law

Pohl and Kornbluth's's sharp satire of the consumer society and corporate corruption of government is as relevant today as when it was first published 50 years ago. "Gladiator at law" describes a possible future for the 1950s in which the working and middle classes are kept under control by the threat of losing their job and with it their tied housing--and the unemployed masses are kept quiescent with bread and circuses, Roman style. Reality tv may not have gone quite as far as the entertainment for the proles depicted in this novel, and science fiction is an exploration of possible futures rather than a prediction of an actual future, but Pohl and Kornbluth's depiction of one of those potential futures is uncomfortably close to present day reality.

There are some nicely drawn characters, and a realistic look at the hazards of battling powerful vested interests -- while there is a happy ending, it comes at a price. The novel is short by today's standards, but a good read, and well worth hunting down a copy at a reasonable price.

GLADIATOR AT LAW at amazon.com
Gladiator-at-law (Classic Science Fiction S.) at amazon.co.uk
Gladiator-at-law (Gollancz hardcover) at amazon.co.uk
paperback at Powells

Paperwork, paperwork...

lindsey_mullen and I went through the info worksheet for Yule today. This stuff usually gets done at a much earlier stage, but since the story's part of a set with a standard cover throughout, there wasn't a need to get the worksheet done before the art was prepared. Draft cover blurb under the cut -- very much subject to change once the relevant people get done with it, but as I've said very little about this story so far, it'll give a few readers a sneak preview of what the story's about in return for wading through my usual navel-gazing posts. :-) An excerpt's been selected, but that needs to go to Ye Ed for approval before being released upon the world.

Very erratic work on the current WIP, but the middle story of the trio is now at 6600 words.

( draft blurb for Yule -- contemporary gay romance )