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

[julesjones]

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

Comments

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I read that over thirty years ago and remember greatly enjoying it, though the details of the plot now totally escape me. It's a pity that Kornbluth died young, as he and Pohl produced some sharply satirical and alarming plausible visions of the near future.

[julesjones]

I must have first read it about twenty-five years ago, but a library copy rather than my own. I probably hadn't read it for at least a decade when I found a copy in the second-hand shop a couple of years ago, and when I re-read it I found it as sharp as ever -- and reality that much closer to what they depicted. I'd lent it and my copy of The Space Merchants to a friend last year, and I've only just got them back -- putting their details into my LibraryThing account was what prompted me to post the review. I too regret Kornbluth's early death -- more of those books would have been a Good Thing.