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The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast - Vintage Sci-Fi Short Stories
The Engineer by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth - Short Sci Fi Story From the 1950s
Ep. 211
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The Big Wheels of tomorrow will be men who can see the big picture. But blowouts have small beginnings… The Engineer by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, that’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.
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Today’s story was written by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth. Pohl has been on the podcast before but this marks Kornbluth’s debut. Born and raised in New York he learned to read by the age of three, wrote his own stories by the time he was seven, graduated from high school at thirteen, received a CCNY scholarship at fourteen, and was "thrown out for leading a student strike" without graduating. As a teenager, he became a member of the Futurians, an influential group of science fiction fans and writers. That’s where he met and became friends with Frederik Pohl, Donald A. Wollheim, Robert Lowndes, and his future wife Mary Byers.
He wrote a handful of stories before the war and then penned 8 novels and more than 80 short stories.
Kornbluth was scheduled to interview for the position of editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He was running late because he had to shovel snow from his driveway and ran to meet his train, he suffered a fatal heart attack on the platform. He was only 34 years old.
Today’s story can be found on page 112 of Infinity Science Fiction in February 1956, The Engineer by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth…
Next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Anybody who wanted to escape death could, by paying a very simple price—denial of life! The Moon is Green by Fritz Leiber.
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