It is the 20th Century, an advertisement-drenched world in which the big ad agencies dominate governments and everything else. Now Schoken Associates, one of the big players, has a new challenge for star copywriter Mitch Courtenay. Volunteers are needed to colonise Venus. It's a hellhole, and nobody who knew anything about it would dream of signing up. But by the time Mitch has finished, they will be queuing to get on board the spaceships.
Author Biography
Pohl and Kornbluth started writing together as early as 1940, although both authors produced a wide variety of stories separately, under their own names and psuedonyms. Each wrote sections, starting where the other left off, and through long experience they developed an almost telepathic awareness of each other's intentions. Frederik Pohl was born in 1919 and has been professionally involved in sf as an editor and writer since his teens. Among his many books are A Plague of Pythons, Gateway, Man Plus and JEM: The Making of a Utopia. C.M. Kornbluth (1923-1958) was the bureau chief of a Chicago news agency until 1951 when he took up fiction writing full time. He established himself very quickly as a brilliant short-story writer with works such as 'The Little Black Bag', 'The Marching Morons', 'The Cosmic Charge Account' and 'Two Dooms'. Pohl and Kornbluth started writing stories together in 1940 and their collaborations include The Space Merchants, Search the Sky and Gladiators-at-Law.
