The Space Merchants - BookWyrm
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In this classic send-up of American commercialism, a near-future earth is resource-depleted but callously ruled by advertising, splitting society between all-powerful ad agencies & exploited consumers. Mitchell Courtenay is a glib ad-exec who has just landed the assignment of a lifetime: enticing consumers to colonize Venus. So what if the atmosphere reeks of formaldehyde, the ambient temperature boils water & the winds reach 500 mph? Here was a bright new tomorrow to sell. No one was better at convincing consumers to stake their futures on a hellhole than Mitch Courtenay. But Mitch no sooner dusts the confetti of victory from his shoulders when he discovers that his wife wants to end their trial marriage & that someone is out to kill him. Then his cushy existence is stolen outright when his ID tattoo is altered to the status of a lowly consumer. Rather than serve out a 5-year contract as a menial laborer, he skillfully connives his way back up the social chain to learn who wanted him dead. His suspects include everyone from his former co-workers to rival agencies & a rabid conservationist group called the Consies--even an astronaut out for his wife's affections. In a cutthroat world that would sell lead paint to children, Courtenay must out-fox, out-scam & out-run his enemies. As only an ad-man can. --front flap

I have a kind of specific fascination for proto-cyberpunk, generally stories that preceded the cyberpunk genre’s start and have most of the elements but aren’t quite there for one reason or another. I think it’s fascinating to see how these things form, to try to find strands of DNA through fiction. Writers, sometimes decades earlier, voicing the same complaints, identifying the same problems I associate specifically with cyberpunk.

The first one I thought I’d mention is a pretty safe bet: Frederik Pohl and C M. Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants

Written in 1952, this book has everything but the 1980s feel of a cyberpunk story: Megacities, corporate-states, corporate espionage, addiction-based-marketing, subscription-based-police, corporate citizenship in layers right down to indentured servitude, ecological collapse and a society that doesn’t care. Even the visuals of layered, overcrowded, continent-spanning cities.

But it feels like a 1950s science fiction story. It’s great; very slick and steeped in the language of marketing. That works really well for it. But it doesn’t feel like a cyberpunk story.

I think that’s part of the reason I find looking at these precursor stories so fascinating. Cyberpunk discussions often fold in on ‘is this even cyberpunk?’ and it can be really interesting to see something that has so many of the elements but is still something else.

Obviously these are all just my opinions, and I’d love to hear anyone else’s on this book.

Oh, one last opinion: If you’re going to get a paperback, get the 1976 version, it looks great.