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From: wrd@tekigm2.UUCP (Bill Dippert)
Newsgroups: net.books,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: review, Frederik Pohl's "The Merchants' War"
Message-ID: <490@tekigm2.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 12:36:18 EST
Article-I.D.: tekigm2.490
Posted: Tue Mar 11 12:36:18 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 07:24:27 EST
References: <220@msudoc.UUCP> <381@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR
Lines: 34
Keywords: Frederik Pohl, review, "The Merchants' War"
Xref: watmath net.books:3164 net.sf-lovers:12716

In article <381@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>, norman@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Norman Ramsey) writes:
> In article <220@msudoc.UUCP> ctj@msudoc.UUCP (Chris Johnson) writes:
> >Frederik Pohl's "The Merchants' War"
> >
> >Blurb:  Great advertising agencies still dominate the world and control
> >all governments and every aspect of human behavior.  When a handful of
> 
> Would someone knowledgable care to comment on the relationship between this
> work and Pohl and Kornbluth's classic _The_Space_Merchants_?
> 
> -- 
> Norman Ramsey     norman@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu       Pianist at Large

Space Merchants tells the story of the Fowler Schocken Associates advertising
agency and the early attempts by the Consies to subvert various things.  It
goes into the start of the colonizing of Venus.  It also sets the stage by
showing as an example how the agency can command a joint session of congress
and the President of the U.S. cannot.  It also shows the early influence of
corporations by showing that the Representatives/Senators represent industries
and not the states or the population.

Merchant's War carries this theme into the distant future.  Venus is now
colonized and the triumphant ad agencies have basically taken over everything.
They control totally Congress, the military, the political parties, etc.
Fowler Schocken by this time is revered as a god of the ad agencies and
it carries on with the Consie vs ad agency theme to a more or less logically
conclusion.

This is written after I have just re-read SM and read MW.  I am sure that
I have missed some of the more subtle points, but essentially MW is the
logical sequel to SM, although the characters are different, due to the
difference in the time frame.

--Bill--