McCann, Edson
Entry updated 18 November 2024. Tagged: Author.
Pseudonym used by Frederik Pohl and Lester del Rey for the single novel Preferred Risk (June-September 1955 Galaxy; 1955), which was hurriedly written for a Galaxy Science Fiction novel competition because no acceptable outside submission had been received. Cast in the same mould as Pohl's and C M Kornbluth's The Space Merchants (July-August 1952 Galaxy as "Gravy Planet"; rev and cut 1953), it features a world dominated by vast insurance companies in the place of the Pohl and Kornbluth novel's Advertising agencies. The insurance theme proved less hospitable to effective Satire, although there is some mildly comic play with a character possessing the Superpower of cellular Regeneration, who can lose limbs repeatedly and lodge a profitable insurance claim on each occasion. [BS/DRL]
"Edson McCann"
works
- Preferred Risk: A Science Fiction Novel (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955) [first appeared June-September 1955 Galaxy: hb/Dick Dodge]
links
previous versions of this entry