Man Plus

In 1953, Frederick Pohl teamed with C.M. Kornbluth and wrote The Space Merchants, one of the greatest American SF novels of the 20th century. And since 19th century precursors would be few and far between and it is too early to start making such calls about the 21st century, I guess I could go ahead and say that Pohl and Kornbluth wrote one of the greatest American SF novels of all time.

Perhaps because Space Merchants is my only other contact with Frederick Pohl, I find myself overly disappointed by this stingily imagined 1976 novel of the first U.S. manned mission to Mars. In some unspecified near future, the world is falling apart. Natural disasters plague much of the planet, small wars break out regularly, and all the small ones seem to be building up to the next big one which will mean worldwide nuclear devastation. Some predictive computer modeling done by U.S. scientists has suggested that placing a man on Mars will be the sort of accomplishment to unite the planet in a kumbaya moment of shared hope for the future. To carry this out, a crack team of scientists is busily converting a volunteer astronaut into a cyborg capable of surviving in the Martian atmosphere. When the first subject strokes out from an overload sensory input, one Roger Torraway finds himself the next in line. Let the extreme body modifications begin.

Repeated surgeries do not make for much in the way of action, and Pohl builds minimal suspense into the plot. Torroway hads a beautiful wife who is having an affair with his best friend who is also head of the Man Plus team. This does not make for any particularly interesting situations, except for the instance when Brad, the friend, is down with the flu and so fails to tell the now barely human Roger that the current minor surgical procedure will remove his genitalia. It's an awkward moment for everyone involved.

Pohl does little to create a vision of his future world. Cars drive themselves and space flights are everyday events. The technology involved in Roger's transformation is sketched in, and the facility in which the Man Plus project takes place is a gleaming white cube but the action inside could be taking place in the 1970's set of General Hospital. None of the characters are particularly interesting and I found Sulie, the nurse/scientist destined to be Roger's soulmate, downright tedious. Taking time out for scenes involving Roger and his unfaithful wife makes the storytelling additionally clunky.

There is a narrative voice running throughout the novel that remains unrevealed until the very end. Although its origin is not detailed in a very sophisticated way, it does bring into Pohl's story an early version of an idea that continues to fuel much science fiction writing and scientific speculation.