#124 Moral hazard: Preferred Risk (1955) by Frederik Pohl and Lester del Rey

Classic SF with Andy Johnson

Back in episode 111, I took a trip back to the 1950s, and looked at three books written collaboratively by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. The first two of these, The Space Merchants and Gladiator-at-Law, are major landmarks in the development of social science fiction.
In 1955, while that collaboration was ongoing, Frederik Pohl published another novel in partnership with a different author - Lester del Rey. That novel was Preferred Risk, another minor classic of social SF in which the world is dominated by a huge, monolithic insurance company.
This episod explores Preferred Risk, its unusual future world, and the controversial circumstances in which it was written and published.

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