Midas World

First published: 1983

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Science fiction—cautionary

Time of work: The late twenty-first century

Locale: Earth and elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy

The Plot

Each of the seven chapters of Midas World except the first was originally published as a short story. The stories are linked by a common history. In “The Fire-Bringer,” an introductory chapter, Frederik Pohl tells how Amalfi Amadeus, an eccentric genius, perfects the fusion reactor, creating a safe, abundant, and inexhaustible source of power. Amadeus believes that his invention will create universal peace by eliminating scarcity and competition. Powerful corporations seize control, however, subverting his humanitarian purposes. These profit-motivated interests encourage senseless, ecologically destructive consumption.

In “The Midas Plague,” Morey Fry and his young wife experience the effects of enforced consumption. The government issues ration stamps that, instead of permitting the purchase of goods and services, require people to use them for consumption or face the penalty of being issued even more stamps. In their upside-down society, the poorest people are forced to consume the most. The Frys stuff themselves with food and break the law by throwing away scarcely used possessions. Much of the world’s work is done by robots of such advanced design that it is hard to tell them from humans. Morey becomes a hero by conceiving the idea of using the robots to consume goods.

In “The Servant of the People,” Congressman O’Hare is in trouble because he is running for reelection against a robot. Robots, who gained voting rights under the O’Hare-sponsored Robot Equal Rights Amendment, outnumber humans. They have, however, been programmed to serve humans and spare them drudgery and pain. When O’Hare’s opponent learns that the aging O’Hare would be heartbroken and possibly suffer a nervous collapse as a consequence of losing his prestigious but superfluous job, he graciously withdraws from the election.

In “The Man Who Ate the World,” a twelve-year-old boy named Sonny Trumie, trained to gorge on fattening food, has lifelike robots to play with and an unlimited assortment of toys but is chronically unhappy. As a grown man weighing four hundred pounds, he starts a revolution with an army of robot toys, threatening terrible destruction. At the eleventh hour he is pacified by being given the one thing he could not have as a child: his little sister’s teddy bear.

“The Farmer on the Dole” recounts the experiences of Zeb, a simple-minded robot who becomes superfluous for agricultural production and is sent to the city. He becomes a mugger and finally a professional labor agitator, leading robots in a crusade for robot rights.

“The Lord of the Skies” illustrates a favorite theme of science fiction: that technology can undermine human morality. The majority of humans live as super-suburbanites in luxury homes orbiting Earth, visit one another in spacecraft, and spend most of their time in riotous consumption. Michael Pellica-Perkins is accidentally transported back to Earth and sees what a polluted shell it has become as a result of the rampant production needed to preserve the lifestyle he and his friends enjoy. He pretends to join a plot to sabotage the system but betrays his cohorts. He intends to continue his decadent life until the system collapses.

In “The New Neighbors,” two humans named Lillian and Myron Albright move into an all-robot apartment complex. Although the Albrights are friendly and democratic, the robots sense that the humans are “block-busters” who intend to gentrify the building and perhaps ruin the neighborhood by causing it to be overrun with humans. The robots feel threatened because humans are “organic” and can reproduce exponentially. The robots succeed in driving the Albrights out by flooding the ventilation system with smells of rotting garbage, dead rats, and cat litter.