As I pulled into my driveway, I knew something was wrong. Both the front and side doors of our house were open. Did I leave home without closing and locking the doors? Entering the house, I saw stuff spread out all over the floor. My first thought was that there must have been some sort of explosion. Quickly I realized how unlikely that was; the explanation was simple. We had been robbed! After reporting the robbery to the police, I called my insurance company. Somewhat to our surprise, the claims adjuster not only arrived quickly but was extremely helpful. It had undoubtedly been slightly painful to pay the premiums, but at that moment, I felt it was very worthwhile.
Fredrick Pohl and Lester del Rey's novel, Preferred Risk, explores a world where insurance is king. The company insures everything. Pay the premium, and your life will be risk-free. After a "small" nuclear war, people's desire for security led to the company essentially running the world. Tom is a claims adjuster, and he has been sent to Naples to deal with the results of a short nuclear exchange between Naples and Sicily. Armed conflict is bad for the insurance industry, as the company claims to have just about eliminated war. We soon discover the status of your policy governs nearly everything in your life. Being uninsured is about the worst thing that can happen to a person. Tom, however, is a loyal employee of the company and is just about blind to any problems engendered by the system.
Preferred Risk first appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1955. The author's name was given as Edison McCann. Why did Pohl and del Rey use this pseudonym? The magazine editor, H.L. Gold, had run a contest for the best novel written by new authors. The winner would receive $6,500 ($64,000 in 2021 dollars according to my inflation calculator app) as well as a book contract with a major publisher. Unfortunately, he found that none of the entries were worth publishing. Desperate, he asked Pohl to provide him with a story to publish as the winning novel. Pohl engaged his friend del Rey as a coauthor. The use of the name Edison McCann was chosen because it contained the letters E, M, C, and c. These letters gave a connection to one of the most famous equations in physics,
Together with Cyril Kornbluth, Pohl wrote two other novels for serialization in Galaxy: Gladiators at Law and The Space Merchants. Both of these explored the possibilities of current social trends playing havoc with society. Preferred Risk was a natural extension of the idea of looking at what might happen if aspects of present culture become dominant in the future. If you enjoy this game of speculation, you will find all of these novels entertaining.
The original magazine version of Preferred Risk complete with illustrations is available free from the Gutenberg project. The link is:
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