SPACEMAN ON A SPREEAUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
After this story was published in 1963, Frederik Pohl, who then edited Galaxy, If, and Worlds of Tomorrow (in which it appeared), wrote me, saying: “...You’re about the only science-fiction writer active now who shows any indication of thought about economic subjects. I keep running into economists and management types, like Robert Theobald, John Diebold and so on, whose ears perk up when I tell them about your stories involving Variable Basic, and so on...” Fred then went on to request a whole series of yarns based on socioeconomics and, of course, I was glad to comply.
—Mack Reynolds
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I
They gave him a gold watch. It was meant to be symbolical, of course. In the old tradition. It was in the way of an antique, being one of the timepiece
