A Hitch in Time by Frederik Pohl Episode #200
Frederik Pohl | April 14, 2024-
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A Hitch in Time by Frederik Pohl Episode #200
Frederik Pohl
A HITCH IN TIME
Episode #200 · Written by Frederik Pohl · Narrated by Scott Miller
Thom Ra travels farther than most historians would dare. His mission is simple in theory: observe the decisive moment of the legendary War of Annihilation and return with new knowledge that will earn him the highest level of citizenship. Success means a future with the woman he loves. Failure means exile in the past.
The rules of time travel are clear. Interfere with events and the traveler becomes trapped in a new branch of history forever. Ra intends to follow those rules carefully. But when he arrives at the crucial moment of the war, something is wrong. The weapon meant to destroy an entire world does not match the records preserved in his own era.
A moment of panic changes everything. Faced with an imminent catastrophe, Ra acts to stop it. The decision saves lives in the present but sends history veering into dangerous territory. Surrounded by soldiers who believe he is a spy, he now confronts a terrible realization. The past has already been altered, and every choice from this point forward may seal his fate.
“A Hitch in Time” delivers a powerful time-travel paradox with the sharp sting that made Frederik Pohl famous. It places a single traveler at the center of a moment that determines the survival of entire civilizations, then forces him to face the consequences of acting when history demanded silence.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Frederik Pohl (1919–2013) stands among the most important architects of twentieth-century science fiction. Early in his career he was active in the New York Futurians alongside writers such as Isaac Asimov, Cyril M. Kornbluth, and James Blish. Pohl became a major magazine editor during the 1950s and 1960s, guiding Galaxy Science Fiction and If to Hugo Award–winning prominence while publishing stories by authors including Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison.
As a writer, Pohl created some of the genre’s most enduring works. His collaboration with C. M. Kornbluth produced the satirical classic The Space Merchants. Later he achieved enormous success with the Heechee saga beginning with Gateway, which won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. Alongside those novels, Pohl wrote hundreds of short stories for magazines such as Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Amazing Stories. Tales like “A Hitch in Time” reveal his talent for combining scientific speculation with sudden reversals that leave readers reconsidering everything they thought they understood.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to A Hitch in Time by Frederik Pohl — a vintage science fiction tale of time travel, interplanetary war, and one desperate attempt to repair a shattered timeline.
FREDERIK POHL SHORT STORIES
Frederik Pohl was one of the sharpest and most influential voices in vintage science fiction. Beginning his career in the 1940s, Pohl worked not only as a writer but also as an editor and literary agent, helping shape the direction of the genre during its most creative decades. His fiction often mixes big speculative ideas with a sly understanding of human behavior, revealing how people react when technology or society shifts in unexpected ways.
Many of Pohl’s stories begin in ordinary settings before introducing a single disruptive concept. A man wakes to discover his hometown exists for a disturbing hidden purpose. A desperate scientific experiment sends a volunteer back through time to prevent a catastrophe. A routine engineering assignment on a lonely asteroid turns into a test of nerve and ingenuity. Pohl excelled at taking one unsettling idea and following it to its logical, often surprising conclusion.
His work frequently carries an undercurrent of irony. Characters believe they understand the system they live in—only to learn that someone else has been pulling the strings all along. Corporations manipulate reality. Governments experiment with dangerous technology. Ordinary people stumble into situations far larger than they expected and must think quickly if they hope to escape them.
The stories below highlight Frederik Pohl’s range, from eerie psychological puzzles to dangerous experiments and clever technological mysteries that reveal how fragile reality can become when the rules suddenly change.
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