The Hated by Frederik Pohl Episode #75
Frederik Pohl | June 12, 2023-
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The Hated by Frederik Pohl Episode #75
Frederik Pohl
THE HATED
Episode #75 · Written by Frederik Pohl · Narrated by Scott Miller
Some men come home from Mars with medals and interviews. Byron comes back with pills, a contract, and a map of places he is never allowed to visit. The war is over, the ship is gone, and Earth insists everything is finished. His body disagrees.
Life after the mission is filled with small pressures that refuse to stay small. Sounds trigger faces. Casual conversations turn dangerous without warning. Six men were locked together long enough for irritation to become something sharper, something that couldn’t be acted on at the time but never truly faded.
The solution, he’s told, is treatment. Relive the moments in controlled conditions. Drain off what can’t be carried safely into public life. When the sessions work, the borders disappear and the past stays quiet. When they don’t, the memories push back harder, demanding attention.
The Hated explores what happens after survival, when restraint is lifted piece by piece and the mind is asked to cooperate. As Byron is promised freedom from supervision, he must confront whether being cured means being safe—or simply being unsupervised.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Frederik Pohl was a central figure in American science fiction for more than seven decades, publishing stories and novels across magazines including Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy Science Fiction, and If. He served as editor of Galaxy in the 1960s while continuing to write fiction that examined institutions, authority, and the quiet costs imposed on individuals.
His work ranges from sharp short fiction like The Hated to landmark novels such as The Space Merchants (with C. M. Kornbluth) and the Heechee series beginning with Gateway. Again and again, Pohl returned to characters who had followed the rules and discovered that compliance carried its own dangers. The Hated fits squarely within that body of work, focusing not on heroism in space, but on the damage that remains once the mission is complete.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to The Hated by Frederik Pohl — a vintage science fiction story about Mars veterans, forbidden borders, and treatment meant to tame what spaceflight leaves behind.
RELATED STORIES
Mars has always been the most familiar of alien worlds, close enough to imagine and distant enough to remain dangerous. Vintage science fiction turned the red planet into a testing ground for human ambition—an empty frontier, a dying world, or a civilization older and stranger than Earth itself.
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Whether the planet is home to ancient Martians, fragile colonies, or the last hope after Earth’s decline, Mars stories are about adaptation.
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