Review - Short Story - We Purchased People

In recent days, I've been acquainting myself with some of the classic science fiction present in our family bookshelves. Among them is a large volume of short stories written by masters of the craft. The one that caught my eye was "We Purchased People" by Frederik Pohl. I read it, and it's not one I can keep to myself.

The premise is a world where humanity is in trade with several different alien races. As FTL travel doesn't yet exist, this trade is done via advanced communication technology which allows the various species to exchange information for various trinkets and resources from Earth. Their agents are the dregs of humanity, implanted with technology that allows their "owners" to control them for any length of time. The protagonist is one such "purchased person", a man whose past is extremely shady and whose life is quickly thrown into utter chaos due to the innocent inquisitiveness of his owners.

This story isn't the typical sci-fi fare. It doesn't shy away from extremely mature subject matter, yet doesn't have a single severe expletive in it. The main character is the most extreme type of anti-hero, if any term including the world "hero" can be used for him. He's sullen, twisted, and his suffering doesn't elicit any sympathy at all. This is an analysis of how the cast-offs of humanity are used for some purpose.

On the whole, I would recommend this to true sci-fi connoisseurs. It's well-written, and has an interesting and twisted take on human-alien relations. It also shows up many elements of human prejudice and reminds one of some of the more disturbing elements of mental programming experiments from the 20th century. And yes, this story was written after people became fully aware of the CIA's Project MKUltra.

10/10