Preferred Risk

Preferred Risk is a science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl and Lester del Rey (under the name Edson McCann) first published in 1955.

Winner of the $6,500 Galaxy-Simon & Schuster novel contest, this taut suspense story asks the challenging question: how dangerous would it be to live in a rigidly risk-free world?

In a world where the Company controls just about everything, being an employee of the Company rising up the corporate ladder is a good place to be. And that's where Claims Adjuster Wills was when he saw the man jump under the train and sever his legs (for the fifth time, it turns out!). After that, his life changed completely, and the now-legless man played a big part in those changes.

Together with the mysterious daughter of anti-Company activist, they become involved in a race to determine the future of the world. The problem is, Wills cannot decide what side he's on.

Preferred Risk was originally published under the pseudonym Edson McCann in Galaxy Science Fiction June, July, August and September 1955. It was the winner of the 1955 Galaxy-Simon & Schuster novel contest.

Total Running Time (TRT): 6 hours, 26 min.

Frederik George Pohl, Jr. (1919-2013) was an American science fiction writer and editor, with a career spanning more than seventy-five years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy and its sister magazine If; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine. He won four Hugo and three Nebula Awards.

The Science Fiction Writers of America named Pohl its 12th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 1993 and he was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1998.

Lester del Rey (1915-1993) was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the author of many books in the juvenile Winston Science Fiction series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of Ballantine Books.

Del Rey was awarded the 1972 E. E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction (the "Skylark") by the New England Science Fiction Association. He also won a special 1985 Balrog Award for his contributions to fantasy, voted by fans and organized by Locus Magazine. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 11th SFWA Grand Master in 1990.