author

Edson McCann

Best known as the name on the 1955 science fiction novel Preferred Risk, this author identity hides a clever bit of genre history. The byline was actually a shared pseudonym used for a fast-written, satirical novel about a world dominated by insurance companies.

1 Audiobook

Preferred Risk

Preferred Risk

by Edson McCann

About the author

Edson McCann was not a single writer but a joint pseudonym used by Frederik Pohl and Lester del Rey. According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, they used the name for Preferred Risk, a novel first published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1955 and then issued as a book the same year.

The story has an unusual backstory. It was reportedly written in a hurry for a Galaxy novel competition after no outside submission proved suitable, which gives the name Edson McCann a small but memorable place in science fiction lore.

Because Edson McCann was a house name rather than a real public person, there does not appear to be a genuine author portrait to use. Readers interested in the byline will usually end up discovering two major mid-century science fiction figures behind it: Pohl, known for sharp social satire, and del Rey, a writer and influential editor.