Fifteen years ago, in New Maps of Hell, Kingsley Amis described Frederik Pohl as the 'novelist of economic man' and speculated that sf as a whole would probably evolve in the direction of sociological criticism. In fact, it has moved in the opposite direction altogether, ever deeper into psychological fantasy, and Pohl, without doubt one of its most talented writers, has moved with it. There has always been a strong organic and surrealist element in Pohl's fiction, a sense of reality suddenly skewing sideways into some visceral nightmare, nowhere better shown than in his brilliant new novel Man Plus. An obsession with man/machine links runs through much of Pohl's fiction, and this novel is the story of an astronaut modified in every conceivable way to survive in the harsh conditions of the Martian surface. With multi-faceted eyes, a rhinoceros-hide skin and huge bat-like wings ('He looks like...