Frederik Pohl byl americký autor vědeckofantastické literatury, jehož tvorba se vyznačovala hlubokým zájmem o společenské a environmentální otázky. Své příběhy často zasazoval do komplexních futures, kde zkoumal dopady technologie a lidské povahy. Jeho psaní je známé svou inteligencí, pronikavostí a schopností předvídat budoucí trendy, což mu vyneslo prestižní ocenění. Pohlova díla představují nadčasové zamyšlení nad místem člověka ve vesmíru a nad cestou, kterou se civilizace ubírá.
An alternative cover edition with the same ISBN exists here. Something Was Very Wrong, Out There Among The Stars...The interstellar transport had touched down on six other colony worlds - and all six had been devoid of human life. Where was everybody? It was almost as if humankind, when separated by cosmic distances from Mother Earth, could not survive.
"The Marching Morons" is a look at a far future in which the world's population consists of five billion idiots and a few million geniuses - the precarious minority of the "elite" working desperately to keep things running behind the scenes. "The Marching Morons" is a direct sequel to "The Little Black Bag": it is easy to miss this, as "Bag" is set in the contemporary present while "Morons" takes place several centuries from now, and there is no character that appears in both stories. The titular black bag in the first story is actually an artifact from the time period of "The Marching Morons": a medical kit filled with self-driven instruments enabling a far-future moron to "play doctor". A future Earth similar to "The Marching Morons" - a civilization of morons protected by a small minority of hidden geniuses - is used again in the final stages of "Search the Sky".