It is the 22nd century, an advertisment drenched world in which the big ad agencies dominate governments and everything else. Now Schocken Associates, one of the big players, has a new challenge for star copywriter Mitch Courtenay. Volunteers are needed to colonise Venus. It's a hellhole and nobody who knew anything about it would dream of signing up. But by the time Mitch has finished, they'll be queuing to get aboard the spaceships.

The Space Merchants was written as a collaboration between Frederick Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth. The sequel, The Merchants' War was written by Pohl alone in 1984 following Kornbluth's tragically early death in 1958