Edson McCann (aka Frederik Pohl & Lester Del Rey) "Preferred Risk" (1955)
A slow start, but improves. Idealistic young newly trained employee of the Company that controls the world gradually realises all is not what it seems. What I found more interesting is the back story.
First, the story is based in Naples, an unusual choice, and clearly one or both writers has a good feel for the place. Checking Pohl's autobiography The Way the Future Was I find he was in Italy for two years in WWII, first as a weatherman for the US Airforce, then in public relations, and much of this time he was based in Naples or just outside.
Then there's the collaboration of the two writers. This edition (1983 paperback) has postscripts by both writers, each @three pages long, detailing the vexations of working with each other. Pohl collaborated with a number of writers over the years and found Del Rey the most difficult. Del Rey liked a precise plan for a story, while Pohl would wing it, allowing the story to evolve. Much of their writing day would also be spent with their wives listening to the Army-McCarthy Hearings, an interesting, if unnerving, backdrop to the story. Despite the difficulties in the writing relationship (We fought over every chapter, sometimes over every word) they remained very good friends, to the extent that on completing the book, the Del Reys bought a house just half a mile up the road from the Pohls.
Finally there's the dodgy matter of Horace Gold, Galaxy, and the $7,000 Prize Novel Contest for new talent. Sadly, Horace had received many entrants but none he considered of significant merit, so when Pohl and Del Rey approached him with this 20,000 word novelette, he promptly offered them first prize provided they expanded it to 40,000 words and made up a pen name. (The novel had to be by a new author). Hence "Preferred Risk" was written by Edson McCann. The name Edson was chosen by Pohl and McCann by Del Rey: subsequently they were amused that the initials E.Mc could be written as e = mc2
