"The Tunnel under the World" is a science fiction short story by American writer Frederik Pohl. It was first published in 1955 in Galaxy magazine. It has often been anthologized, most notably in The Golden Age of Science Fiction, edited by Kingsley Amis (1981).
Guy and Mary Burckhardt wake up in their house in Tylerton on June 15, having both had terrible nightmares, but they cannot recall the events of their dreams. Guy dismisses the dream and goes to work as usual, the downtown offices of Contro Chemicals, which operates a highly automated and robot-staffed petrochemicals plant. But something is not right; he is surrounded everywhere by loud and all-pervasive advertising jingles for everything from cigarettes to freezers.
A colleague named Swanson tries to speak to him but apparently does not get the desired reaction from Burckhardt and leaves. Burckhardt goes home, but the next morning, he realizes he has had the same nightmare and the date is still June 15. He knows what will happen when he gets to the office and that Swanson will again try to speak to him. This in fact happens.
That evening, Burckhardt discovers that his cellar has seemingly been dismantled and "rebuilt", in a way he does not recognize. The next morning is June 15 again. He mentions this when Swanson again tries to speak to him. Swanson hustles him away to the empty halls of the chemical plant. Hiding in a room at the end of a long tunnel, he explains his theory that they have all been tampered with and that an invader has taken over the town for unknown reasons.
Neither of them is correct. In actuality, the chemical plant had exploded, and all the inhabitants of Tylerton were killed by the explosion or the chemical fumes. A ruthless advertising executive, Dorchin, took over the ruins and rebuilt them in miniature. The people were rebuilt as minuscule robots and are being used as captive subjects for testing high pressure advertising campaigns.
Frederik George Pohl Jr. (/poʊl/; November 26, 1919 – September 2, 2013) was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna", to the 2011 novel All the Lives He Led.[1]
From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy and its sister magazine If; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine.[2] His 1977 novel Gateway won four "year's best novel" awards: the Hugo voted by convention participants, the Locus voted by magazine subscribers, the Nebula voted by American science-fiction writers, and the juried academic John W. Campbell Memorial Award.[2] He won the Campbell Memorial Award again for the 1984 collection of novellas The Years of the City, one of two repeat winners during the first 40 years. For his 1979 novel Jem, Pohl won a U.S. National Book Award in the one-year category Science Fiction,[3] and it was a finalist for three other year's best novel awards.[2] He won four Hugo and three Nebula Awards,[2] including receiving both for the 1977 novel Gateway.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named Pohl its 12th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 1993[4] and he was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1998, its third class of two dead and two living writers.[5][a]
Pohl won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2010, for his blog, "The Way the Future Blogs".