Gateway (Heechee Saga)

Author - Frederik Pohl ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Del Rey was reviewed on 16-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:0345475836 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Gateway (Heechee Saga) Reference Book. Classifications : Pohl, Frederik ( P ) Authors, A-Z Science Fiction & Fantasy Subjects Books General Science Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy Subjects Books Paperback Mass Market Trade Binding (binding) Refinements Bo . Click the following link to view the cover of Gateway (Heechee Saga).

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1) Paperback Book Gateway (Heechee Saga) by Del Rey. hehe, I´m funny.

This is sort of "Solaris" sci-fi (the confusing 12 hours long Russian one, not the Clooney one), which has hard sci-fi spaceships whizzing about all over the place, conterpointed against an inner voyage through the psyche etc. (Hehe, I´m clever too).

Yes, it´s dated, but I remember going to see Stargate at the cinema and hoping that what Stargate was going to be was Gateway. (I was sadly disappointed).

The sense of "Russian Roulette" played by the prospectors is really well realised by Pohl and the pen-portrait he paints of the characters and the world of the Gateway asteroid are very vivid. This is a high-class piece of sci-fi and a high-class piece of writing.

The sequels are also pretty good, but Gateway is the best and would still make a brilliant film.

In one of those strange quirks of the universe, I had a summer job working in a supermarket called "Gateway", but it was sadly much less interesting than this book, and the only alien artefact to be seen was Anne, the night shift manager. Oh well
¤

2) Paperback Book Gateway (Heechee Saga) by Del Rey. I picked this up at a used book store based on the strong reviews here. Although some readers have described Gateway as ´hard Science Fiction,´ I wouldn´t go with that category.

Pohl loves to critique contemporary capitalism / commercialism within a futuristic setting, and a lot of Gateway is based on commercial exploitation of alien technology. Like the classic Bladerunner movie, Gateway assumes a very dystopian, corporation-exploited future. Most humans are impoverished and toil about in manual labor jobs. So bleak is their outlook in the food mines that they are excited to jump at the chance to take huge risks at piloting undocumented alien spacecraft on missions that might bring them financial riches. Sadly, many of these missions result in death for all crew members.

This is my first Frederik Pohl full-length-book experience and it had me running back to the used bookstore to find the sequel, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon. I had read one of his short stories before (1954- ´Tunnel Under the World´), and found Gateway to come across somewhat dated as that story did. Both are great reads, but it´s frequently jarring to read all the references to cigarette and pot smoking while travelling in a closed container at faster-than-light speed.¤

3) Paperback Book Gateway (Heechee Saga) by Del Rey. Gateway starts and ends with the fears and guilt of the only survivor of a deep-space accident. With an undulating timeline, the reader comes to terms with the source of the main character´s wealth as well as the origins of his guilt and fear. An ordinary dude in an extraordinary set of circumstances, Robinette Broadhead, has all the vast range of emotions of anyone set about on a course that can´t be predicted. And the proof of the existence of vastly superior aliens and cultures is only the beginning. Quite possible my most favorite book of its kind!!PILATE: A Brutal Bible Tale¤

4) Paperback Book Gateway (Heechee Saga) by Del Rey. This classic book is divvied up into two equally satisfying spheres. First we have the sessions between Robin and his computer shrink Sigmund. While writing psychology in sci-fi isn´t new, this takes the mundane is a whole new plane. Not only is it insightful to characterization, but it also helps us understand the world Robin lives in and how he relates himself to women (who are pretty much objects to be possessed) and the Heechee (which are beyond possession). The second half of the book is the exploration of the Gateway itself as well as the gateways that the Gateway allows the explores to venture. Intermixed in all this activity, there are tidbits of interesting facets of life from the Gateway. Just little things like classifieds and technical information. This also provides another level of depth to the already deep story.¤

5) Paperback Book Gateway (Heechee Saga) by Del Rey. This book started out with a neat premise: an ancient alien civilization has left a few traces behind in our solar system, including a tunnel-filled asteroid with a thousand faster-than-light rockets attached. The rockets hold one, three or five humans and though they have a navigation system no human can figure it out. People can ship up to the asteroid, board a rocket and launch themselves randomly into space. It´s entirely a crapshoot where the voyagers end up - some ships come back with a happy crew and a ship full of pricy alien artifacts (so they go home rich), and others come back mangled and destroyed (or not at all).

The climax was a pretty solid idea, too. I found it extremely chilling, and the way the ending played out was suspenseful enough. Pohl managed to make his statement heard.

But I have a number of problems with the vision of future human technology (notably, they send people to their death instead of just placing a recording device in the rockets to make sure they´d come back safely...) The entire business with the psychologist computer (Sigfrid) struck me as very hokey, and the main character REALLY bothered me during these sequences. He spends practically the entire book pretending as though he doesn´t have anything he wants to talk about, and won´t discuss anything from his past. But why would he bother with therapy if he was so opposed to actually getting any therapy done? And there was some kind of subplot that was meant to explain his latent homosexuality, but that came way out of left field for anybody reading. I didn´t find the psychology believable AT ALL.

In the end I think this entire story could have been reduced to a nice novella or even a short story: put the introduction, a little bit about the characters, then hit us with the ending and leave everyone thinking. Even for such a short novel it felt too long - there were little excerpts of ´Gateway classified ads´ and also some transcripts of a professor educating potential prospectors about the dangers of the galaxy, but they did nothing for me except to interrupt the flow of the book.¤

6) Paperback Book Gateway (Heechee Saga) by Del Rey. Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe...and on reaches of unimaginable horror. When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!
THE HEECHEE SAGA
Book One:GATEWAY
Book Two:BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT HORIZON
Book Three: HEECHEE RENDEZVOUS
Book Four: THE ANNALS OF THE HEECHEE


From the Paperback edition.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 13-Nov-2008, 03454758369780345475831, 060-310-560-640-740-360-8

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