Product Description

Wealth ... or death. Those were the choices Gateway offered. Humans had discovered this artificial spaceport, full of working interstellar ships left behind by the mysterious, vanished Heechee. Their destinations are preprogrammed. They are easy to operate, but impossible to control. Some came back with discoveries which made their intrepid pilots rich; others returned with their remains barely identifiable. It was the ultimate game of Russian roulette, but in this resource-starved future there was no shortage of desperate volunteers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #103900 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Some SF writers have astonishingly long productive careers. Frederik Pohl started in 1940 and with Cyril Kornbluth co-wrote such classic 1950s satires as The Space Merchants. He won Hugo and Nebula awards for the 1977 Gateway, a major novel combining classic SF excitement with psychological depth and now reissued in Millennium SF Masterworks. The compelling central idea is Gateway itself, an asteroid base stuffed with abandoned interstellar ships built by the mysterious, elusive alien "Heechee". These tiny vessels can travel on autopilot to countless unknown destinations. Some human passengers return with fabulous technologies and scientific insights, others empty-handed. Many more die from incomprehensible hazards at journey's end, or from lack of food or air in overlong round-trips. So the atmosphere of the human community at Gateway is uniquely edgy, halfway between a gold-rush town and Death Row. Pohl's unheroic hero Broadhead has both good and bad luck in Heechee craft, emerging with riches and terrible loss. We learn the shattering story of what happened in successive flashbacks, while the engaging, scene-stealing AI psychology software called Sigfrid patiently tries to put Broadhead together again. Gateway is witty and humane, full of clever insights, ingenious asides and claustrophobic drama. Its sequels are less impressive. --David Langford

Synopsis
Wealth ...or death. Those were the choices Gateway offered. Humans had discovered this artificial spaceport, full of working interstellar ships left behind by the mysterious, vanished Heechee. Their destinations are preprogrammed. They are easy to operate, but impossible to control. Some came back with discoveries which made their intrepid pilots rich; others returned with their remains barely identifiable. It was the ultimate game of Russian roulette, but in this resource-starved future there was no shortage of desperate volunteers.

About the Author
SALES POINTS * #9 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written * Winner of the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Award * 'An outstanding work ... highly recommended' -- Library Journal

Customer Reviews

Good Book
I have been going through some of the classic sci fi novels all the hugo and nebula winners and this isn't a dissapointment I just wish I could get a copy of the sequels in the masterworks series it would be interesting to see the progression although it works without it as a standalone it might be better having not yet read the others.

It has some weak points but nothing I would say is particularly bad or detrimental.

An easy read, an average story
Whilst reading this book I did find it quite compelling, and found it easy to get into and read through. The premise is interesting and some of the ideas are really excellent.

The parallel telling of the main character's psycho analysis in the present time along with flashback retelling of the story leading him to that point is quite well constructed.

I think the main problem for me is that there aren't really any "answers" to much of the story. This was predictable and in a way made me feel like the characters in the book - in the end we're none the wiser as to where the ships came from, what they were really for etc. The big reveal at the end was good, and really made a good play on a physics theory regarding the relativity of time that explains why the central character is so tortured by what happened.

There are some, to my mind, pretty pointless sub plots - one in particular regarding the main characters latent homosexual feelings that really didn't seem to do much for the plot. I guess this might be a bit to do with the age of the book but it seemed a bit clunky by today's standards.

Overall it was an interesting read, but quite simplistic and straightforward compared to a lot of SF novels by today's authors - still perhaps that's no bad thing.

Classic Pohl
In this series Pohl combines his best loved themes, hard science, psychology and mankind. His hero, Robinette Broadhead, represents the best and the worst of mankind and is explored by computerised psychoanalysis in this novel.

How real is the psychoanalysis? Surprisingly so and I'd love to try programming computer responses rather than sitting listening to hours and hours of extremely boring (to me, not to the client) stuff like this. There is the typical attempt by the client to get the therapist to say or do something rather than listening to anything the therapist is actually saying. The theme of humanity having stumbled across a deserted alien base with working spacecraft is believable. The inability to understand them would probably lead to blind flights to wherever and the inhabitants of Gateway sound the typical mix of types who would try - reluctantly - that gamble.

Robinette Broadhead is probably overanalysed to his detriment as a character. To fully appreciate him you probably need some experience of clinical psychology or psychiatry. This is a believable person although better adjusted and happier than any of the people I've ever seen with serious mental illness. If referred to me I'd probably tell him to go away and stop wasting my time (but then I worked in the NHS, if he was paying me it would be a different story).

This is a well written book by an experienced writer bringing together a lot of the themes he cares about.