Gateway by Frederick Pohl. (Gateway - Frederik Pohl)

Member Name: Brett Bligh

Product:	Gateway - Frederik Pohl
Date:	28/08/00 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: slick, inventive and compelling.

Disadvantages: at a loss to criticise the novel itself, I’ll resort to saying that I thought the cover painting could have been better; it looks very 50’s, and it would be a shame if some readers were put off by this

A race called the Heechee, whose civilisation flourished far before that of humanity, have left behind a unique legacy: Gateway. On it are a large number of spaceships of several different designs, each with pre-programmed routes stored in their databanks. The catch, however, is that no human has ever been able to decode the routes the ship’s have been programmed with, and there are no Heechee left to reveal the secret; the only way to find out where a ship is going is to press the start button and let the ship fly along its predesignated path.

The Gateway Corporation was set up to take commercial advantage of the Heechee technology. For a hefty sum of money it is possible for a denizen of Earth (now a rather murky place where life is increasingly harsh) to travel to Gateway and join one of the alien craft on its journey, occasionally returning with vastly valuable alien artefacts and hence making a quick fortune (from which the Corporation takes a percentage, of course), and occasionally not returning at all, the victim of a slow death by starvation, of either oxygen or food, as resources dwindle and the craft continues on an aimless course through space. It’s a massive gamble, but one many people are willing to make.

One such person is Robinette Broadhead, who is, it is pointed out on the first page, male, despite his name. The novel alternates between sections in which Robin talks to his psychologist, an automated system which he has nicknamed Siegfried, and sections in which his previous series of adventures relating to Gateway is revealed. It is hence not particularly difficult to deduce that Robin does, in fact, survive his arduous journeys from the Gateway and even manages to become wealthy in the process; he would not be talking to a psychologist otherwise. But what is the problem that is basically driving him to the breaking point, causing him to seek help from Siegfried with increasing desperation? It is this which makes the p
ages turn, and turn increasingly quickly as the story proceeds.

The winner of the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell award, this is a novel that has already been recognised for its many merits, and has won its author much of his following. The style of the prose is very fluid indeed, to the point where I occasionally seemed to forget I was reading at all, simply experiencing the actions described on the page in my head almost as if imagining the piece on a screen. The various adverts and documents contained within the novel on their own self-contained pages completed the effect; with Gateway, one is not so much reading a novel as becoming immersed in a completely new world; the effect is unputdownable (I usually hate to see that word used in reviews, but in this case at least it is apt).

Just over 300 pages of reasonably large print in the recent re-issue, I read this in a day and felt completely rewarded for my efforts by an intriguing, inward-looking central character swept along by a plot which manages to induce a sense of foreboding by its seeming inevitability to a surprising climax which dazzles the imagination.

Recommended.

Summary: