The Other End of Time - Frederik Pohl

Man Plus - Frederik Pohl

in fact, the opposite of this process: alter humanity (or, more precisely, one human in the test case) to suit the environment of Mars. This is precisely the option which Frederik Pohl chooses to study in Man Plus, resulting in a Mars story unusual not only in that the vast majority of the story takes place on Earth during preparations for the mission, hence focusing on preparations for the colonisation of Mars rather than the actual colonisation itself for most of its length, but also in nature: a far cry from the ripping adventure yarns which predominate the Mars sub-genre, Man Plus is in fact a character study, with political machinations and a subtle, underlying ...

Gateway - Frederik Pohl

would count as being great (they are all sets of books) are The Lord Of the Rings, Orson Scott Card’s Ender saga (see my earlier Op on Ender’s Game) and Frederik Pohl’s Heechee saga, the first book being Gateway. The saga comprises of Gateway (1976), Beyond The Blue Event Horizon (1980), Heechee Rendezvous (1984) and Annals Of The Heechee (1987). This opinion is about the first book, Gateway, but I would recommend the entire saga. Gateway was first published in 1976 and went onto receive the Nebula and Hugo awards for science fiction. Ringworld by Larry Niven and Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke have also done this, so this gives you some ...

Gateway - Frederik Pohl

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 ...