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Gateway (Gollancz S.F.)
by Frederik Pohl
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Gollancz (2006-08-01)
ISBN: 0575078995
EAN: 9780575078994
Paperback: 304 pages
Edition: New Ed
SKU: S235-1034
Condition: New
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Editorial Reviews
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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
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Customer Reviews
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Good Book
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-03-16
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.
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An easy read, an average story
Rating  (3)
Date: 2007-05-18
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
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.
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Classic Pohl
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-12-03
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
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.
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Lacking somewhat, but a compeling read
Rating (3)
Date: 2006-10-03
3 out of 9 customers found this reveiw helpful
The plot was annoying and irratating at times, with sessions on the pshycyatrist bench, and classified adds etc. added in (that usually added nothing to the book).
I grew to hate the main character, but I just could stop reading the book.
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Bonobos in Space
Rating  (1)
Date: 2006-06-13
5 out of 10 customers found this reveiw helpful
Though the basic idea is quite interesting, sadly the book does not offer much more. The story can be told in one sentence. The characters remain somehow constructed and predictable and remind me, concerning their social behavior as well as their intellectual capabilities, somehow to chimps set in a spacecraft.
The psychology reminds me on the astro shows on some TV channels and even the sporadic advertising is by far not as entertaining as a deactivated spam filter.
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