Gateway
Ratings156
Average rating3.9
A foundational text for me, this is 1970s, New Wave, fun, smart sci fi. Its vibe of the irreverent and the mundane, as seen through the eyes of a protagonist in a high-tension, kinda shitty “space adventure”, is just pitch perfect.
Robinette “Bob” Broadhead gets mixed up with other desperate (usually poor) human guinea pigs on the Heechee space station near Earth called “Gateway”. The Heechee are a species of mysterious alien life forms that have disappeared from the universe, but not before littering it with their stuff - including a space station full of small ships loaded with pre-set coordinates. Humans have just figured out how to turn the ON switch on the little space ships, but these inadvertent galactic leaps more often than not lead to ignoble, painful deaths. The ultimate glory that drives all these pilots: another Heechee archeological bits, to help solve the puzzle. (Pilots get MASSIVE royalty payments.)
The book's structure is a mix between: (1) present day therapy sessions between Robin, now the richest man on Earth, and his AI therapist; (2) a flashback retelling of his journey from no-name poor boy to Gateway test pilot; (3) ads in the local Gateway newspaper, running the gamut from “tri-marriage” proposals to desperate calls for information on lost pilots.
It's hilarious, funny, and it features a sharp eye for multiculturalism and feminism (always a problem in the American/male-dominated genre of sci fi). One of my favorite books eva.
This was a reread and let me tell you, I was horrified that they let 12-year old me out of the library with this book! The amount of sex! I remember none of it, so perhaps I was too naive to notice.
What I can't figure out is whether attitudes were that permissive towards sex and homosexuality in the 70s (I am surprisingly too young to remember) or whether Pohl was trying to shock. Either way, I actively hated the protagonist. What an asshat. And the psychobabble at his shrink is complete hogwash.
I always wondered what happened next (South African libraries never seemed to have a full series of anything) so I was planning on reading the series. BUT. I am not sure if I want to sit through more of the protagonist's BS.
Overall rating: 3.25 But only because it's supposed to be a classic.
9/10
This book definitely deserved to win Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards! A proper sci-fi classic.
A really cool premise with fantastic execution.
Batalia dintre a da dnf cartii si a o continua cu speranta de a se intampla ceva interesant a fost incredibil de mare, dar cred ca s-a meritat pana la urma.
Re-reading this fantastic piece in 2021 after my first read in the late 1980's. It's hard to believe this book was written in the 70's. What's not hard to believe is that this won both the Hugo and Nebula awards.
I remember having enjoyed this book, but I was pretty young back then and this one definitely benefits from age and wisdom gained on my part through the years. Makes almost everything about this book better.
For all its troubling qualities, absolutely riveting. Maybe one of the sci-fi novels I've read.
Una lectura muy interesante. Rob como ser humano me ha parecido horrible; un hombre traumado, cobarde y demente, pero como personaje literario me ha parecido increible; lleno de un realismo que permite sentir en carne propia las experiencias que él vive.
Por otro lado está el mundo Heechee... Sencillamente maravilloso, todo un desborde de imaginación, puedo decir que hasta el momento es mi civilización alienígena favorita. Y aquí está el que considero el único punto débil de esta novela: queda mucho sin explotar de esta interesante civilización, ya que Portico es a mi parecer, una novela muy corta.
Read the Spanish version of this book directly on my phone while commuting everyday during the final months of that 2018 Hong Kong summer. During this time was when I thought about tracking all the books and get an E-reader. I remember this and A Fire Upon The Deep quite fondly because of the memories of those days.
The book has an obvious old school SciFi tone where things happen very quickly and the big idea, in this case the first contact with alien artifacts, obfuscates partially the characters development. In this case though, they were interesting enough to maintain the plot's consistency.
Everything revolves about some left behind devices by an alien race and how humans are trying to make sense of them. The main artifacts being a few startships that gets you anywhere and/or everywhere. Eventually they humans go on missions with this ships and get money when they come back. The most interesting part is what actually happens during these trips.
There is a major violent event between the main characters that may put some people off. Like some other classics, this did not have any major impact back then.
A character study of a flawed human. Not quite what I expected, but interesting to read.
I really couldn't get into this book, and parts of it I found downright irritating. About the only thing I enjoyed was the setting. The dystopian future where risking horrific death is preferable to living with no or little medical insurance while working in strip-mined fields growing vitamin sludge is pretty terrifying. Add to that the idea that the main goal of getting rich is being able to afford Full Medical so you can add years to your life, and we have a poignant and timely tale.
That said, the idea that this technology is not being so much researched as test-driven (often at the expense of losing the technology) is a little hard for me to believe. I also really couldn't stand the Freudian robot psychotherapy. Pohl seems to have done very little researching into how therapy works (or therapy was way different in the seventies). Most importantly, the main character is absolutely reprehensible. Every choice he makes, every snide comment, it all builds to showing just how awful he is. I'm not one to say main characters have to be likable, but this guy is just not enjoyable to read and spending time with him is pretty repellent.
I recognize that the book was written 40 years ago, but at times, it felt even more dated than that. Not my cuppa.
Executive Summary: I had low expectations coming into this considering it was “classic” sci-fi and ended up enjoying it more than I expected. 3.5 Stars
Audiobook: I thought Oliver Wyman did a good job with the book, but nothing spectatular. She spoke clearly and the volume was good.
If you're a purist, I should warn that this is apparently not the full text despite it be listed as unabridged. I don't know exactly what's missing, but I've been told that it's some kind of supplement “documents” that offer additional world building.
For me personally, had I not known they were missing, I wouldn't have suspected. I can't say for certain since I haven't read them, but I didn't feel like the book was incomplete. Your mileage may vary however.
Full Review
So if you read my reviews, you'll probably know I read a lot more fantasy than Science Fiction. I love Sci-Fi, but I tend to prefer Space Opera or Space Fantasy to nearly anything else. I also have a pretty bad track record with older Sci-Fi.
This book has won a lot (all?) of awards. That often doesn't mean much to me with regards to how much I like it. Some books I love wouldn't even sniff a nomination. Some award winning books I've been very bored by. This one fell somewhere in between. I enjoyed it, but it's not going to be something I rush out and recommend to others.
I was also a bit concerned because it was published 40 years ago. It definitely shows it's age at certain points. For me that was less about the science that may not hold up than it is about the social things. In particular the attitudes towards domestic abuse. However I guess for a book written in the 1970s, the attitude toward homosexuality while not exactly great, seemed far more progressive than I would have expected. Still the parts dealing with these things definitely pulled me out of the story.
At the start of the book I wasn't thrilled by the framing device. Our protagonist is seeing a robot psychiatrist and discussing his issues of guilt. Through this we learn what happened to him and about the place they call Gateway. As the book went on however, I warmed up to this device, and found it a pretty good mechanism for “info-dumping” to the reader.
I struggled to like the protagonist, especially later in the story, but I found his journey fairly enjoyable. I probably would have given this book another half of a star had I liked him better.
It's my understanding that this was originally conceived as a stand alone novel, and only after it was so successful was it expanded into a series. I'm content to stop here. I'm glad I read this, because I probably wouldn't have picked it up on my own, so another thanks goes to Sword & Laser
Hay muy buena ciencia ficción en esta novela de 1977, ganadora de los premios Hugo, Locus, Nebula y John W. Campbell. Definitivamente se ha convertido en una de mis favoritas.
En un futuro en donde la Tierra se encuentra superpoblada y sus recursos son limitados, existe la posibilidad de convertirse en un prospector de Pórtico: un asteroide usado como puerto espacial por una civilización desaparecida hace miles de años. Pórtico cuenta con miles de naves espaciales alienígenas cuyo funcionamiento es un misterio para los científicos debido en gran parte a que el destino de las naves está pre-programado y es desconocido. Como prospector, puedes arriesgarte a viajar en una de estas naves con la esperanza de descubrir artefactos alienígenas o conocimientos científicos valorados en millones de dólares.
La historia es contada en primera persona a manera de recuerdos de un prospector durante su época en Pórtico.
An amazing work exploring the experience of being an astronaut or explorer. I really thought this would make my top 10 science fiction book list, except every other chapter is not very interesting and the ending is a bit of a let down. Still an important read.
This is high quality science fiction. Technical jargon is kept to a minimum, and the focus on character development is extreme. Do not skip this book if you're even slightly interested in the sci-fi genre.
This novel won all the awards when it was published in the 1970s, but I didn't get around to reading it until 2004, and was much disappointed.
It has an unhappy scenario and an unlovable protagonist, and I found it a dreary experience.