Frederik Pohl’s Gateway (1977) is a novel with a fully developed science fictional universe, one that asks lots of fascinating questions, but for once the universe isn’t the main character. What we have here is a character study against a science fiction background. The book begins:
“My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male. My analyst (whom I call Sigfrid von Shrink, though that isn’t his name since being a machine he hasn’t got a name) has a lot of electronic fun with this fact.”
This sets us up as the book alternates between Robin’s psychiatric sessions and the story of his life, and it rocks on what actually happened on his third trip out from Gateway, and whether he should feel guilty about it. It’s interspersed with occasional ads and information that give more world background. The wonderful thing about it is that while it’s a psychological novel in every sense it absolutely needs the set up of the universe to create Rob’s special problems. And it really is a wonderful universe.
Description, but nothing that’s going to spoil your reading experience.
There’s a futuristic dystopic Earth in which the rich live very well and most people live terrible lives mining shale for food or farming kelp. When Venus was being settled, alien ruins were discovered, including a ship that took a prospector to Gateway, an asteroid full of alien ships. The alien ships take people off to alien destinations, and they can find things there that make them very rich. But nobody understands the settings for navigation, so sometimes they don’t come back and sometimes they come back empty. They call the absent aliens the Heechee, and they are very mysterious.
In most science fiction novels, including Pohl’s own sequels, this would be the set-up at the beginning of the book, and the characters would have adventures in which they discovered more about how the world worked, and the world would be changed at the end. Here, this is the background and the story is about how what happened to Robinette on Gateway and on his three trips out changed him. We know from the first page that he went to Gateway and he got rich and he feels guilty, what we slowly find out throughout the book is what happened and why. None of the bigger mysteries are revealed: neither we nor any of the characters knows any more about the Heechee and their mysterious purposes at the end.
If there are only three basic plots, then this one is Aeschylus’s The Eumenides—a man feels guilty and has to go through an ordeal where he’s brought face to face with it and becomes free of his guilt. It’s a surprisingly rare plot; I can’t really think of any other instances of it in genre. I picked up Gateway now because I recently saw a production of the Oresteia and I was thinking about this. Pohl does it very well—especially as Robinette is a bit of a jerk—he’s a coward, he’s in weird denial about his bisexuality, and he really does have something awful to feel guilty about. The pacing of revelation is excellent, and he couldn’t have the problems he does without the experience he’s had.
I didn’t read the sequels and I don’t much like them—all the mysteries get explained, and I liked them better as mysteries. However, as I’ve only read the sequels once each I was surprised how many of the answers to the mysteries I did remember (what the “prayer fans” are, why the seats are that way) which means they have certainly stuck in my mind. But I recommend Gateway as a stand-alone and not as the first of the “Annals of the Heechee.”
The treatment of women is weird. On the one hand, they’re out there on the alien spacestation teaching courses, going out exploring, doing things. On the other Bob sees them entirely in terms of their relationship with him, and most of the ones we see do have relationships with him. I don’t think there’s a named woman in the book he doesn’t have sex with except his mother. Oh, maybe the woman in the unemployment office—good. But Pohl is giving us a really psychologically messed up guy and showing us his therapy. You wouldn’t expect him to be normal. Also, it was 1977 and Pohl grew up in the thirties, so it gets more of a pass.
There’s the usual old computer problems—Sigfrid is self-aware, but he’s a supercooled mainframe. But that doesn’t matter. (I wonder if they will one day be a science fiction retrofuture aesthetic, like steampunk?)
I first read it as a teenager and loved it—for me it was one of the books defining the edges of what SF could do. My son read it when he was fifteen, and his reaction to it was that he loved the setting and wanted to play a role-playing game in it, but he was bored by the psychiatric bits.
It won the Hugo and a huge pile of other awards in 1977, but I think its reputation has suffered somewhat in the time between, largely because of the weakness of the sequels. I can understand people’s desire for more about this world, and goodness knows I bought them and read them, but there wasn’t really anywhere to go from here that could possibly add to Gateway, so I suggest that you read it and then stop—if you want more, read other standalone Pohl.
Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published two poetry collections and nine novels, most recently Among Others, and if you liked this post you will like it. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here regularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied.
Mirror Dance (Mark) and Memory (Miles)?
Thomas Covenant? (Self-loathing is a form of guilt, right?)
I can think of a bunch of other examples where this is part of a characters development arc, but not the main focus of the plot. But I guess those don’t count.
Two bits:
I didn’t read the sequels …. However, as I’ve only read the sequels once each
Huh?
Also, for retro-futuristic settings: Fallout is great for this. 50’s/60’s futuristic aesthetic coupled with a nuclear wasteland dystopia.
Hammerlock: I didn’t re-read the sequels now for this post. I read each of them once when they came out. Sorry it was unclear.
Pretty much in agreement on this one. I’ve read Gateway a few times over the years as it is a cool, well done story with interesting mysteries. I read the sequels and they are much more of the form of filling in the background. So, like Jo, I only read them once each.
I love that novel. At th time i read it, i was used to more traditional type of science fiction, with brave heroes who solve the problems in the end and change the world around here. It was refreshing that the characters here are much more human – they are understandable afraid of the huge risks and most of them only take them when they have no other choice, and the experience scars them deeply.
The whole idea of taking a ship, choosing a course at random without knowing whether it will make you rich, lead to nothing but boredom or kill you slowly, is really fascinating to me. I loved that the mystery of Heechee wasn’t solved at all here. I shouldn’t have read the sequels, which solved it in a trite way and were inferior in all other respects too.
You’ve sold me. This is going on my reading list.
I’ve heard of the book before, of course, but your description here made it sound great. Plus, I love worldbuilding mysteries that stay mysterious. It’s just like real life!
How about Chasm City? Though it’s been some time since I read it.
I’d like to dissent slightly about the sequels. The third book is indeed as you describe it, and I didn’t like it at all. But the second book, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, doesn’t really explain that many mysteries (except in a nonessential epilogue)– it’s still mostly about the characters and I thought they were an interesting lot. It’s got multiple POVs so it naturally doesn’t feel as focused as Gateway, but Pohl makes good use of the contrast between how they see themselves and how others see them. It also has two teenage characters who are more convincingly teenage (i.e. horny and rather unpleasant) than was typical in SF.
It’s still not as great as Gateway, of course.
You do seem to affirm my choice to not read the sequels. This one was pretty neat, though, despite the narrator being a self-centered jerk.
Some parts of the sequels aren’t bad, but one does have to admit that Rob is only a poor copy of his “Gateway” self.
Gateway was a very good world building story, so I always expected there to be sequels. However, I wasn’t really inclined to very much because of the characters. Maybe thats because I don’t believe people are like that so they are not very believable to me. I did stick it out because of the world building but when I cleaned out my library a few years ago, they weren’t books I kept.
I found the second book to actually be worth reading as well. It kept the same the sense of mystery that was there in Gateway. The rest of the books are junk, however.
I read it long ago, but never had the urge to read it again because the main character didn’t have any memorable redeeming features. I remember bits of the background world, however.
If there are only three basic plots, then this one is Aeschylus’s The Eumenides—a man feels guilty and has to go through an ordeal where he’s brought face to face with it and becomes free of his guilt. It’s a surprisingly rare plot; I can’t really think of any other instances of it in genre.
Also Waylander by David Gemmell. Although there’s some other classic storylines in there as well.
About the sequels, I agree that they don’t hold up to Gateway itself, but if ever you’re in the mood for some galaxy-spanning, high-concept, space-opera, the Heechee books can be a lot of fun. They were so different from the original that I didn’t find it was diminished by them; but conversely, they are so different from the original there is no need to read any of Gateway‘s sequels.
Jo,
Again, you hit the nail on the head. This is still one of my favorite all time SF books – even though I read all but the last of the sequels. It’s much the way I still love Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey but because of the inelegant sequels it is hard to admit to others. Great review
“I didn’t read the sequels and I don’t much like them”
How, exactly, does that statement make any sense whatsoever? Of what worth is your opinion of something you have not seen?
PJCamp: As I explained above, I meant I did not re-read the sequels last week when I re-read Gateway to talk about it — I read each sequel as it came out.
There are a few ways to write a book. When I wrote “Leila” I started with the character in a setting and then followed her to find out who she was and how she got there. I would conjecture that this is how Pohl wrote about the Heechee. He came up with a short story “The Merchants of Venus” that gave him a character – the Heechee – and a setting – Venus. Then he wrote the short story about other people in that setting, and then he got back to the Heechee and asked himself, “Who are they?; and then he followed them through their development and slowly it all started to make sense – of course! That explains it!
Gateway is a superb, stand alone novel. But to understand the Heechee and what it’s all about, I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend that you read the “sequels” too. It’s true that you can read Gateway as a purely human novel – a psychological thriller or a romance even, and thoroughly enjoy it without understanding the astrophysics behind it. If you do go on from Gateway, then you need appreciate the science too.
The treatment of women I found to be entirely realistic and mature; but then I’m a 58 year old heterosexual man. It is true that Pohl has laid his morality bare of the constraints of social nicety and political correctness. But then in an extreme world / war style environment such as he depicts, I found that realistic. Likewise Robin’s repressed bisexually is no more than normal for any normal male – including me. (Being nearly 60, I even remember being taught this at school). The story just contains the subset that the extreme circumstances force Robin to confront it.
I must confess that I’ve only read the first 3 novels so far: Gateway, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, and Heechee Rendezvous. I totally disagree with anyone who says that the standard falls off with the sequels. On the contrary, it is entirely clear that the whole series is one complete concept and the later books are not sequels at all, but rather the continuation of a single concept, and all equally well written. Although, if you ignore the science, and the Heechee, and just follow the Robinette Broadhead personal story, then you could be forgiven for not getting that. Personally, having read episode three, I find the plot unveiling and I can’t wait to find out how it continues in episode 4.
So go for it. The closest parallel to this would be Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rama.” The concept in its entirety is comparable to “The Lord of the Rings.”
Anthony Sansom – author of “The Thirsty Horse of Mongolia” and “Leila and Majnoon.”
Right on @@@@@mbaavgai
Awesome book, with real real people at its heart. I came across a review and some guy was complaining because the guy was sleeping around with every woman he could. As a 40 year old heterosexual male, I can’t see the problem. That’s what many men and women do. Why would this stop just because you are on some alien space station. Likewise his very complex psychological state. He states clearly, many times that he knows what he should say to the shrink-bot but chooses not to, because he does not want to confront the pain. That’s the most human thing ever. Sometimes we all run from the painful things we don’t want to do or see or deal with, often times until it is too late. This is natural and it is human. The great sci-fi authors are able to take the human that is in us all and place us in locations and situations that are fantastic and extreme. They then try and extrapolate how we as people would/should/could act. The end result is that we wind up thinking, really thinking about what it means to be human in the first place.
Gateway is an awesome book, I’ve read it 6 times and listened to the audio book at least as many times.