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nebbit's review
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
jsdrown's review against another edition
5.0
In GATEWAY it's made in the text that our protagonist, Robinette, is an unreliable narrator and a terrible person. Before I came to that realization, I hated this book. I thought the author Frederik Pohl had outdated sexist 1970s era views. No, it’s protagonist Rob that is a repressed asshole. It's something you must come to terms with in-order to enjoy GATEWAY. Most of the complaints I’ve read about the novel have to do with how unbearable Rob is.
Rob is a violent, sexually repressed, sexist, degenerate gambler. No amount of money is enough for him. He frequently throughout the book throws money away on gambles and his account frequently runs dry. And his ego. His soft baby boy ego. His therapist bot has to place foam matts in his room for Rob to kick and squirm on. And Rob is literally STRAPPED into place during his robo therapist sessions because of his tendency to attack the A.I. placed therapy dummy. Personally, our protagonist being a garbage man is what made the book so interesting to me.
Sexuality is fluent in the world presented in Gateway. Men share bunks with men. Women with women. You get the idea. Even though this is clunk, we should give the book credit. It was the 70s and TV/Movies still had decades before this was depicted as common. A gay character in Star Wars would never had flown and changed the discussion around the movie entirely. Early on in GATEWAY Rob is asked about his sexuality.
"I'll take you out for a drink later. It's a custom. Only it's not very interesting until about twenty-two hundred. The Blue Hell'll be full of people then, and I'll introduce you around. See what you can find. What are you, straight, gay, what?"
"I'm pretty straight." Notice the use of the word “pretty” here. Rob is “pretty” straight. But later on, he comes on less kindly when Rob is asked by his love interest Klara "They're not bad guys. How do you get along with gays?" and Rob responds "I leave them alone, they leave me alone.”
Between bouts of chain smoking, we are treated to Rob’s terrible personal inner thoughts throughout the book. He’s prone to pointless verbal altercations with Klara. His inner dialogue chalks up fights he started Klara’s “pre-menstrual behavior”. But a key moment in the book reveals who our protagonist truly is.
After Rob sleeps with another woman, he confronts Klara about sleeping with a man named Dane Metchnikov. Until this moment it’s not clear fully how much Metchnikov weighs on Rob’s mind. And it’s made clear, if you pay attention, why Metchnikov is on his mind.
"Friend!" I barked. The last thing Metchnikov was to anyone was a friend. Just thinking about Klara with him made my groin crawl. I didn't like the sensation, because I couldn't identify it.
Are you getting the picture yet? Anyway, Klara reasonably doesn’t let up. Rob is being a hypocrite. But what she doesn’t know is that he’s waiting for an excuse to kill her.
I reached out to touch her, and she sobbed and hit me, as hard as she could. The blow caught me on the shoulder.
That was a mistake.
I punched her four or five times, as hard as I could, on the breast, in the face, in the belly. She fell to the ground, sobbing. I knelt beside her, lifted her up with one hand and, in absolutely cold blood, slapped her twice more. It was all happening as if choreographed by God, absolutely inevitably; and at the same I could feel that I was breathing as hard as though I'd climbed a mountain on a dead run. The blood was thundering in my ears. Everything I saw was hazed with red.
I turned back toward Klara, who was sitting up, not looking at me, her hand cupped over her mouth. She took the hand away and stared at something in it: a tooth.*
Here we learn that Rob is monstrous person with little control over his emotions. And then there’s the subtext behind his actions. Rob didn’t just beat Klara nearly to death out of some act of betrayal. Or the fact that she hit him first. But due to his repressed feeling towards Dane Metchnikov. What’s worse is Rob goes on to rationalize his decisions. He puts himself into a one man ship on a sort of suicide mission gambling (emphasis on gambling) his life away. When the trip turns out to be dull, he has a temper tantrum and destroys the ship. But then, upon returning to GATEWAY, he encounters Klara again. He proceeds to love bomb her.
I put my arms around her. "I can say that I love you, and I'm sorry, and I want to make it up to you, and I want to get married and live together and have kids and—"
"Jesus, Rob," she said, pushing me away, gently enough, "when you say something you say a lot, don't you? So hold it for a while. It'll keep."
"But it's been months!”
Guys, it’s okay! It’s been months since his attempted murder!
Before our story is over Rob finally concedes that he is at least bi-sexual to his therapist bot.
Sigfrid says gently, "Rob. When you masturbated, did you ever have fantasies about Dane?"
"I hated it," I say.
He waits.
"I hated myself for it. I mean, not hated, exactly. More like despised. Poor goddamn son of a bitch, me, all kinky and awful, beating his meat and thinking about being screwed by his girl's lover."
Now, with all this important information unpacked we reach our final act. An act that I believe is intentionally framed narratively in a confusing way. You see. I believe Rob intentionally killed his friends. I believe that his emotions surrounding them were too much. I believe that he wanted the payout that maid him fabulously rich for himself. I think he launched his friends and Klara directly into a black hole and that he’s forced to live with this guilt. But I think there is satisfaction in knowing he go his way. I omitted something from his attack on Klara earlier. Something that is key here.
I wanted to kill Klara. I had been taming all that stored-up fury, and I hadn't even let myself know it was there until she pulled the trigger.
And finally we have our protagonist coming to terms with his guilt. Our unreliable narrator final drops the only confession he’s capable. A sort of squirm in his seat cowardly half confession to his therapy bot Siegfrid.
"Let's explore that question of guilt, Rob. Guilt why?" "Because I jettisoned nine people to save myself, asshole!" "Has anyone ever accused you of that? Anyone but yourself, I mean?" "Accused?" I blow my nose again, thinking. "Well, no. Why should they? When I got back I was kind of a hero." I think about Shicky, so kind, so mothering; and Francy Hereira holding me in his arms, letting me bawl, even though I'd killed his cousin. "But they weren't there. They didn't see me blow the tanks to get free."
"Did you blow the tanks?"
"Oh, hell, Sigfrid," I say, "I don't know.
Rob is a violent, sexually repressed, sexist, degenerate gambler. No amount of money is enough for him. He frequently throughout the book throws money away on gambles and his account frequently runs dry. And his ego. His soft baby boy ego. His therapist bot has to place foam matts in his room for Rob to kick and squirm on. And Rob is literally STRAPPED into place during his robo therapist sessions because of his tendency to attack the A.I. placed therapy dummy. Personally, our protagonist being a garbage man is what made the book so interesting to me.
Sexuality is fluent in the world presented in Gateway. Men share bunks with men. Women with women. You get the idea. Even though this is clunk, we should give the book credit. It was the 70s and TV/Movies still had decades before this was depicted as common. A gay character in Star Wars would never had flown and changed the discussion around the movie entirely. Early on in GATEWAY Rob is asked about his sexuality.
"I'll take you out for a drink later. It's a custom. Only it's not very interesting until about twenty-two hundred. The Blue Hell'll be full of people then, and I'll introduce you around. See what you can find. What are you, straight, gay, what?"
"I'm pretty straight." Notice the use of the word “pretty” here. Rob is “pretty” straight. But later on, he comes on less kindly when Rob is asked by his love interest Klara "They're not bad guys. How do you get along with gays?" and Rob responds "I leave them alone, they leave me alone.”
Between bouts of chain smoking, we are treated to Rob’s terrible personal inner thoughts throughout the book. He’s prone to pointless verbal altercations with Klara. His inner dialogue chalks up fights he started Klara’s “pre-menstrual behavior”. But a key moment in the book reveals who our protagonist truly is.
After Rob sleeps with another woman, he confronts Klara about sleeping with a man named Dane Metchnikov. Until this moment it’s not clear fully how much Metchnikov weighs on Rob’s mind. And it’s made clear, if you pay attention, why Metchnikov is on his mind.
"Friend!" I barked. The last thing Metchnikov was to anyone was a friend. Just thinking about Klara with him made my groin crawl. I didn't like the sensation, because I couldn't identify it.
Are you getting the picture yet? Anyway, Klara reasonably doesn’t let up. Rob is being a hypocrite. But what she doesn’t know is that he’s waiting for an excuse to kill her.
I reached out to touch her, and she sobbed and hit me, as hard as she could. The blow caught me on the shoulder.
That was a mistake.
I punched her four or five times, as hard as I could, on the breast, in the face, in the belly. She fell to the ground, sobbing. I knelt beside her, lifted her up with one hand and, in absolutely cold blood, slapped her twice more. It was all happening as if choreographed by God, absolutely inevitably; and at the same I could feel that I was breathing as hard as though I'd climbed a mountain on a dead run. The blood was thundering in my ears. Everything I saw was hazed with red.
I turned back toward Klara, who was sitting up, not looking at me, her hand cupped over her mouth. She took the hand away and stared at something in it: a tooth.*
Here we learn that Rob is monstrous person with little control over his emotions. And then there’s the subtext behind his actions. Rob didn’t just beat Klara nearly to death out of some act of betrayal. Or the fact that she hit him first. But due to his repressed feeling towards Dane Metchnikov. What’s worse is Rob goes on to rationalize his decisions. He puts himself into a one man ship on a sort of suicide mission gambling (emphasis on gambling) his life away. When the trip turns out to be dull, he has a temper tantrum and destroys the ship. But then, upon returning to GATEWAY, he encounters Klara again. He proceeds to love bomb her.
I put my arms around her. "I can say that I love you, and I'm sorry, and I want to make it up to you, and I want to get married and live together and have kids and—"
"Jesus, Rob," she said, pushing me away, gently enough, "when you say something you say a lot, don't you? So hold it for a while. It'll keep."
"But it's been months!”
Guys, it’s okay! It’s been months since his attempted murder!
Before our story is over Rob finally concedes that he is at least bi-sexual to his therapist bot.
Sigfrid says gently, "Rob. When you masturbated, did you ever have fantasies about Dane?"
"I hated it," I say.
He waits.
"I hated myself for it. I mean, not hated, exactly. More like despised. Poor goddamn son of a bitch, me, all kinky and awful, beating his meat and thinking about being screwed by his girl's lover."
Now, with all this important information unpacked we reach our final act. An act that I believe is intentionally framed narratively in a confusing way. You see. I believe Rob intentionally killed his friends. I believe that his emotions surrounding them were too much. I believe that he wanted the payout that maid him fabulously rich for himself. I think he launched his friends and Klara directly into a black hole and that he’s forced to live with this guilt. But I think there is satisfaction in knowing he go his way. I omitted something from his attack on Klara earlier. Something that is key here.
I wanted to kill Klara. I had been taming all that stored-up fury, and I hadn't even let myself know it was there until she pulled the trigger.
And finally we have our protagonist coming to terms with his guilt. Our unreliable narrator final drops the only confession he’s capable. A sort of squirm in his seat cowardly half confession to his therapy bot Siegfrid.
"Let's explore that question of guilt, Rob. Guilt why?" "Because I jettisoned nine people to save myself, asshole!" "Has anyone ever accused you of that? Anyone but yourself, I mean?" "Accused?" I blow my nose again, thinking. "Well, no. Why should they? When I got back I was kind of a hero." I think about Shicky, so kind, so mothering; and Francy Hereira holding me in his arms, letting me bawl, even though I'd killed his cousin. "But they weren't there. They didn't see me blow the tanks to get free."
"Did you blow the tanks?"
"Oh, hell, Sigfrid," I say, "I don't know.
jzarrow's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Loved this book as a middleschooler. Ugh. Hard to read again.
rsledge's review against another edition
This is one of my favorite science fiction yarns. That's not to say it's one of the best books ever written, but something about the concept, and the way it's explored, landed with me and has stayed with me for a long time.
Spoiler
The sessions with the "psychiatrist" were my least favorite bits, to the point that they almost ruined the book for me at first. But the story was great -- not just the central idea of using these mysterious ships from a long-absent civilization to explore space, but the exploration of the human toll of such exploration.daed's review against another edition
4.0
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.
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.
anyajulchen's review against another edition
4.0
Al principio no podía creer que este libro ganó el premio Nebula, Hugo y Campbell. Robinette Broandhead es el personaje con la peor primera impresión para el lector, el tema parece aburrido y los demás actores de la novela no son mucho mejor, con sus excepciones claro.
Sin embargo, no podía dejar de leer. Por más desagradable que fuera Robbie, por más cobarde que se comportara, el autor sabía guiarlo a través de una serie de pruebas y momentos curiosos. Y el final, por dios, menudo toque y arte...Sin palabras. Pohl fue un genio, sin dudas, y leeré los demás libros de esta tetralogía.
Sin embargo, no podía dejar de leer. Por más desagradable que fuera Robbie, por más cobarde que se comportara, el autor sabía guiarlo a través de una serie de pruebas y momentos curiosos. Y el final, por dios, menudo toque y arte...Sin palabras. Pohl fue un genio, sin dudas, y leeré los demás libros de esta tetralogía.
hakimbriki's review
2.0
Gateway won three major awards... I can see the appeal. It's an interesting take on the "alien artifact" plot device. It's thematically courageous and quite well written. It's just so damn boring. Barely anything interesting happens... until the very end, this felt like a drone metal concert. Pohl sustained the same chord, though distorted and beautiful, for too long. I kept waiting for him to pick up the pace, but by the time he did, I looked like this:
categj's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this book — and not just because it is a science fiction tale. I loved the way the author built up suspense, it had me dying to find out what had happened on the Robinette's prospecting voyage. It definitely was not predictable in any sense. I was pulled along by the novel, learning more and more with every page turned, until the story had fully unfolded.
Frederik Pohl set his story on a planet, Gateway, owned by the "Corporation", a conglomerate of sorts, comprised of different planetary governments. Gateway was long ago abandoned by the Heechee, an alien race with an intellect far more advanced than Earthlings that had for reasons unknown left a fleet of spaceships and other treasure behind. Through trial and error, humans painstakingly learned how to use some of the Heechee artifacts for mankind's benefit, including a way to man the spacecraft in order to search the galaxy for more technology.
Robinette, the main character,tells the story through the memories he replays in his head and the ones he relates to his therapist, Sigmund Freud, a sophisticated robot.
Pohl,artfully fills in the story piece by piece, building the tension, until with, Robinette's final revelation, we learn of the tragic way he cameinto his big score.
The author's description of Gateway, the condition of Earth and its solar system, and the technology of this world, all feels very real, and even though, the book was published in 1977, does not seem outdated. Instead, it all seems authentic, plausible and close at hand.
I found this novel to be an easy read, very enjoyable with enough humour to defuse the tension at exactly the right moments. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves science fiction.
Frederik Pohl set his story on a planet, Gateway, owned by the "Corporation", a conglomerate of sorts, comprised of different planetary governments. Gateway was long ago abandoned by the Heechee, an alien race with an intellect far more advanced than Earthlings that had for reasons unknown left a fleet of spaceships and other treasure behind. Through trial and error, humans painstakingly learned how to use some of the Heechee artifacts for mankind's benefit, including a way to man the spacecraft in order to search the galaxy for more technology.
Robinette, the main character,tells the story through the memories he replays in his head and the ones he relates to his therapist, Sigmund Freud, a sophisticated robot.
Pohl,artfully fills in the story piece by piece, building the tension, until with, Robinette's final revelation, we learn of the tragic way he cameinto his big score.
The author's description of Gateway, the condition of Earth and its solar system, and the technology of this world, all feels very real, and even though, the book was published in 1977, does not seem outdated. Instead, it all seems authentic, plausible and close at hand.
I found this novel to be an easy read, very enjoyable with enough humour to defuse the tension at exactly the right moments. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves science fiction.
songwind's review against another edition
5.0
This is an excellently written, affecting and difficult book.
The prose itself isn't difficult. It flows well, and the literary devices like foreshadowing and metaphor blend in smoothly. In fact, I'd be willing to say it's one of the best straight prose books I've read in a while. (As opposed to prose of a more poetic bent.)
The story itself is an intriguing take on the idea of interstellar exploration. Exploring without our own solar system, humanity finds the remains of an ancient civilization on Venus. They eventually find a ship, and one explorer accidentally activates it. It takes him to a right-angle orbiting asteroid (planetoid?) that comes to be called Gateway. Gateway is stocked full to bursting with alien ships. Their courses can be set, but we don't know what the codes are. They can be launched, but they go where they're sent and come back. They don't change course once launched.
The parallels to Stargate jumped out at me immediately - but without the TV friendly safe worlds and magic translation, or instant transport.
Bob Broadhead, the narrator, is a rich man because of a successful prospecting mission in a Gateway ship. He's also a troubled man, and the story is framed in a series of trips to his therapist, an AI he calls Sigfried von Shrink.
The trouble is, Bob is not the greatest guy you could meet. He's selfish, immature, bad tempered at times, and frequently cowardly. He's also pretty irregular in his acceptance of these facts.
The threads of the story - exploration of space, exploration of Bob, and the history of spacefaring in this alternate future - are woven together quite tightly. Bob's reminiscences and therapy sessions feed into one another. Sometimes they foreshadow the other.
The book is also interesting as a historical artifact. So many of the world's attitudes and expectations of the future come through, and it's fascinating. Some of the concepts will be familiar to readers of 60s-70s era sci fi: sex as casual fun, relaxed attitude to drug use, and the idea that computers will continue to be hulking mainframes even once they're running anything.
What is missing is the romantic view of space travel with spacious ships, artificial gravity, and the like. The space travel reads like a more advanced version of our own efforts at that time. Cramped spaces, long travel times, etc.
By the end of the book I was left full of conflicting feeling. Sympathy, disgust, and anger toward Bob were mingled thoroughly. The same is true of most of the other characters as well, in varying proportions.
The prose itself isn't difficult. It flows well, and the literary devices like foreshadowing and metaphor blend in smoothly. In fact, I'd be willing to say it's one of the best straight prose books I've read in a while. (As opposed to prose of a more poetic bent.)
The story itself is an intriguing take on the idea of interstellar exploration. Exploring without our own solar system, humanity finds the remains of an ancient civilization on Venus. They eventually find a ship, and one explorer accidentally activates it. It takes him to a right-angle orbiting asteroid (planetoid?) that comes to be called Gateway. Gateway is stocked full to bursting with alien ships. Their courses can be set, but we don't know what the codes are. They can be launched, but they go where they're sent and come back. They don't change course once launched.
The parallels to Stargate jumped out at me immediately - but without the TV friendly safe worlds and magic translation, or instant transport.
Bob Broadhead, the narrator, is a rich man because of a successful prospecting mission in a Gateway ship. He's also a troubled man, and the story is framed in a series of trips to his therapist, an AI he calls Sigfried von Shrink.
The trouble is, Bob is not the greatest guy you could meet. He's selfish, immature, bad tempered at times, and frequently cowardly. He's also pretty irregular in his acceptance of these facts.
The threads of the story - exploration of space, exploration of Bob, and the history of spacefaring in this alternate future - are woven together quite tightly. Bob's reminiscences and therapy sessions feed into one another. Sometimes they foreshadow the other.
The book is also interesting as a historical artifact. So many of the world's attitudes and expectations of the future come through, and it's fascinating. Some of the concepts will be familiar to readers of 60s-70s era sci fi: sex as casual fun, relaxed attitude to drug use, and the idea that computers will continue to be hulking mainframes even once they're running anything.
What is missing is the romantic view of space travel with spacious ships, artificial gravity, and the like. The space travel reads like a more advanced version of our own efforts at that time. Cramped spaces, long travel times, etc.
By the end of the book I was left full of conflicting feeling. Sympathy, disgust, and anger toward Bob were mingled thoroughly. The same is true of most of the other characters as well, in varying proportions.