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creadsagain's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lelcopter's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
geekwayne's review against another edition
4.0
'Gateway' by Frederik Pohl was the pick for my book club last month. It's a good, though somewhat dated, story.
The framing story involves the main character, Robinette Broadhead, as he attends therapy sessions by a mechanical therapist. Rob is not a very likable character, and he seems evasive towards his therapist, even to the point of pulling pranks, and being derogatory towards him. Can you be derogatory towards a machine?
The reason he is in therapy is about his time on Gateway, a place with strange alien technology left behind by the Heechee. Fortunes can be made and lives lost by blindly taking a trip in one of the strange spacecraft left behind. Rob has come from a bleaker existence that makes this sort of risk seem like his only choice.
The dated parts come in regarding the kind of technology and even therapy methods used. Also some of Rob's feelings about things. I don't think we are supposed to like him, but that doesn't mean it's not a good book. The ending is a bit abrupt, and there are bits of Gateway ephemera that were sprinkled through my book that seemed disruptive to the narrative flow, but it was a quick enough read. I enjoyed this one.
The framing story involves the main character, Robinette Broadhead, as he attends therapy sessions by a mechanical therapist. Rob is not a very likable character, and he seems evasive towards his therapist, even to the point of pulling pranks, and being derogatory towards him. Can you be derogatory towards a machine?
The reason he is in therapy is about his time on Gateway, a place with strange alien technology left behind by the Heechee. Fortunes can be made and lives lost by blindly taking a trip in one of the strange spacecraft left behind. Rob has come from a bleaker existence that makes this sort of risk seem like his only choice.
The dated parts come in regarding the kind of technology and even therapy methods used. Also some of Rob's feelings about things. I don't think we are supposed to like him, but that doesn't mean it's not a good book. The ending is a bit abrupt, and there are bits of Gateway ephemera that were sprinkled through my book that seemed disruptive to the narrative flow, but it was a quick enough read. I enjoyed this one.
mayhem9683's review
adventurous
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mrsderopp's review against another edition
Written in the 70s this was really sexist and machovenistic. Main character just really horrible. Couldn't be doing with him. Shame cus it was an interesting idea.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny and Sexism
jacktopher's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
steven_lamb's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Overall, I quite enjoyed the read and Pohl's writing style. The main character is written to be unlikable and over the course of the book, he goes from unlikable to truly despicable.
This may turn some readers off, but I remain thoroughly entertained and invested in the world. I felt that the world-building was excellent, and the world really felt lived in.
This may turn some readers off, but I remain thoroughly entertained and invested in the world. I felt that the world-building was excellent, and the world really felt lived in.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Sexual content
billymac1962's review against another edition
4.0
This is one I'd been meaning to read forever. Gateway has a great premise, one which leads to great anticipation of wonders and mystery. Gateway is a docking station, left behind by an alien species,
the Heechee. It's like a giant asteroid, stocked with ships programmed to travel to destinations light-years away and then return.
Bob Broadhead has won the lottery, his ticket off an overpopulated
and bleak Earth to Gateway, where missions on these ships bring either death or wealth...you just have to be lucky enough to pick the right ship.
This was a very enjoyable read but really left me wanting more...I felt a little cheated that after reading it I didn't come away with any mysteries resolved or wonders revealed. But I guess that's the
aim behind the first book in a series. After reading the reviews of Beyond the Blue Event Horizon at Amazon.com, I'm convinced that the best is yet to come, although the darn thing's out of print now.
Hopefully I'll find it at my used bookstore haunts. Definitely worth your time and soooo close to meriting a 5-star rating.
the Heechee. It's like a giant asteroid, stocked with ships programmed to travel to destinations light-years away and then return.
Bob Broadhead has won the lottery, his ticket off an overpopulated
and bleak Earth to Gateway, where missions on these ships bring either death or wealth...you just have to be lucky enough to pick the right ship.
This was a very enjoyable read but really left me wanting more...I felt a little cheated that after reading it I didn't come away with any mysteries resolved or wonders revealed. But I guess that's the
aim behind the first book in a series. After reading the reviews of Beyond the Blue Event Horizon at Amazon.com, I'm convinced that the best is yet to come, although the darn thing's out of print now.
Hopefully I'll find it at my used bookstore haunts. Definitely worth your time and soooo close to meriting a 5-star rating.
draackje's review against another edition
3.0
Supposedly a Science Fiction Masterwork. I can see why, but I'm not sure I agree.
It depicts a very realistic future with scarce resources, where you are either very rich and live a luxury life, or are very poor and live a hard-working life in mines etc. One way to escape the poor life is to volunteer for a possibly very rewarding exploration of the universe in recently discovered alien spaceships, of which nobody knows how they work or where they go. This is galactic russian roulette though: you may come back with riches from another planet, you may come back with nothing, you may come back dead, or you may not come back at all. In the story it becomes clear that life as a space-explorer isn't great: you have to live on a desolate, boring spacestation, you have to pay your bills and food, and the only way to earn money is to gamble your life on an alien spaceship and hope to return with valuables. Otherwise you'll have to gamble your life again and again. The only distractions from constantly living in fearful anticipation of the next (potentially deadly) exploration are sex, drugs, alcohol and gambling.
The story starts off slow, focusing on Bob's lifestory. In one storyline we see his story develop chronological, in the other storyline we see Bob discuss his lifestory in the future with his robotic psychiatrist. From the first page you know Bob is troubled by some experience in his life, but he somehow ended up rich. The chronological storyline and the psychiatrical storyline slowly work towards a combined climax, you can see this climax coming from page one. This helps to drive the point of the author home; life as space-explorer is extremely boring and almost hopeless; hardly anything happens, it only exist out of fearful anticipation and distractions, and like with gambling you know you're probably going to end up pretty bad. The main character isn't likeable, he is just an ordinary egocentric guy, that behaves much like anybody would do in such a situation. Try to make the best of it and procrastinate a lot. All in all, not much happens in the story, it moves very slowly and at times it's almost boring. But since you know (from the psychiatric storyline) that something dramatic will happen, you read on.
Eventually you get to the climax, and by then you'll have an understanding (maybe even sympathy) for the characters, you'll have 'experienced' how boring and hopeless life is for them, you can feel their anticipation; waiting for that one lucky gamble, just as you're waiting for that one moment of climax. And I have to admit that I read the last ten pages three times over, just to try to grasp the "dramaticness" of the climax. This might be the most dramatic ending to a (love)story I have ever read. It is odd to have read 200+ pages without really caring about any of the characters or events, and then to read the last ten pages in absolute disbelief.
If I could, I would only recommend to read the last few pages of the book, since they are an amazing dramatic ending. However, they would mean nothing without the very slow and boring buildup from the other pages. Now, I can only advise you to be prepared for a long, slow story, which at times feels rather outdated and doesn't feature very likeable characters. However, it is an excellent imagining of how a capitalistic system would handle space-exploration and how an individual person would be valued in that system.
It depicts a very realistic future with scarce resources, where you are either very rich and live a luxury life, or are very poor and live a hard-working life in mines etc. One way to escape the poor life is to volunteer for a possibly very rewarding exploration of the universe in recently discovered alien spaceships, of which nobody knows how they work or where they go. This is galactic russian roulette though: you may come back with riches from another planet, you may come back with nothing, you may come back dead, or you may not come back at all. In the story it becomes clear that life as a space-explorer isn't great: you have to live on a desolate, boring spacestation, you have to pay your bills and food, and the only way to earn money is to gamble your life on an alien spaceship and hope to return with valuables. Otherwise you'll have to gamble your life again and again. The only distractions from constantly living in fearful anticipation of the next (potentially deadly) exploration are sex, drugs, alcohol and gambling.
The story starts off slow, focusing on Bob's lifestory. In one storyline we see his story develop chronological, in the other storyline we see Bob discuss his lifestory in the future with his robotic psychiatrist. From the first page you know Bob is troubled by some experience in his life, but he somehow ended up rich. The chronological storyline and the psychiatrical storyline slowly work towards a combined climax, you can see this climax coming from page one. This helps to drive the point of the author home; life as space-explorer is extremely boring and almost hopeless; hardly anything happens, it only exist out of fearful anticipation and distractions, and like with gambling you know you're probably going to end up pretty bad. The main character isn't likeable, he is just an ordinary egocentric guy, that behaves much like anybody would do in such a situation. Try to make the best of it and procrastinate a lot. All in all, not much happens in the story, it moves very slowly and at times it's almost boring. But since you know (from the psychiatric storyline) that something dramatic will happen, you read on.
Eventually you get to the climax, and by then you'll have an understanding (maybe even sympathy) for the characters, you'll have 'experienced' how boring and hopeless life is for them, you can feel their anticipation; waiting for that one lucky gamble, just as you're waiting for that one moment of climax. And I have to admit that I read the last ten pages three times over, just to try to grasp the "dramaticness" of the climax. This might be the most dramatic ending to a (love)story I have ever read. It is odd to have read 200+ pages without really caring about any of the characters or events, and then to read the last ten pages in absolute disbelief.
If I could, I would only recommend to read the last few pages of the book, since they are an amazing dramatic ending. However, they would mean nothing without the very slow and boring buildup from the other pages. Now, I can only advise you to be prepared for a long, slow story, which at times feels rather outdated and doesn't feature very likeable characters. However, it is an excellent imagining of how a capitalistic system would handle space-exploration and how an individual person would be valued in that system.
yvarg's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5