Gateway
Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe...and on reaches of unimaginable horror. When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!THE HEECHEE SAGABook One: GATEWAYBook Two: BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT HORIZONBook Three: HEECHEE RENDEZVOUSBook Four: THE ANNALS OF THE HEECHEE "From the Paperback edition."
Stats for nerds
22recommend
39mentions
34people
2010–2026years
64% recommend36% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Did you read some of the old stuff?
- The Xeelee Cyclus
- Gateway from Pohl
- Rondevouze with Rama
- Starship Troopers
- The forever wars
Not hard sci-fi but good:
- The Bobbyverse
- - Most works by Heinlein esp. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Tunnel In The Sky, Time Enough For Love
- Many other works by Asimov
- The Rama series by A.C. Clarke
- Gateway and other novels in the same universe, by Fred Pohl
- The earlier novels of James P. Hogan esp. The Two Faces Of Tomorrow and The Genesis Machine
- The Complete Venus Equilateral, by George O. Smith
Much more, of course, but a good start.
- I like the list.
It's the kind of list an English professor might make, not necessarily a sci-fi fan. In particular, Dick's genius was recognized only after his death.
Even though sci-fi sometimes rises above other genre literature, it's not taken that seriously by literary types. Baudrillard talks a lot about Dick and Ballard and that's it. Stanislaw Lem (whose Cyberiad ought to be on that list instead of The Futurological Congress) himself said that Phillip K. Dick was on a whole other level than other sci-fi writers.
Notably the list subverts the category of "novel" by adding a lot of things (comic books, concept albums) that aren't really novels.
I think Fred Pohl is missing (say Gateway) and also Joe Halderman (Worlds!). I'd rather see any Frank Herbert book but Dune (say Whipping Star or The Santaroga Barrier.) For that matter I'd like to see something from Heinlein before he had the stroke like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or Glory Road. I'd also want to see Niven's Neutron Star (a set of short stories that read like a novel) but despite some "new wave" sensibilities Niven comes across as reactionary today because the Tor Books revival (Forge of God and Enders Game) of sci-fi in the 1980s liked Heinlein and Niven and Doc Smith better than LeGunn, Dick, Ballard, Herbert, etc.
On the other hand, put a sci-fi fan in charge of making this list and it's no doubt they'll add a stick of books from some author who is a "no account" in literary circles like Piers Anthony -- still I would try to slip him in at his most psychedelic.
- City - Clifford D Simack
All of Miles Vorkosigan books by Lois Bujold
Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh
Stand in Zanzibar John Bruner
Adiamante - LE Modesitt Jr
Souls in the Great Machine by Sean McMullen
Known Space series by Larry Niven and ALL of his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle
Midshipman’s Hope by David Feintuch
Gateway - Fredrick Pohl
Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg
- I agree Heinlein wrote one-dimensional characters; the male heroes were idealised versions of himself and the women were objects of wish-fulfillment.
Pohl wrote pretty well in my opinion. The psycho-therapeutic aspect of Gateway is brilliant for the sci fi of that era.
Plenty of sci fi authors wrote characters comparably with PKD, such as Zelazny, Le Guin, and Bester.
- Some of my favourites this year:
On The Clock by Emily Guendelsberger - Gave me a glimpse into how it is to work at Amazon, McDonalds and Convergys. Though the subject is not the most positive. her style of writing is quite funny, and the combination worked well.
Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series. He drops you into the middle of his universe without explaining it all at once, and he's very eager about explaining all the new technology he's dreamed up. He also makes sure the books are written so that they could all have been a standalone title. Depending on what you've read before, things he mentions will often remain a "mystery" until you find the answer later in the series, or in one of the standalone short stories.
Maus av Art Spiegelman - Graphical novel about being a Jewish WW2 concentration camp prisoner. Highly recommended.
Flowers for Algernon by David Keyes. From 1959, I liked it a lot. About a mentally handicapped man who receives a surgery that gradually turns him into the smartest man alive. Lots of focus on how empathy, humility and respect has to go alongside pure knowledge. And also that mentally handicapped are people too.
Gateway by Frederik Pohl - Sci-fi from the 70s. Quite good. A comet is discovered, full of million-year old ships pre-programmed for roundtrip flights to unknown destinations.
Next year I'd like to look more into Haruki Murakami's books. The one I've read was slow to get started, but I liked it a lot in the end. It had some things in common with regular sci-fi, but he seems to lean more towards the dreamy/odd/artsy side of things than what I'm used to.
Related
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
3 recommend · 7
Heechee Rendezvous
1 recommend · 2
Hellstrom's Hive
1 recommend · 2
Destination Void
4 recommend · 10
The Space Merchants
20 recommend · 54
Tunnel in the sky
7 recommend · 19
The Beginning Place
2 recommend · 3
