Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
Heechee Saga #2 “In book two of the Heechee Saga, Robinette Broadhead is on his way to making a fortune by bankrolling an expedition to the Food Factory--a Heechee spaceship that can graze the cometary cloud and transfor the basic elements of the universe into untold quantities of food. But even as he gambles on the breakthrough technology, he is wracked with the guilt of losing his wife, poised forever at the "event horizon" of a black hole where Robin had abandoned her. As more and more information comes back from the expedition, Robin grows ever hopeful that he can rescue his beloved Gelle-Klara Moynlin. After three and a years, the factory is discovered to work, and a human is found aboard. Robin's suffering may be just about over…” From Goodreads
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- This turns up in the Fred Pohl classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Blue_Event_Horizon which is a sequel to the genre-escaping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_(novel)
- Turns up in the great sci-fi book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Blue_Event_Horizon which is a sequel to the sublime (transcends the genre) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_(novel) which compares to Ballard more than Asimov or Heinlein.
- Discovered Gateway when I was about 13. What a story to expand a young mind! Beyond The Blue Event Horizon and Jem, which I re-read earlier this year, also made big impressions.
His role in supporting other authors can't be overlooked, either -- check out his two-part blog account of how Delaney's Dhalgren got published (1).
One of the other remarkable things I discovered about Pohl through his blog is just how long he was involved with science fiction. This 2009 post talks about what it was like being a hard-core sci-fi fan in the 1930s (2). I read another one (can't find it now) where he talks about joining the first "con" in the same decade, and meeting some early writers. Almost all of them were gone by the time he wrote the blog post ... he was the last one who remembered that era of raw imagination, and had lived to see many future technologies and concepts become reality. His writing reflected a pessimism about humanity, but also a sense of hope.
Thank you, Mr. Pohl, for your gifts to the world.
1. http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2010/11/chip-delany/
2. http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2009/09/let-there-be-fan...
- All this Blackhole talk reminds me of the excellent Frederick Pohl novel, Gateway. And its sequel Beyond the Blue Event Horizon. Both of which deal with humans interacting with these regions of the universe for the first time.
- Mmmm true, but will not replace a good coder. The software team has been experimenting with AI. Is useful and can guide you to do a Proof of concept fast but if you want to start doing very specific custom stuff all crumbles down fast.
In the next years? Yeah I see resolving path planning without a doubt or reverse kinematics or object recognition, for example. AI will be another tool, one you have to learn to use it. But replacing a full software guy... I don't see it, to be honest. I see it more like in the novel Beyond the Blue Event Horizon. The first chapters explains AI as the AI agents that are being rolling out nowdays. But they will be more like what a junior engineer is to a senior, more than replacing a full team of engineers.
- > fictional advertisement for such a product in a sci-fi story
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederik Pohl
The artificial food was called CHON.
