ack in 1977, Frederik Pohl published a novel titled Gateway that went on to win three awards in the field and open up an intriguing new future history. In this first book in the sequence, we were introduced to Robinette Broadhead, an average, poverty-stricken inhabitant of an overcrowded Earth who won a lottery ticket to Gateway, the asteroid that contained remnant ships of the vanished Heechee aliens. Using these randomly programmed faster-than-light ships, Rob went on to become the richest man in the solar system, while yet losing the woman he loved, Gelle-Klara Moynlin, to a rapacious black hole. In Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980), some 40 years of history passed, in which Rob's wealth only increased. The power he enjoyed allowed Rob to do many things. He helped discover a new Heechee artifact (a cornucopia device that held a human orphan named Wan). And he learned where the Heechee had fled (into a livable black hole at the galaxy's core) and why (to escape another race known as the Assassins).
Heechee Rendezvous (1984) found humanity making contact with the Heechee in their hiding place. Rob—now an uploaded machine intelligence—also was able to rescue Klara from her long imprisonment. The Annals of the Heechee (1987) portrayed the beginnings of a joint human-Heechee community, and the discovery of the lurking Assassins, hiding in their own version of a black hole known as a "kugelblitz." Eventually, even the "Kugels" became integrated into the stellar community. The fifth book, The Gateway Trip (1990), was a collection of vignettes filling in the interstices, supplemented by excellent illos by Frank Kelly Freas.
Here the saga of the Heechee seemed naturally to end. But 14 years later, Pohl has found plenty more of interest to relate. He begins by going back to the past. The story opens after the events of Gateway but before those of Beyond the Blue Event Horizon We meet Stan Avery, another lower-class youth with aspirations. Stan, too, ends up on the Gateway asteroid, and makes friends with a young woman named Estrella Pancorbo. On a typically dangerous mission, they become lovers, returning only to find that all their expectations have gone out the window with the discovery of the Heechee's hiding place. Stan and Estrella end up volunteering to become mankind's first ambassadors to the Core. Only they are dispatched without being informed that the time-dilation properties of the Heechee pocket universe mean that they will be forever exiled from all they have known.
The adventures of Stan and Estrella in the Core form the armature of the book on which several major incidents hang. Eventually, all these subplots cohere into a unity. We meet a new character, an AI named Marc Antony, whose only desire is to be the best chef in the galaxy. But matters of life and death for the Heechees and humanity ensure that the ultra-competent and wise Marc is perpetually called away from his stove. We follow the career of Rob Broadhead's ex-lover, Klara, herself now incredibly rich and powerful. (Broadhead is offstage throughout, leaving the limelight to others.) We catch up on the doings of Wan, the "raised-by-wolves" child who has now become a danger to himself and the universe. We meet Orbis McClune, a Heechee-hating preacher. And we get a more intimate portrait of the Heechee than ever before, focusing on two of the aliens, named Achiever and Salt. By the book's end, 40,000 years have passed for the galaxy, while one eventful year has gone by in the pocket universe, leaving all the characters immutably altered.
A ceaseless reinvention
Frederik Pohl is 85 years old. His first story was published more than 60 years ago. The Gateway sequence itself is now nearly 30 years old. Despite—or perhaps because of—all this history, Pohl's new book remains a feast and a pleasure. The first book in the series remains the best, but the newest is no small accomplishment. Pohl continues to astound.
The book is something of a fixup, three major chunks having appeared between 1999 and 2002. The mosaic structure of the book is at first distracting. There are jumps in point of view and voice, with both Klara and Marc Antony contributing first-person narratives, as opposed to the omniscient perspective on Stan and Estrella. But Pohl is masterly enough to tie up the whole package neatly and satisfyingly by the end.
Also a tad disconcerting at first is the fact that the book jumps back to the earliest days of the future history. We fear at first that this is going to be a simple rehash of what has gone before. But rest assured that Pohl is too generous to offer such a meager gift. Stan's perspective on the events he shares with Broadhead is sufficiently different to be enlightening and entertaining. And by the time he and Estrella get to the Core, there is so much divergence that we are in wholly new territory. The deeper exploration of Heechee psychology and culture alone is something not before seen in the saga.
Also satisfying is the continuance of several biographies. The machinations of Wan and his ultimate fate are an always-surprising evolution. An object of pity when first introduced, Wan has become a real stinker by this book. Yet twinges of empathy for him remain. Additionally, Klara, who was often slighted when Broadhead was on stage, comes into her own.
Pohl continues to probe matters that have interested him in prior outings. The issues attendant on psychoanalysis, so prominent in the first book, are revived here. Only this time, it's the alien psyche—that of Achiever—that needs unknotting. Issues of maturation and responsibility—Stan and Estrella must face parenthood, for one—parallel those that faced Rob. And Pohl has refined his depiction of virtual reality—an existence eventually chosen by the majority of humanity—into something approaching the sophistication of Greg Egan's work.
Finally, one appreciates the mordant, satiric tone employed by Pohl—mostly in the Orbis McClune thread—and the zanier aspect of Heechee culture, which at time remind one of the wild ideations of Rudy Rucker. All in all, then, this novel shows why Pohl was designated a Grand Master, and proves that he is far from content merely to rest on his laurels.
