Heechee Rendezvous - Frederik Pohl

A while ago publisher Baen experimented with an online game. By playing it you could win free e-books. It didn't last for very long but I did manage to gather enough points to get a few free books out of it and since I enjoyed Gateway (1977) and Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980) quite a bit, this third volume in Frederik Pohl's Heechee saga was one of them. It's one of a number of Pohl's novels Baen converted to e-books. It would appear it was a bit of a rush job. For some reason they couldn't be bothered to put on some decent cover art (granted, given what passes for cover art at that publisher, it might actually be a blessing) and my epub edition contains an annoying number of typos and formatting errors. Quite frankly, it is a good thing I didn't pay for it or I'd want my money back. But in the end it is the story that counts, so let's have a look at that.

In this third volume Pohl takes us back to see his main character Robinette Broadhead again. He is still rich as Croesus, happily married to a beautiful wife and in the possession of a top notch health insurance policy that keeps him healthy even though he is getting on in years. Despite this, or maybe because of this, guilt still gnaws at him. So much so that he feels impelled to seek out his old councilor Siegfrid once more. As it turns out, Robinette is not done with the Heechee quite yet, or with sophisticated computer programs for that matter.

Where the first two novels managed to rake in quite a few award nominations and awards, Gateway in particular is considered one of Pohl's finest, at this point in the series interest was clearly waning. It was nominated for a Locus SF Award but lost to Larry Niven's The Integral Trees. In 1984 the peak of Pohl's writing career lay some years behind him. Heechee Rendezvous still has that undertone of satire in it but the story itself and the way it is told, will grate on more than a few readers.

Robinette himself is the main narrator but part of the story is also told by an artificial intelligence based on Albert Einstein. The story switches point of view between those two frequently and not always in a smooth way. Albert's tone is a bit pedantic, whereas Robinette himself has a tendency to throw in cliffhangers and if-I'd-only-known type of phrases. It is, in other words, a very good example of how to annoy your readers.

The story itself is amusing enough though. We even end up in Rotterdam for a bit. Having lived there for a couple of years, I recognized some of the places Pohl mentioned. He even mixes in a bit of poor Dutch. Of course he then manages to mortally offend a whole nation (or maybe two) by having Robinette's Russian wife mention that in her opinion speaking Dutch is much the same as speaking German. Ouch! It makes me wonder if Pohl has ever been here though, or if it is all book research.

Pohl throws in quite a bit of cosmology and astrophysics in his story. It is not so much that your average science fiction reader can't follow but enough to know that you are reading a book by a man for whom science fiction contained actual science. One of the major plot points is Albert's inability to convince himself of the validity of quantum mechanics for instance. He still firmly beliefs in a universe governed by predictable laws of nature. Or as he himself puts it: God does not play dice. There is also a bit of Stephen Hawking hidden in the text and some speculation about the ultimate fate of the universe. Some of it has been overtaken by new theories already but not so much as to make this aspect of the story seem very dated.

The plot itself unveils a new layer in the mystery of the Heechee, their sudden disappearance and the reason for their self-imposed exile. You could even say that the story ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. Pohl does tie up the plot in some ways but he also leaves the door wide open for sequels. He would eventually write three more Heechee books, The Annals of the Heechee (1987). The Gateway Trip (1990) and The Boy Who Would Live Forever (2004). Judging from this book, I'm not entirely sure there is material for three books in this series. I do have two of the three sequels though. I may give the next one a go too.

Given the high standard Pohl sets in the first novel of this series, Heechee Rendezvous is a bit of a disappointment. It is entertaining in a way but simply not very well written. Robinette is not the most sympathetic of characters. This is something I can deal with but Pohl somehow manages to continually make him get on the reader's nerves. Quite an achievement, but when I start feeling it is a blessing the book is only 273 pages long, he may have overdone it just a bit. Still, if you enjoy the riddle the Heechee pose, it is very  readable. Just don't expect Pohl to rise to the level he attained in the 1970s.

Book Details
Title: Heechee Rendezvous
Author: Frederik Pohl
Publisher: Baen
Pages: 273
Year: Unknown
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-1-4516-3781-6
First published: 1984

Beyond the Blue Event Horizon - Frederik Pohl

Beyond the Blue Event Horizon is the second book in Pohl's Heechee series, a series that started out with the 1972 novella The Merchants of Venus. This novella was reprinted in Platinum Pohl among other collections. The first Heechee novel, Gateway (1976), is one of his best regarded solo novels and won him a whole shelf full of awards. I guess it is not surprising that after that kind of success, a sequel has a hard time living up to expectations. I've heard a lot of people say this is one of those series you should only read the first book of. Pohl went on to write three more books and a bunch of short fiction, none of which I have read, but personally I didn't think Beyond the Blue Event Horizon a bad book. It is very different from Gateway though, that has to be said.

After successfully facing his successes and failures at Gateway, Robinette Broadhead is now living the life of a very rich man. He has married and has diverse interests in various profitable businesses as well as close ties with the Gateway corporation and even quite a bit of political influence. In other words, he has it made. Still, there is the nagging feeling of guilt that the woman who is the love of his life is stuck in a singularity. In business problems arise as well when an expedition to a distant Heechee installation, which Robinette hopes will help combat the chronic food shortages on Earth, meets with unexpected problems. It takes 25 days for instructions to reach the explorers, and as the situation in the outer solar system gets more and more out of control, Robinette's problems increase. Desperate action is needed.

One of the most striking differences between Gateway and Beyond the Blue Event Horizon is that Pohl employs a lot of different points of view in the second volume. In fact. Robinette doesn't even show up until the fourth chapter, some 50 pages into the novel. A lot of the major players in the novel get a point of view, as well as some of the machine entities, but there are quite a few of them, so we only get to scratch the surface of most of these characters. Where Pohl was very concerned with the psychology of Robinette in the first novel, the plot is obviously more important in the second. That is not to say that Robinette's internal struggle is not an important part of the story, he is still this petty, selfish but basically decent person we meet in Gateway, but Pohl leans quite heavily on events in the previous novel to convey this to the reader.

The Heechee on the other hand, although still very absent, are much more important to the story. The artifact being explored is clearly one of theirs but has been circling the sun since before humanity's ancestors learnt to use tools. It has a history of its own and that history includes other intelligences as well. Pohl reveals that history through these many points of view, gradually revealing a new part of the mystery with each chapter. It is this revealing that may put off some readers. In Gateway, the Heechee are a mystery. With only their incomprehensible artifacts and structures around, very little was actually known for sure about them. It made the story unpredictable in a way. With a Heechee artifact around, you never know what might happen. The increased understanding in Beyond the Blue Event Horizon changes that. Personally I don't think you can reasonably expect the mystery to stay intact for several books, there has to be at least some progress to keep the story moving,  but some readers will no doubt prefer their own questions, answers and guesses over those of Pohl.

Pohl's answers to the riddle the Heechee and their seemingly impossible technology pose, involve a lot of guesswork and quite a bit of cosmology and physics. I must admit some of it was right over my head. Still trying to wrap my head around Mach's principle for instance, an idea that was apparently one of the inspirations to Einstein's general theory of relativity. It also contains a number of references to Stephen Hawking's work on black holes. Where electronic shrink Siegfried is Robinette's discussion partner of choice in the first book, in this one his science program, aptly named Albert, takes over. It must be said, Albert is very good at explaining his guesses, which, especially towards the end of the novel, become more and more important to the plot. One would expect a program modelled on one of the greatest physicists of all time to do a little less guessing, but Robinette often orders him to do so anyway. Some of these guesses are obviously a set up for the next novel. It appears fairly obvious what Robinette's next project will be. This novel, after all, does not solve the issue that is the basis of his ever present guilt.

Pohl's work often have a satirical undertone. Many of his works criticize the excesses of capitalism for instance, or are fairly cynical about the political influence and proper healthcare money can buy. Robinette is not adverse to using his wealth to get things done his way for instance. It is not quite as apparent in this book however. The most notable thing about this novel is that it is drenched in fear. The fear of meeting the unexpected in space, where there is no retreat and very little margin for error. More than a few science fiction novels feature fear, suspicion and paranoia.  Especially the so called big dumb object stories, of which Gateway could be considered a variation, usually contain it in a general measure. I guess it is not as claustrophobic as Gateway, but the knowledge that aliens are near weighs on the characters. Due to the number of point of view characters, it is not as oppressive as in the previous novel, but it is almost always present in the background as each of these characters experiences their own personal flavour of fear.

There is one element in this novel that I absolutely didn't like, and that is the way Robinette's wife is portrayed. She is practically perfect in every way, knowing what is wrong with him before he knows himself and allowing him to go after the love of his life, who according to physics should be out of reach forever. Events in Gateway is more than enough reason to feel guilty but Robinette's treatment of his wife certainly adds to the problem. Siegfried's work doesn't appear to be done. The story is a bit open ended on this point. It looks like Pohl will get back to it in the third volume.

I guess you could say Pohl took a bit more conventional approach in writing Beyond the Blue Events Horizon. It makes the book less groundbreaking than Gateway was and probably is part of the reason why it didn't win any of the awards it was nominated for. The scope of it is obviously much wider too, and the many switches in point of view makes it appear a bit less structured than its predecessor. If you view the story as the unveiling of (part of) a mystery, it makes more than enough sense to me. In the end I guess I agree with many of the critics that it is not quite as good a novel as Gateway was. I also think it would have been nice if it had been a little more self contained; if it were fantasy I'd say this book suffered from the middle book syndrome a bit. That being said, it is a good science fiction novel in the classic sense. Plenty of hard science, scientific speculation and a much larger scope than the first book in this series offer their own attractions. I guess it depend on what you want out of a novel but I thought it was an enjoyable read.

Book Details
Title: Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
Author: Frederik Pohl
Publisher: Orb
Pages: 317
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: paperback
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2177-0
First published: 1980

All the Lives He Led - Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl sold his first work in 1937. Now, seventy-four years later, a new novel hits the selves. I don't think many authors can boast such a long career. I've read several of Pohl's novels as well as Platinum Pohl, a best of collection of short fiction and I very much like the often slightly satiric nature of his work. The second half of the 1970s are usually considered the best period in his writing career but Pohl has been producing a steady stream of new books, sometimes in collaboration with others, in the last two decades. The only book from this late period in his career I have read was The Last Theorem, his collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke. It was also the first book by Pohl I have read so, perhaps unfairly, I saw it mostly as Clarke's last novel back then. Thinking back on it, I can more clearly see Pohl's hand in the novel.

All the Lives He Led is set in the year 2079 and tells the unusual life story of Brad Sheridan. Brad lives in a world that has changed drastically from ours after the super volcano in Yellowstone erupted and covered a large part of the USA in ash. The decline of US military and economic power has changed the balance of power considerably. In a multi-polar world, no-one is really in control, giving rise to countless smaller and larger terrorist groups with a wide variety of causes they fight for. None of that interests Brad, he is just a small time criminal whose family has lost their wealth to Yellowstone. To support his parents he eventually sells the only thing he possesses, his labour, and heads east to work under indenture in Cairo. When his slightly illegal side line trading threatens to get him in trouble again, it is time to move. To Italy this time, where is has an opportunity to work at a theme park dedicated to the eruption of the Vesuvius that destroyed the Roman town of Pompeii two-thousand years ago. It is not the end of his troubles though.

Pohl uses a first person point of view for his story, Brad tells us his story looking back on events. A choice that limits him somewhat over the course of the novel. Brad, although in the possession of a generous dose of street smarts, is not a terribly well educated man. The author makes this apparent with the voice he gives Brad. It's a straightforward way of speaking, not very philosophical or inclined to challenge the reality of his day to day life. I guess Pohl must have found it hard to keep this way of writing going for the entire novel, he slips a number of times along the way, changing into a tone of voice that does not fit what we know of Brad very well. Still, I have a weakness for first person points of view, so over all I quite enjoyed this aspect of the novel.

That is not to say there aren't aspects I had more problems with. Brad is not a character who has eye of what is going on in the world around him unless it influences him directly. He introduces what is going on in the world, and how it gets him in trouble this time, when it becomes important to him. Unfortunate that makes the plot of the novel at bit of a ramble. The objectives of the people who get Brad into trouble remains unclear for much of the novel, with the reader only finding out what is going on when the penny drops for Brad. The first part of the novel seemed lacking direction because of it. It might have been me, but it took me forever to figure out he motives of the people who put Brad in such a predicament.

When it does become clear, Pohl has some serious trouble making me believe it as well. The author has often worked environmental themes, overpopulation in particular, into his stories. One early example can be found in his 1953 collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth The Space Merchants. In this novel pops up again, with one of the characters making a good case, in a rather roundabout way, for reducing the world's population. Of course their proposed solution is so drastic that even a man who is not adverse to conning people out of money, or even outright robbery, is going to entertain the thought for more that a moment. It made the conclusion of the novel a bit bland. The moral dilemma Brad faces is not such a difficult choice after all.

Although I generally enjoy Pohl's writing, I don't think this is a particularly strong example of his work. There is the slightly satiric tone that is his trademark of course. It reads quickly but when it comes to the plot and the first person narration I'm not terribly impressed. The scope and impact of the events Brad describes seem to be a bit of far-reaching than the first person point of view can carry. All the Lives He Led is an entertaining read but doesn't reach the level of some of Pohl's other novels. Maybe something a real completest will want to read but I very much doubt it will end up on any of the year's best lists. In short, I had hoped for a bit more.

Book Details
Title: All the Lives He Led
Author: Frederik Pohl
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 347
Year: 2011
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2176-3
First published: 2011

The Space Merchants - Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth

Although the most successful period in Pohl's career is probably the late 1970s when he won a number of Nebula and Hugo awards for novels like Gateway and Man Plus, he had already written a lot of other work before then. More than a few of these books were collaborations with other writers and fellow Futurian Cyril M. Kornbluth was one of his regular partners in crime. Kornbluth's career was unfortunately a short one, he died in 1958 at the age of 34. He left behind 10 novels, most of them collaborations with other authors and a bunch of short fiction. For such a short career his output was impressive. Most of it is not that easy to come by though, but The Space Merchants is still available as part of Gollancz' SF Masterwoks series. I've read a number of science fiction novels form the genre's golden age recently and this one is the best by a fair margin.

The Space Merchants is set sometime in the 21st century. An exact date isn't mentioned but an event that took place in 2010 is firmly in the past so I'd place it a few decades from now. The word is vastly overpopulated with unbelievable numbers of people stacked into tiny spaces in the world's big cities. Although resources like oil have practically run out and real meat is a delicacy only availably to the wealthy, science has managed to keep one step ahead of a major food crisis and the world seems to be confident that even in the face of a rapid growth of the population this will remain so. Consuming seems to be the highest possible achievement and large companies throw every trick in the book at their customers to keep them buying their products. Tricky advertising, easy credit, addictive additions to foodstuffs, assassinations of rival company's personal and plain old lying and bribing all seem to be permissible.

But growth has to come from somewhere and it is clear possibilities on earth are limited so one of the leading US companies, Fowler Schocken Associates, as cast its eye to the heavens. Venus is within reach of modern space faring technology and offers a completely unexploited planet ready for the taking. The minor difficulty of the place being a hell hole unable to support a human population without years of terraforming is not going to stop the company from attracting colonists. The man who is going to lead the project, Mitch Courtenay, has got his work cut out for him.

Although some aspects of the book are undeniably dated, knowledge of the true conditions on Venus was scarce in the early 1950s for instance, it is still a highly relevant piece of fiction. I suppose you could say it is a satirical piece, many of Pohl's novels have a slightly satirical tone to them, but it deals with a number of serious environmental problems related to unbridled consumerism and perpetual economic and population growth that still haven't been tackled. In 1950 the world population was about two and half billion people. Right now, and we're not even at the date of the novel yet, we're approaching seven billion. The consequences of this enormous growth are being felt in ways that could very well lead to conditions described in the book. And all this twenty years before the Limits to Growth (1972) report caused a stir with its dire predictions of resource scarcity.

Another shockingly accurate prediction seems to be on the consumption of meat. Already many environmental groups are pointing out that the production of meat is wasteful, taking up food and land that could be used to produce for human consumption as well as being a driving force for large scale deforestation. Soya meat replacements can be found in every supermarket and research into possibilities to "grow" meat more efficiently is being researched. It certainly makes the reader wonder if the scene in which the authors describe Chicken Little (interesting name by the way) is where we are heading with our food production.

It was a great concrete dome, concrete floored. Chicken Little filled most of it. She was a grey-brown, rubbery hemisphere of some fifteen yards in diameter. Dozens of pipes ran into her pulsating flesh. You could see than she was alive.
Herrera said to me: 'All day I walk around her. I see a part growing fast, it looks good and tender, I slice.' His two-handed blade screamed again. This time it shaved off an inch thick Chicken Little steak.
Chapter 9

Sounds appetizing, doesn't it?

Environmental issues are my personal bias however, they are important to the novel but the plot is mostly concerned with Courtney and the ideological change he goes through. The novel opens with a chapter detailing a board meeting of Fowler Schocken Associates, a great introduction of what to expect from the 21st century advertising business. In a slightly over the top scene we are confronted with a group of people seemingly completely oblivious to the consequences of their greed and able to justify just about anything with growing profits. The contrast between how the reader would see this and the absolute faith in the reversal of our values the characters display is comical as well as disturbing. Not everybody agrees with this view though. As Mitch descends on the social ladder and meets the people who are exposed to the products his company tries to sell, his view change drastically. An interesting conversion.

By the standards of its time it was not particularly short but at 186 pages it doesn't waste time making its point. It's quire a fast read.The Space Merchants is one of the few books I have read from the golden age era, where the writing and themes are still relevant and powerful. Although it is clearly over the top at some points, several of the predictions don't seem so unlikely upon closer inspection. A novel that is both entertaining and thought-provoking and one that aged very well. This novel is without a doubt worthy of the term classic. I think I even prefer this book over Pohl's most successful work; Gateway.

Book Details
Title: The Space Mercants
Author: Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 186
Year: 2003
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-07528-3
First published: 1953

Jem - Frederik Pohl

All the cool kids are reading books from the SF Masterworks series at the moment, so I thought I'd have a go at one of the four book in that series that are currently on my to read stack. Jem (1979) is one of four book by Frederik Pohl that have made the list. Some time ago I already read Man Plus (1976) and Gateway (1977), books which won him a number of awards. Jem is another book from this highly successful period in Pohl's career. It was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards but didn't win. It did win a National Book Award. The fourth book in the SF Masterworks collection is The Space Merchants (1953), which Pohl wrote with his fellow Futurian Cyril M. Kornbluth. I will probably end up reading that one as well. As soon as the discouragingly large to read stack as been reduced to more manageable proportions that is.

Jem is set in the near future (as seen from the late 1970s). The world is divided in three large blocs of nations, the food exporting nations, the oil exporting nations and the people nations. Membership of these blocs is somewhat fluid but they do contribute to a certain balance of power that has kept the world more or less peaceful. With a steadily rising population competition for the world's resources has become fierce though. The nations are looking to the stars to fuel humanity's growth. Although the problem of crossing light years in an acceptable timespan has been solved, hauling materials into orbit to facilitate space exploration still requires vast amounts of scare fossil fuels.

So far all this expense has come to noting. Sure, life has been discovered on other planets but nothing that will help solve earth's problems. Lichen, bacteria, hardly any higher life-forms at all. But then the planet that will become known as Jem is discovered. Jem is a somewhat earth-like planet that does not only support life, there is sentient life on the planet as well. Not one but three species! The nations of earth are quick to see the possibilities of this planet. An agreement is reached to support each other and share knowledge but everybody knows that, despite the billions it will take, the race to colonize Jem is on.

We see this story though multiple points of view. Most of the main characters end up on Jem sooner or later. Pohl also adds a point of view for a number of natives. This way he achieves a wonderfully detailed look at events but it does go at the expense of the depth of his characters. At 300 pages Jem is a relatively short novel. With so many characters demanding attention there isn't that much space for development. There are a few surprises but mostly everybody does more or less what you'd expect them to. If you like a character driven story than this novel is going to disappoint.

Pohl's story the line between dark satire and serious social commentary I suppose. It doesn't make one feel optimistic about the future of the human race. It is already clear that we've messed up our own planet but the powers that be don't seem to draw any lessons from that and pretty much see what happens on Jem as an extension of their earth policies. Which is to say naked power politics, backstabbing, mistrust and deceit. The story pretty much inevitably spirals towards violence and although most of the characters see it coming to some extend, nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. The way Pohl goes about describing the politics of his future earth and the characters that embody these policies seems to be a bit of a caricature at times. It contains a lot of stinging comments about the politics of the time it was written (a lot of which is depressingly relevant today) but at other points he seems to take it a bit to far to be credible.

One of the things I noticed in particular is the way the natives of Jem are treated. Although at some level most of the human characters admit these sentient creatures ought to be treated with a certain amount of respect, in practice their treatment is generally brutal. Humans won't shy away from taking samples (read: killing and dissecting the natives) to find any way to exploit or eradicate them. They are seen as potential consumers, useful cannon fodder or outright enemies. Morality takes a back seat when more pressing concerns, like finishing off your competitor for the planet's resources, have to be dealt with. Common sense does occasionally rise to the surface once in a while but seems to loose out most of the time. Whether or not it wins out at the end? I guess that is the question Pohl leaves the reader with. He certainly doesn't make it easy to make up one's mind about it.

Jem is not a light story, at times Pohl's commentary on human behaviour is almost cynical. Although parts of the novel appear to be a bit over the top, the author gives the reader plenty to think about. Pohl certainly does not spare us the darker side of human nature. Some science fiction likes to portray exploration of the stars as a scientific and humanitarian effort, one that will lead the species to an utopian future. In Jem, base human emotions such as greed, aggression and mistrust are more important driving forces. The way it confronts the reader with these less favourable aspects of human nature make Jem a very interesting read. It is perhaps not quite as strong as Gateway but certainly more than worth reading.

Book Details
Title: Jem
Author: Frederik Pohl
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 300
Year: 2001
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-85798-789-8
First published: 1979

Man Plus - Frederik Pohl

Although Frederik Pohl already head quite a career in science fiction writing and publishing, his first published piece appeared in 1937, he did not turn to full time writing until 1969. It turned out to be a good move, in the 1970s he produced a number of highly regarded science fiction novels. I read Gateway a while ago, a novel that won just about every major award in the field. The year before that novel was published Man Plus had already earned him a Nebula. Gollancz picked a number of his titles for their SF Masterworks collection so thankfully these books remain in print. I guess Man Plus shows it age just a bit but I still found it very much worth reading.

In the near future, as seen from the 1970s, we may well be there now, the world is in a pretty bad shape. The sheer size of the human population the earth has to support has put a strain on the resources available. Hunger is a serious problem, as are dictatorial regimes. The US finds itself increasingly alone as a bastion of democracy and capitalism. When a conflict with the Chinese threatens to get out of control and result in thermo-nuclear warfare the US president is desperate to direct the attention of the public elsewhere. Thus NASA's program to create a man capable of surviving on the surface of Mars is born.

To make surviving the harsh conditions on Mars possible, the human body needs quite a few adaptations and improvements. In fact, by the time the surgeons and scientists are done, Roger Torraway, the man unfortunate enough to be bumped up to undergo the procedure after the unfortunate death of the first candidate, is barely recognizable as a human being. Torraway may look like a monster, he's still a human being put under enormous strain as the importance of the mission becomes clear. It is up to the people around him to make sure he arrives on Mars a sane man.

So what is this book about? Appearances I guess. What's most striking about the novel is how people start treating Roger once he has begun the process of changing into man plus. Intellectually they know he's human but nobody can help seeing the monster. Interestingly enough Roger shares this response on some level, both when looking at his predecessor and when coming to terms with his own changed body (if it can be called such) and the way his altered senses perceive the world. Just about everybody feels somewhat uneasy about the creation of man plus and can't quite put a finger on why.

The narrative structure of this novel is quite peculiar. We see all the characters from the third person, with passages narrated by the mysterious 'we'. Like in Gateway Pohl ends the book with a punch. I won't spoil it for you but take some time to consider who 'we' might be along the way. It's an interesting puzzle. A lot of what I want to say about this novel is linked to the final part of it and even with a book that's thirty years old I don't really want to spoil the ending. Let's just say that a number of very big themes in science fiction are present but very downplayed in this book. That surprised me more than a little. To give you an example, very little of the novel actually takes place on Mars, the process of getting there is much more important to the story.

Man Plus includes the dark sense of humour is included in everything I have read of Pohl so far. His portrayal of the US president in particular borders on the satirical at times. The satirical tone of some parts of the novel combined with the grotesque changes to Torraway's physique keep the reader right on the edge of how serious all this should be taken. Over the course of the novel he asks the readers to examine some quite difficult questions and keeps on asking them right up to the end of the novel. I suppose one could take this to be a fairly light read. I didn't find it so. In fact it took me quite a while after I finished it to formulate some coherent opinions on this book. The last few chapters in particular leave the reader with something to think about. They also leave the door wide open for a sequel, which I understand was written in the 1990s.

I'm not sure if I want to read the sequel yet. I liked the ending as it is, no need to go into what happens next really. Man Plus is a puzzling book and a very enjoyable read. I must admit I have my doubts about some of the books Gollancz included in their Masterworks series but this book certainly earned a place on the list. I guess I am going to trust their judgement and pick up a copy of a third book by Pohl they included, the 1980 novel Jem, sometime soon.

Book Details
Title: Man Plus
Author: Frederik Pohl
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 215
Year: 2000
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-85798-946-5
First published: 1976

Gateway - Frederik Pohl

A while ago I read Platinum Pohl, a collection of Frederik Pohl's short fiction and after a couple of stories I was sure I had to read more of his works. Fortunately Pohl is well represented in Gollacz's SF Masterworks series so it was not all that hard to find a copy of what is generally considered one of his better novels. Better may be a bit of an understatement here, Pohl needs an entire shelf just to house the awards he has won for this book. Gateway got him a Nebula, a Hugo, a John W. Campbell and a Locus award. That's right, for one book. Now each of these have been known to make odd choices come award season but winning all four... well, I figured this book's got to have something going for it. And indeed it does.

In the near future (seen from the late seventies, so probably right about now) Earth's population has reached a staggering, and unsustainable, twenty-five billion inhabitants. To supply food for all these people production methods we'd consider distasteful, to put it mildly. Robinette Broadhead is one of the people working in an industry squeezing out the earth's resources to produce food. His life consists of work, sleep and more work. Until he wins the lottery one day. His ticket out of a dreary existence and a dead end job. Robinette, or Bob as he is called for most of the novel, buys a ticket to the only place where he can become truly wealthy: Gateway.

This wealth comes at the price though. Gateway is an alien artefact circling our sun, a facility to dock spaceships built by a mysterious and long vanished race called the Heechee. Their ships are still functional, they can even be operated, but nobody has the faintest idea how they work. Brave or foolish men and women travel them to distant places in the galaxy in search of new resources, technologies and materials to support earth's huge population. Some return famous and wealthy, some return in tiny bits and pieces, some don't return at all.

The book moves back and forward between two story lines. One consists entirely of Robinette's sessions with his computer therapist. He refers to the machine as Siegfried von Shrink and from what we gather early on in the book Robinette certainly needs some therapy. The man has issues. More than a few in fact, but one is dominating his life and the reader spends most of the novel figuring out what it is. Siegfried is a brilliant character if you can stand a little Freudianism. He's ever patient and always needling Robinette to reveal just a little bit more of himself. Robinette gets so fed up with him that he tries to gain the upper hand in these conversations in a very petty way but even that Siegfried manges to turn on him. Although not quite what one expects of a classic science fiction novel, the conversations between Siegfried and Robinette are fascinating to read. At times frustrating, humorous and, despite highlighting all Robinette's negative qualities, even touching. I'm sure not everybody will agree with me on this but I quite enjoyed this part of the book.

Fortunately for those who disagree with me, Gateway also contains a number of classic science fiction themes mainly incorporated in the second story line. It is set on Gateway were a younger Robinette is trying to make his fortune. The way Pohl describes the trips the prospectors make, getting into a Heechee ship is about as smart as putting a gun against your head and pull the trigger to see if it's loaded. Not that stops them but it does create a certain atmosphere on Gateway. Any trip may be your last and people tend to enjoy if while it lasts. To escape the fear and stress of their situation Gateway is quite liberal when it comes to sexuality and drugs and Robinette takes full advantage. With the ever present but curiously absent Heechee, Pohl creates a certain sense of mystery in the books. He raises an awful lot of questions about them in the novel but answers very few.

Most of the book is seen through Robinette's eyes but Pohl also includes snippets of material from other sources. He stresses the fact that Siegfried is a computer by showing us some of the code. It looks a bit like what little I remember of gw-basic and it's probably one of the more clearly dated parts of the novel. They also include brief mission reports on flights from Gateway, stressing just how dangerous those expeditions are and how rewarding they can be and a number of classified adds circulating on Gateway among other things. Robinette is a bit too busy hiding from himself to pay all that much attention to such details so they provide a welcome insight in what is going on on Gateway.

At the very end of the novel the two story lines come together in what I thought was a pretty strong finale. This again is something not everybody will agree on. The way Siegfried finally manages a breakthrough and reveal to us just what it is that is causes these intense feelings of guilt in Robinette is, I suppose, debatable. Siegfried's parting comment though... I certainly didn't see that one coming. It opens up all manner of possibilities for sequels, of which Pohl indeed wrote a couple. Gateway is over thirty years old by now, and in some respects it is clearly dated. Advances in information and computer technology have far outstripped what Pohl describes and I'm pretty sure all the Freudian stuff is not nearly as popular with psychiatrists as it used to be. Gateway nonetheless remains a very readable and highly enjoyable book. I liked Pohl's dry humour and his tight control of the plot. I'm not that well read in 1970s science fiction (yet) but this certainly is one of the better ones I have come across. Definitely recommended.

Book Details
Title: Gateway
Author: Frederik Pohl
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 313
Year: 1999
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-85798-818-5
First published: 1977

Platinum Pohl - Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl turned ninety a couple of months ago, he's one of the last golden age writers still with us. I discovered his blog last year and it is a treasure among author blogs, I've been following it religiously ever since. Until I read The Last Theorem, his collaboration with another of the science fiction greats, Arhtur C. Clarke, I had never actually read anything by him and that of course had to change. Pohl does not appear to have a great many books in print at the moment but among the more recent publications is the collection Platinum Pohl, A career spanning collection of his best short fiction. Almost every collection of short fiction contains weak stories but I was absolutely blown away by editor James Frenkel's selection of Pohl's work. It is one of the best collections of short fiction I have ever read.

Platinum Pohl contains a total of thirty stories, too many to comment on each of them but I'll name a number of the highlights. The opening story is The Merchants of Venus. A novella length work and the first work than mentions the Heechee, which he would later write a number of novels about. The story deals with the dangers of exploring Venus and how to stay alive one a reasonable income in a high cost environment. I thought his description of Venus very interesting, the way Pohl imagines transport in particular. The story also has a very nice twist at the end, as do many of the other stories in this collection. It has made me add the novel Gateway to my to read list.

My Lady in Green Sleeves is set in a world where classes are strictly separated by profession. It has gone so far that one person will not even attempt to do part of another's job in the absence of a worker from that particular class, believing himself or herself too incompetent to even try. They even have trouble understanding each other's jargon. There is one environment where all these classes meet and that is in prison. This explosive mixture of talents is bound to be trouble and Captian of the Guard Liam O'Leary can feel the storm coming. Some very interesting social commentary here. Especially the ending of the story but I am not going to give that away. There are a number of these alternate societies in this collection and each of them makes you think about how different it really is from our own. Or how alike.

The next story I want to mention is The Kindly Isle. The main character is on a touristic island to check out a half built hotel his company considers buying. He is somewhat distracted from this task when he sees a former colleague from his days in a top secret research facility on the island. A colleague who left his job in quite a hurry years ago. This story has a dash of science fiction in it, in a way it deals with biological warfare, but that is not the core of the story. What really makes it a great story is the character development. There are no big explosions or steamy sex even though the author could very well have fitted that in. The story doesn't need it. The gradual realization of what the main character must do and how events unfold after that decision is brilliant. Structurally it is probably the best story in the collection.

Science fiction and horror can go together very well. George R.R. Martin has proven that more than once with his science fiction/horror hybrids. Spending a Day at the Lottery Fair is also a story that could be considered both. What could be better than spending a day with your family at the fair? Well, in this future world I'd think again. The conclusion is chilling, not only because of what happens at the fair, but also because of how it is justified.

Servant of the People is another of my favourites. It is a story dealing with artificial intelligence and if and at what point, the should have the same rights as a human being. In this story they have the right to vote. It deals with the election campaign of a veteran politician. He has beaten all candidates for years but now he has to go up against a non-human opponent. What I particularly liked about this story is that it is not a naked grab for power by evil machines. The sincerity of the robot candidate is so credible that one would not hesitate to vote for him. On the other hand, are we really comfortable with that idea?

The last story is want to mention is Saucery. It's a humoristic story about two men who have done very well for themselves in the time UFOs where vastly popular. They each claim to be in contact with alien entities and are not afraid to make money that way. Now they have fallen on hard times though. A recent expedition to Mars has found life and it bringing back real aliens. Who is going to buy their stories now, when the real thing is about to arrive on earth? Their businessman like attitude in facing the crisis while never quite admitting they are frauds is hilarious. A subtle kind of humour is present in many of the stories in Platinum Pohl but it is most outspoken in this one.

Platinum Pohl is a remarkable collection of stories, especially if you take into account the oldest was published in 1949 and the newest in 1996. The quality remains very high over the years and even the oldest stories have aged well. There is a bit more smoking than we're used to, the USSR shows up once of twice and Pohl has had to make up some interesting details about Mars in absence of scientific data but none of that really bothered me. The author relies on his skill as a writer rather than fast paced plotting or stunning alien settings. Perhaps that has made some of these stories age more gracefully than a lot of other science fiction. It has certainly convinced me to try more of his books. Of course, looking at the to read stack, that may be a while. But I'll get to it sooner or later.

Book Details
Title: Platinum Pohl
Author: Frederik Pohl
Publisher: Orb Books
Pages: 460
Year: 2005
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-765-30145-1
First published: 2005

The Last Theorem - Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl

In March 2008 one of the titans of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke died at the age of 90. At the time he was working on The Last Theorem, a collaboration with another big name in science fiction, the slightly younger Frederik Pohl. He turned 90 last month. Clarke's health would not permit him to do the writing himself so much of the novel was written by Pohl based on an outline and notes by Clarke. Just a few days before he died, Clarke finished reviewing the manuscript and gave it his blessing. Clarke's last novel got quite a bit of attention when it was released. It also got mixed reviews.

The Last Theorem is the story of the life of Ranjit Subramanian. We follow his life, most of which probably takes place a few decades later in this century, from boyhood to middle age. Ranjit grows up on Sri Lanka as the son of a Hindu priest. His father hopes he will succeed him but Ranjit is obsessed with mathematics. Number theory in particular. He is determined to find the proof the Fermat's last theorem. This theorem states that the Pythagoras' theorem (surely you have heard of it) does not hold true for dimensions higher than two. Fermat left the world a note stating he had found this proof but if he actually did write it down, this proof did not survive him. His last theorem has indeed been proven but not my means which were available to Fermat. It is one of the great riddles of mathematics apparently.

A second part of the story is set well away from earth. Starting with the nuclear tests in the Nevada desert in 1945, the world has detonated something in the neighbourhood of fifteen hundred nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. Each a bright flash of light and radiation clearly visible from space. It has taken a long time for someone to notice but when it happens a reaction is unavoidable. A race referred to as the Grand Galactics takes note of the signals from earth. They are not amused. Their reaction will be swift and severe. It seems the human races only has a few decades left.

Now before you all decide to avoid this book like the plague because it has math in it, which in itself is a very understandable reflex, let me assure you that the mathematical side of the story is not that challenging. The authors did not attempt to find Fermat's proof themselves in this book. They do describe some number tricks and general concepts but nothing too complicated. I thought what the authors do show was quite entertaining.There's a fair bit of other science in the book as well of course. It contains just about every concept Clarke has used in his earlier books and most likely a reference to himself as well (the writer who never leaves his house). Clarke did not particularly reinvent himself but for people who have read more of his books The Last Theorem will feel familiar. And that is what a lot of people look for in a book. I have not actually read any fiction by Frederik Pohl, something I intend to remedy soon, but the tone writing does remind me of the posts on his blog (which I recommend you check out). Pohl seems to be permanently amused at the world and some of that can be seen in the book. Even if this fictional world isn't always pretty.

The pace of the book is probably where most of the criticism is directed at. Up to about two thirds of the book I didn't really see why so many people didn't think it was a great book. The story progressed nicely, although the focus shifts a bit from Ranjit's mathematical achievements to world politics. It is here that Ranjit is to play a (small) part in the world shaking events that the book chronicles. The conclusion of the book is fairly abrupt though. Once first contact has been made the authors appear to see the outcome as inevitable and don't spend a lot of time discussing it. The finale of the book will probably raise a few eyebrows with readers. Did we really need so much story to build up to it? Or were the authors in a hurry to wrap things up? I took a few days to let the book sink in before I began the review and I am still not entirely sure. It is an ending like you'll find in more of Clarke's books though, leaving us with a world headed for an utopian future.

In the end I guess The Last Theorem leaves me with mixed feelings too. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it in a way. Like we've come to expect of Clarke it contains a lot if fascinating scientific speculations as well as a number of humorous observations about society. On the other hand the book is quite unbalanced and the connections between the various elements of the story tenuous at some points. It does not excel at character development either, but then, Clarke's books never were about characters. He writes about the world. While the book never bored me, or even failed to entertain me, it does have too many flaws to be a great novel. Normally I wouldn't recommend it, but as a fan, can you really not read Clarke's last novel? Let me put it this way then, if you are familiar with Clarke you will probably want to read it. If you are new to his work, I suggest you start with one of his earlier novels. My personal favourite is Rendezvous with Rama.

Book Details
Title: The Last Theorem
Author: Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl
Publisher: Voyager
Pages: 303
Year: 2008
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-00-729000-0
First published: 2008