I'm trying to work out why "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" doesn't live up to it's predecessor, "Gateway". For those that haven't read it, "Gateway" is about the adventures of Robinette Broadhead aboard the mysterious Heechee space station, and the ships at the station are flown, without control, to destinations unknown. I think it is a rather inventive book, and, more than that, quite highly lauded, having won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and John W. Campbell Award.

But "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" is the sequel. Although it shares much of the same setting as the first book, it's written quite differently. Instead of following one character, we follow several different characters more - Robinette, quite successful on Earth, a family trying to reach a mysterious factory orbiting the Oort cloud, and Wan, a mysterious boy who may be the key to understanding both the factory and the mysterious events that are plaguing the earth.

In favour of "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" is that it has some extremely interesting ideas (which are central to the both the plot and the ending of the book, so I am loathe to reveal them).

There are also some interesting characters present - I enjoyed reading the parts of Wan and Robinette, and Pohl does a good job conveying the "alien" character (don't know how better to put that without spoilers) that appears in the latter part of the book, particularly how its thought processes are entirely different to ours.

The main problem with this book, that I can see, is that instead of having all of the alien artefacts and technology mysterious and unknown, much of it is explained. Its why the first book was so interesting - everyone in the story, and the reader, were archaeologists of a sort, trying to understand what all the technology was, without enough information to understand it, let alone be able to duplicate it. The second book, rather, goes for explanations and info dumps. Sure, the info dumps can be engaging at times, but having everything unexplained was far more interesting.

"Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" is not a bad book, but it struggles to live against its predecessor. There are some interesting ideas, and some interesting characters, but what made the first book so successful was how mysterious everything was, and the magic is lost in having much of it explained. ( )

While the first novel of the series, Gateway, was excellent, this one doesn't stand out from the crowd. It is not bad, but nothing special either. ( )

I bought this years ago and put it aside till I read the previous novel; Gateway. Then I forgot about it. Its better than I remember Gateway being. I will at some point read the next. amusingly the Paperback says its the second book in the Heechee trilogy and then lists four books in the series. There Are I Suspect more now. ( )

I don't remember it.