This science fiction work was awarded both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1978. Apart from its abbreviated length, I found it be well deserving of the awards. The novella is set in the somewhat distant future, in which the Earth, with a population of 25 million souls is suffering from food shortages and converts hydrocarbons not into energy, but into food. Picture a “Soylent Green” society. To alleviate overcrowding, colonies have been founded on Mars, Venus and Luna.

While establishing the underground Venus colony, the remnants of a previous civilization are discovered. A “prospector” finds a self guided alien spacecraft which transports him to Gateway, some type of alien way station at which hundreds of self guided alien ships are stored. The story revolves around life at Gateway and the process of using the alien (Heechee) ships (they are capable of interstellar travel) to explore the galaxy. The pilots of these one, three and five man ships are compensated based upon the importance of their discoveries. Each trip contains a very high likelihood of mortality, but the rewards are great.

The story is told through a Gateway “prospector” named Robinette Broadhead, a former food miner who has earned his way to Gateway through a lottery. The chapters alternate between his “current” psychiatric sessions and flashbacks to his time on Gateway.

The premise of the story is excellent and the story is well developed. The chapters dealing with the psychiatric sessions are not nearly as entertaining however, and almost amount to filler. This brings us to the length of the work. At 275 pages, the book is relatively short to begin with, however, fully 60+ pages are comprised of “exhibits” which are interspersed throughout the story. These exhibits take the form of Gateway bulletin board postings, pages from what appears to be a Gateway orientation manual, and various trip reports and scientific findings. Many of these are largely filler, the remainder deserve only cursory attention. In addition, there are roughly thirty chapters, each of which begin and end in the middle of a page. You are left with what is actually a book with 150-175 pages of text. Throw out the psychiatric sessions and you are largely left with what could easily be compressed into a lengthy short story. The book can be read in its entirety in 5-6 hours.

There are several sequels to Gateway and I will possibly follow up the story, but suspect that two or three could have been combined into one standard length science fiction novel. ( )

I enjoyed this book immensely. It was a bit dated, but I think that the book captures space exploration much better than other books, that its a crapshoot and theres not guarantee. My one complaint, and its not so much about the book, is that it took the narrator so long to actually go out exploring! I started reading it an hour before bedtime, and I kept going one more chapter, just waiting for something to happen (the waiting was very interesting, and the story wouldn't be what it was without it). Needless to say, I finished the book that night and was not a pleasant person the next morning ( )

This is the second book in a row that I've read in the science fiction genre that included a psychologist main character. The book did not fascinate me as much as I'd hoped it would. However, I gave it a pretty strong rating because of the very end which was quite clever.

One of the reasons that I picked up the book is that it seemed to be a book that would include a lot of space travel which I ordinarily enjoy reading. However, it actually has much less space travel and more pre & post space travel elements. This was a let-down for me.

The author spends a lot of the book dealing with psychology. Through the analysis of the main character the reader learns more of the plot. I wish that the psychology portion of the book had been shorter. In fact I found myself wishing I could just skip those chapters and "get to the good stuff!"

Based on this book, I probably won't continue to read this series of books. However, I did find the book compelling at times.

My biggest quibble is that at around the penultimate chapter, the author dallies in a few mature themes. I don't think that it added to the story much. I got the feeling like you get in a movie when the main character says a few bad words just to get the proper rating. But, in the case of this book, I was a little mystified at the inclusion. Like I wrote, it didn't add much. ( )

Saga Heechee/1 ( )

The tale is told in alternating chapters. In one series, Bob (short for Robinette), the hero (more an anti-hero), relates, more or less chronologically and certainly soporifically, his adventures as a prospector in the outer reaches of the universe, trying to find artifacts of a long-extinct race of space pioneers called the Heechee. In the second series, Bob, having clearly succeeded in his prospecting career, chronicles his sessions with a robo-shrink, who is trying to heal the emotional wounds that are the price Bob has paid for his success. So the “Gateway” is twofold: a portal to the stars and an entry into the psyche – kind of like Dutch doors. Both series are interspersed with one-page squibs that consist of futuristic classified ads extracts of lectures & interviews, and snatches from user manuals of various kinds. These are presumably intended to provide comic relief. They fail. The primary narrative is sluggish and not particularly imaginative. The psych sequences are amusing as spoofs of Freudian practice, but, ultimately, are undermined by the Freudianism that pervades the character development. This book won both a Hugo and a Nebula (how in the world?) and spawned a video game, which I hope gave more pleasure than its progenitor. ( )