From archive (archive) BLACK STAR RISING by Frederik Pohl Del Rey, 1985, $3.50. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper As a member of a two-income family, I am acutely aware of what can and cannot be written off on taxes. So it is with some assurance that I say that BLACK STAR RISING was written as a tax write-off. Why do I say that? Well, a year or so ago Fred Pohl visited China. BLACK STAR RISING takes place in a United States controlled by China (after an abortive nuclear exchange between the United States and the USSR). Castor (our hero) works on the Heavenly Grain Collective Farm outside Biloxi, Mississippi. When he finds a head in the rice paddies on the collective, he starts a sequence of events that embroil him in an alien (outer-space-type aliens this time) invasion of Earth. Pohl leans heavily on his experiences in China for background, right down to the ubiquitous orange soda. (I say this with some assurance also, since I've also been to China. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to write off the trip.) BLACK STAR RISING is better Pohl than I've seen in a while. (Bear in mind that I am not a big fan of recent Pohl novels.) It's not a great novel and some of the coincidences tax the reader's "willing suspension of disbelief," but the background is interesting (and reasonably accurate). If the ending seems a bit of a letdown, well, it was fun getting there. The number of questions left unanswered make me believe there may be a sequel down the road. (I don't see where the title comes from. It reminds me of Campbell's THE BLACK STAR PASSES--a great old-time space story I would recommend--but the two stories have nothing in common.) Evelyn C. Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl (or ihnp4!mtgzz!ecl) From archive (archive) The Coming of the Quantum Cats Frederic Pohl / Bantam Spectra / May 1986 ISBN 0-553-25786-2 If you're like me, you probably pick up books by Frederick Pohl because you've read one or two that you liked (e.g., "Gateway"). Maybe you've picked up a couple (e.g., "Man Plus," "Black Star Rising") that you didn't like too much at all. "The Coming of the Quantum Cats" falls into the second category (bad). The book is about the beginnings of travel between parallel universes. Parallel universes are not new to science fiction, so the reader might expect to find some interesting and/or original ideas to supplement the multiverse supposition, but alas, if there are any, I must have missed them. I found the most interesting part of the book to be the non-standard disclaimer found at the beginning. It warns that some characters are not quite fictional -- the frequent mention of contemporary political figures seemingly an attempt to substitute for interesting plot/dialogue/characters. A plot summary? What little plot there is isn't worth the trouble. What's worse, it all leads up to an ending worthy of nomination as one of the great trivial endings of all time. This book left me feeling as though I had wasted more time reading it than Pohl took to write it. My recommendation: don't buy it, but if you do, read it only if you are bored. If you want to read interesting stories about parallel universes, I suggest you look elsewhere. [Somebody let me know when Pohl writes a good book again. Until then I'm discontinuing my habit of picking up his latest.] -- ++--------------------------------------------------------------------------++ || Greg Paris {allegra,linus,raybed2,ccice5,brunix}!rayssd!gmp || ++--------------------------------------------------------------------------++ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Sun May 8 03:35:03 1994 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: aaron@amisk.cs.ualberta.ca (Aaron V. Humphrey) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Retrograde Reviews--Frederik Pohl:Jem Date: 7 May 1994 23:02:19 GMT Organization: The Anna Amabiaca Fan Club Lines: 90 Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <2pvd2r$6vm@scapa.cs.ualberta.ca> Reply-To: aaron@amisk.cs.ualberta.ca NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu Originator: mcb@remarque.berkeley.edu Frederik Pohl:Jem A Retrograde Review by Aaron V. Humphrey I haven't read a lot of Frederik Pohl, and certainly not enough to get a real handle on his style. I've read the first three Heechee books, and maybe a few others, but somehow I keep getting him mixed up with Poul Anderson or something. In any event, I never know quite what to expect from him. This book was even more mysterious because all it said on the cover was "This is the way the world ends..." Which gives away a certain amount, but my motto is "You can't spoil it any worse than the back of the book." So. The world is divided into three power-blocs: Fuel, Food, and People. The Fuel bloc includes Arabs, British(who apparently are getting oil in the North Sea), and a few others. Food is the States, Russia, and most of Europe. People is India, China, and a lot of the Third World. (Actually, it's not quite clear how Africa and Latin America fit into this picture...) A world is found on a distant star in Gemini, called Kung(after Confucius). The star is a dim red dwarf, and the world is tidally- locked, so the same side always faces the sun, but there are three social and possibly sentient species on the planet, so all three blocs hurry to send colonies there. The planet, after a time called Klong(son of Kung)gets officially named Jem. We spend most of our time with the Food bloc people(after all, they're mostly Americans), but we do get flashes from other viewpoints as well, including reresentative samples from the three sentient races--burrowers, surface-dwelling arthropods, and balloonists. With three power blocs and three sentient races, one might imagine that they pair off, which they do, in a way. All three races are used and, to some extent, corrupted, by the humans(obviously these people never heard of the Prime Directive)in their internecine conflicts. Meanwhile, spurred on by the immense expenditures of power, money, etc. thecolonization of Jem has required, tensions on Earth get stretched to the breaking point, and past...it's clear that they haven't really developed any novel approaches to international politics in the intervening time(although they do have special individuals with split-brain surgery that apparently makes it easier for them to translate languages...), and things break down fairly quickly. Altogether, it's a fairly dystopian novel, which can be extrapolated forwards from our time without too many strange assumptions, the largest one being that international politics stays about the same. (The lack of religious conflict between the power blocs is perhaps a bit unrealistic--Pohl doesn't bring a lot of religion into it, so perhaps he's just one of the many writers that neglects religion because it's not important in his own life; but I'm just guessing.) Furthermore, the sentient races on Jem are exploited just as the indigenous cultures in the New World and Africa were. And, finally, the nations are proceeding with the Mutually Assured Destruction deterrence still firmly in place, although Russian Communism seems to be a non- presence. For a novel written in the 70s(published in '77), this all tends to ring true. Would Pohl have written this novel differently today? Hard to say. I guess you'd have to read some of his more recent stuff to get a better idea. Remember, this _is_ the guy who did a novel on Chernobyl... %A Pohl, Frederik %T Jem %I Bantam %C New York %D April 1979 %G ISBN 0-553-13134-6 %O US $2.50 %P 312 pp., pb -- --Alfvaen(Editor of Communique) Current Album--PIL:Album Current Read--William Gibson:Virtual Light "...her very gut fauna exert themselves strenuously on her behalf." --nj Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!news.tele.fi!uunet!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: ecl@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper) Subject: FUTURE QUARTET by Bova, Pohl, Pournelle, and Sheffield Message-ID: <9502071606.ZM18745@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Organization: The Internet Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 22:51:51 GMT Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Lines: 78 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:725 rec.arts.books.reviews:294 FUTURE QUARTET by Ben Bova, Frederik Pohl, Jerry Pournelle, and Charles Sheffield AvoNova, ISBN 0-380-71886-3, 1995, 294pp, US$5.50 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper Well, since the directive given to the authors here was for each to write a "speculative essay" and a story set in 2042, one very pessimistic, one very optimistic, and two in between, it's not surprising that what resulted was pretty didactic and preachy. After all, that's basically what was asked for. It is certainly possible to write stories set in the future that are entertaining first and give the reader a message almost as a side effect--but that was not the path taken here. Bova leads off with "2042: A Cautiously Pessimistic View," supposedly a speech given by the Chairman of the World Council in 2042, and follows with "Thy Kingdom Come" (which has the Chairman as a character). The story has speeches almost at the level of the essay/speech itself, and I was somewhat irked that all the main characters found their common heritage (rather conveniently for the plot, I might add) in the Lord's Prayer. Yes, it's possible, but given that the Chairman is Vietnamese with a Chinese name, it seems contrived (in my opinion). Frederik Pohl's essay, "A Visit to Belindia," is as much a story as his official story, "What Dreams Remain," but again, both spend a lot of time in lectures and speeches by various characters. Pohl says he was chosen to give the most pessimistic future, but even here there much have been a lower limit, as he doesn't postulate any massive nuclear, chemical, or biological wars. And just as Bova MAKES his future "cautiously pessimistic" with his particular story ending, so does Pohl make his pessimistic. The worlds the two of them draw could be swapped, or become optimistic, without much change to the stories, so in that sense they aren't drawing their society to order--they're meeting their goal only in how they end their story. Charles Sheffield's "Report on Planet Earth" would lead the reader to believe his future was to be the most optimistic one, yet his "Price of Civilization" is not what I would call a positively portrayed future, but rather a fascist one of superior and inferior classes, secretly enforced anti-miscegenation policies, and so on. Whether Sheffield realized what a negative picture he was painting is not clear, since superficially his characters seem to be the best off of those in any of the four scenarios. And finally there is Jerry Pournelle's "Democracy in America in 2042" and "Higher Education." This is the "cautiously optimistic" scenario, but it reads like a lot of other science fiction: rookies being trained in the dangerous job of asteroid mining. And true to what one friend predicted, it has a character who explains it all to the young newcomers. This book might work as a catalyst for discussions about the future in a high school classroom, but even there one can find better stories to trigger discussion. These are merely preachy, and not at all satisfying. %A Bova, Ben %A Pohl, Frederik %A Pournelle, Jerry %A Sheffield, Charles %T Future Quartet %I AvoNova %C New York %D February 1995 %G ISBN 0-380-71886-3 %P 294pp %O paperback, US$5.50 [1994] -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com "No one is ever fanatically devoted to something they have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They *know* it is. Whenever someone is fanatically devoted to a set of beliefs or dogmas or goals, it is only because those beliefs or goals are in doubt." --Robert M. Pirsig Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newnews.hk-r.se!newsfeed1.swip.net!swipnet!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news.cis.ohio-state.edu!news.dfci.harvard.edu!news.harvard.edu!purdue!haven.umd.edu!hecate.umd.edu!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: pj@willowsoft.cix.co.uk (Paul S. Jenkins) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Pohl's _Gateway_ Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 07:30 +0100 (BST) Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Lines: 58 Sender: wex@basil.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: Reply-To: pj@willowsoft.cix.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: basil.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2409 _Gateway_ by Frederik Pohl Review Copyright (c) 1999 Paul S. Jenkins Here's a simple story: a man wins a lottery and uses the proceeds to go to 'Gateway' -- a kind of hyperspace jump-point -- to take his chance at discovering something about the mysterious alien Heechee. If successful he could be rewarded with enough money to keep him in luxury for the rest of his life. But the chances are great he'll be killed. At the beginning of the book we already know that he survived, and that he's rich. But there's something bothering him -- so much so that he's in analysis. The book opens with one of the sessions with his AI psychiatrist. This Hugo- and Nebula award-winning novel comprises two threaded narratives: the psycho-analysis, and the events leading up to the hero's defining moment. Essentially character-driven, the novel is a gripping read, with Pohl delivering only so much of the plot that one is always wondering what exactly happened -- until the last few pages. Life on Gateway, the hollowed asteroid left by the aliens, is effectively if sketchily evoked. Bob Broadhead, Pohl's narrator, attends classes to learn how to operate the alien spacecraft, falls in love with another prospector, and waits for the right mission to come up -- one that he thinks will have a good chance of success, or one less likely to kill him. Gradually he realizes that 'waiting for the right mission' is an excuse. He's afraid of taking what could be an irrevocable step. During his vacillation we are given various insights into the Heechee and their ships, and the fact that for all the technological advancement of their legacy to humankind, really nothing is known about them. The two threads, analysis and story, are further entwined with one-page mission-reports, classified ads, extracts from lectures, etc., which all serve to elucidate the essential mystery of the Heechee. Bob Broadhead is not a particularly likeable character, and one feels that to a degree he deserves his psychological torment, but that doesn't detract from what is an excellent book. _Gateway_ isn't space opera, neither is it hard SF. Nothing new, in global terms, is discovered. Humanity is not altered or enlightened. It's a personal story about a man facing up to his fears and feelings in a typically uncertain and inconclusive manner. Like much of the best science fiction, despite the futuristic setting and alien technology, _Gateway_ is about what it means to be human. %A Pohl, Frederik %T Gateway %S The Heechee Saga %I Ballantine Del Rey (Random House) %C New York %D 1978 (copyright 1976, 1977) %G ISBN 0 345 34690 4 %P 313 pp. %O paperback $5.99 Paul S. Jenkins | More reviews at: Portsmouth UK | http://www.cix.co.uk/~willowsoft/revup/ Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!newsfeed.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!news99.sunet.se!logbridge.uoregon.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!gatech!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: mcardle@ozemail.com.au (Edward McArdle) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review of Frederick Pohl's Heechee Saga (4 books) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 22 Aug 1999 17:31:06 -0400 Organization: none Lines: 67 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2439 The Heechee Saga, by Frederick Pohl Review Copyright 1999 Edward McArdle I picked up the trilogy on a dealer's table. The big attraction was the title of the second novel, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon. Since all three books were there I bought them all. The others were Gateway, and Heechee Rendezvous. When I was halfway through the third book I noticed in a shop that this was one of those trilogies with four parts! In fact, there is a fifth book, The Gateway Trip, but it seems to just be a summary of the others, with pictures. I can fairly safely say that the first book, Gateway, is quite good, given that it won the Hugo and Nebula awards. It is told by the series' protagonist, Robinette Broadhead, and alternates chapters of his adventures on Gateway with his interviews with his (computer) analyst, Sigfrid von Shrink. Gateway is an asteroid where the semimythical Heechee left their ships when they vanished. The ships are programmed to go somewhere. If you go in one you may find something for which the government will make you rich, or you may find nothing, or you may die or disappear. Earth is running out of resources, so that is why these expeditions are so important. But Broadhead did something for which he feels guilty, and at the end of the story we find out what. That is all there is to this part of the story, and it is excellent. It stands on its own. In the second volume, we begin with a boy, Wan, who was born of parents who went off from gateway and disappeared. He has been raised by the Dead Men. Then there is a chapter written by a man who is off with his family to a comet in the Oort cloud, where there is a Heechee Food Factory. They meet Wan. We begin to meet other characters, but behind it all arises a question. What happened to the Heechee? Did they just run away? In the next volume we find out where they went, and why, and we meet some. In the final volume, The Annals of the Heechee, we arrive at a resolution of the problem that scared the Heechee away. These books contain a lot of pure science, with descriptions of the Big Bang, and lots of physics. The hero is a man who always manages to feel guilty even when he has behaved in the most exemplary fashion. He is in love with one woman in Book One, but in love with, and married to, another for the rest of the story, which is one of his many problems. After such a good start, the rest of the saga has a difficult task to maintain the level of excellence, and the second and third episodes are not quite as involving. But I thought the last book was once again excellent, except for the uninspiring title! In every book the plot is advanced, and the whole thing is excellently structured. I recommend reading it all. %A Pohl, Frederick %T Beyond the Blue Event Horizon %T Gateway %S The Heechee Saga %I Del Rey %D Jan 1978 %G ISBN 0-345-28247-7 %P 313pp Edward McArdle. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mcardle -me, my tennis club, golf, verses, novel, a crostic puzzle, random photos... and http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Paradise/3479/ where you may learn of my Alaskan Cruise with the Stars (and get a glimpse of Vancouver). Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!howland.erols.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: pj@willowsoft.cix.co.uk (Paul S. Jenkins) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Pohl's _Gateway_ Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 22:57 +0100 (BST) Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Lines: 58 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: Reply-To: pj@willowsoft.cix.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2453 _Gateway_ by Frederik Pohl Review Copyright (c) 1999 Paul S. Jenkins Here's a simple story: a man wins a lottery and uses the proceeds to go to 'Gateway' -- a kind of hyperspace jump-point -- to take his chance at discovering something about the mysterious alien Heechee. If successful he could be rewarded with enough money to keep him in luxury for the rest of his life. But the chances are great he'll be killed. At the beginning of the book we already know that he survived, and that he's rich. But there's something bothering him -- so much so that he's in analysis. The book opens with one of the sessions with his AI psychiatrist. This Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel comprises two threaded narratives: the psycho-analysis, and the events leading up to the hero's defining moment. Essentially character-driven, the novel is a gripping read, with Pohl delivering only so much of the plot that one is always wondering what exactly happened -- until the last few pages. Life on Gateway, the hollowed asteroid left by the aliens, is effectively if sketchily evoked. Bob Broadhead, Pohl's narrator, attends classes to learn how to operate the alien spacecraft, falls in love with another prospector, and waits for the right mission to come up -- one that he thinks will have a good chance of success, or rather, one least likely to kill him. Gradually he realizes that 'waiting for the right mission' is an excuse. He's afraid of taking what could be an irrevocable step. During his vacillation we are given various insights into the Heechee and their ships, and the fact that for all the technological advancement of their legacy to humankind, really nothing is known about them. The two threads, analysis and story, are further entwined with one-page mission-reports, classified ads, extracts from lectures, etc., which all serve to elucidate the essential mystery of the Heechee. Bob Broadhead is not a particularly likeable character, and one feels that to a degree he deserves his psychological torment, but that doesn't detract from what is an excellent book. _Gateway_ isn't space opera, neither is it hard SF. Nothing new, in global terms, is discovered. Humanity is not altered or enlightened. It's a personal story about a man facing up to his fears and feelings in a typically uncertain and inconclusive manner. Like much of the best science fiction, despite the futuristic setting and alien technology, _Gateway_ is about what it means to be human. %A Pohl, Frederik %T Gateway %S The Heechee Saga %I Ballantine Del Rey (Random House) %C New York %D 1978 (copyright 1976, 1977) %G ISBN 0 345 34690 4 %P 313 pp. %O paperback US$ 5.99 Paul S. Jenkins | More reviews at: Portsmouth UK | http://www.cix.co.uk/~willowsoft/revup/