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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Autumnal" data-source="post: 9556815" data-attributes="member: 6671663">Finished burrowing through Gateway. As with almost everything I’ve read by Frederick Pohl, it was once again a great pleasure, with a fascinating situation, humor that’s funny, and drama that’s dramatic.For those who don’t know: the future is not so good. 25 billion people live on Earth, eating mostly stuff made out of or grown on oil pressed from shale and such. Our narrator, Robinette Broadhead is one such guy, until the day he buys a lottery ticket and goes to Gateway. There are settlements on Venus, and they found half-million-year-old tunnels made by unknown aliens, who left nothing but a few random artifacts…and one small ship that took its occupant to an asteroid orbiting 90 degrees off the ecliptic, also tunneled by the aliens, and with hundreds of the same kinds of ships. That asteroid is Gateway.This is the thing about the ships: they can be set to go all kinds of places. But we don’t know how to read their coordinates. So their crews (1, 3, or 5 people, depending on their size) dial in a set of options, push the launch button, and then wait. If the ship turns around to decelerate in time, they won’t die of starvation, and get to live and return. If it comes out some place that isn’t inside a star or the middle of a supernova shockwave or something, they get to live and explore a little before returning. If they find something valuable,  they could get overwhelmingly rich. Or they could find nothing exploitable and get nothing. And, course, they could return dead or never return. Hell of a way to make a living, but beats the food mines, for people like Rob.We learn at the outset that he struck it rich somehow while on Gateway. Chapters alternate between his life on Earth later and his time struggling on Gateway. Gradually we find out what made him both super-rich and consumed by grief and self-loathing, and at the end, his life changes [ISPOILER]for the better[/ISPOILER].This is a mighty fine novel. It’s a mighty fine novel from 1977, which means that there are things we’ve collectively learned about sexuality and psychology since then. There’s nothing that sent me screaming from the book, unlike too many books newer than this one, but Rob needs more getting his head on straight than Pohl knew at the time. Fair warning to new readers and all.I first read this when it came out, and a time or two since then. Enjoyed it each time. Did so all over again. Tempting to play out something like it with Starforged - it’s very gamable with the right sort of system. And the story is sharp, with Pohl’s beautifully clear prose, solid dialogue, and characterizations much deeper than they seem at first.</blockquote>

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