Frederick Pohl

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Books in Collection: 5
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Black Star Rising
Frederik Pohl Del Rey Science Fiction & Fantasy 293
Summary: In the dystopia of Black Star Rising, China and India stepped in to save a world ravaged by the nuclear war began by the Soviet Union and the US. While the survivors in the US feel resentment that their saviours occupied the land, the Chinese feel that the "Yankees" can no longer be trusted to hold power in the world. It is against this backdrop that a mysterious spaceship appears in space, propelling a young ethnically American peasant into sudden prominence and a raft of difficult choices.



Pohl is one of the most prolific and long-producing authors in science fiction. Black Star Rising is not part of one of his larger series, but is an interesting digression which is informed by the favorite Pohl themes as well as by the concerns of 1985, in which it was written. It should satisfy his fans and appeal to readers new to his work.

My Comments:

Gateway
Frederik Pohl Del Rey Literature & Fiction 320
Summary: Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe...and on reaches of unimaginable horror. When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!
THE HEECHEE SAGA
Book One:GATEWAY
Book Two:BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT HORIZON
Book Three: HEECHEE RENDEZVOUS
Book Four: THE ANNALS OF THE HEECHEE

My Comments: Pretty good read. Won the Hugo and Nebula awards. Seemed just a little bit juvenile to me.

Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
Frederik Pohl Del Rey Science Fiction & Fantasy 309
Summary: In Book Two of the Heechee Saga, Robinette Broadhead is on his way to making a fortune by bankrolling an expedition to the Food Factory--a Heechee spaceship that can graze the cometary cloud and transfor the basic elements of the universe into untold quantities of food. But even as he gambles on the breakthrough technology, he is wracked with the guilt of losing his wife, poised forever at the "event horizon" of a black hole where Robin had abaondoned her. As more and more information comes back from the expedition, Robin grows ever hopeful that he can rescue his beloved Gelle-Klara Moynlin. After three and a years, the factory is discovered to work, and a human is found aboard. Robin's suffering may be just about over....
THE HEECHEE SAGA
Book One: Gateway
Book Two: Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
Book Three: Heechee Rendezvous
Book Four: The Annals of the Heechee

My Comments: Although this novel didn't win any awards, it seemed (to me) to be a better story than book one.

Heechee Rendezvous
Frederik Pohl Del Rey Literature & Fiction 331
Summary: "The Heechee are one of the great creations of science fiction."
Jack Williamson
After millennia had passed, Mankind discovered the Heechee legacy (an alien culture that fled to the reative safety of a black hole)--in particular an asteroid stocked with autonavigating spacecraft. Robinette Broadhead, who had led the expedition that unlocked the many secrets of Heechee technology, is now forced once more to make a perilous voyage into space--where the Heechee are waiting. And this time the future of Man is at stake....
A SCIENCE FICTION BOOK CLUB SELECTION
THE HEECHEE SAGA
Book One:GATEWAY
Book Two:BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT HORIZON
Book Three:HEECHEE RENDEZVOUS
Book Four:THE ANNALS OF THE HEECHEE

My Comments: The third book of this award winning series. Testing my resolution. Not the greatest read. Only here because of it's inclusion in the series. I'm really tired of the writers explanations on top of explanations. If the reader didn't start with this book he'd be severely put off (like I was) by the incessant bouts of referential explanation in regards to previous material. Just leave it unexplained and get on with the story.

Annals of the Heechee
Frederik Pohl Del Rey Literature & Fiction 341
Summary: At last--the ultimate book in the renowned Heechee Saga!
Advanced Heechee technology had enabled Robinette Broadhead to live after death as a machine-stored personality, enjoying his life by flitting along the wires from party to party with a host of other machine-people. But suddenly his decadent existence ends when an all powerful alien race intent on the utter destruction of all intelligent life reappears after eons of silence, and threatens the lives of all heechee and humans. Even Robin, virtually immortal and with unlimited access to millennia of accumulated data, cannot discover how to stop these aliens. It began to seem that only a face to face meeting could determine the future of the entire universe....
THE HEECHEE SAGE
Book One: GATEWAY
Book Two: BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT HORIZON
Book Three: HEECHEE RENDEZVOUS
Book Four: THE ANNALS OF THE HEECHEE
The Gateway Trip: TALES AND VIGNETTES OF THE HEECHEE

My Comments: A hugo and Nebula award winning series. (Book Four of The Heechee Saga series). This one was better than the third. Unfortunately, the book was slowed down considerably by the authors incessant insistence on referential explanations. We get it already, the main characters aren't alive in a physical sense. They're all machine stored intelligence's. They can't 'really' see, smell, taste, hear, or touch.

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