![]() ![]() The unlucky ones…zip, zap, kaput, fried in the ship or never to return.Īfter an interminably long set up, Robbie finally goes on a mission. Inside are hundreds of people and nearly a thousand smallish spacecraft, each with preprogrammed courses to take prospectors anywhere, - who knows where? The lucky prospectors reach planets and retrieve artifacts, a good find brings millions of dollars and a full Medical that can allow a person to live an extra fifty years. ![]() Today it’s the interstellar hangoug where hippies meet hyperspace. Gateway is a pearl-like 10 kilometer long space port with about 800 kilometers of tunnels once populated by a mysterious race called the Heechee. There’s money enough for him to get off this sphere of despair with of a one way ticket to Gateway. This is good because as we discover, the universe is a capitalist issue. Televisions run morale-building commercials. Robbie works as a miner for shale oil slime that is the main food of humans. The Earth is a scarred and barren dystopia. ![]() First let’s take the Dickensian approach. The book is RB’s accounting for the need of therapy where we learn his dirtly space secret, but that’s for later. Robinette Broadhead is a rich ex-astrogating prospector who spends his time and money interacting with his AI Freudian analyst he’s nicknamed Sigfrid von Shrink. Gateway, by Frederik Pohl, fair use for review. ![]()
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