Beyond Reality discussion

Share your thoughts here about Gateway by Frederik Pohl. Spoilers ahead!

I read this many years ago and will probably not re-read it, but I'm looking forward to hearing what you all have to say!

I finished this tonight— a quick read. 8/10
Dated in some ways, and yet not. People are still people—selfish, screwed-up, sexual, scared, foolhardy, daring, loving—all the qualities we see in Rob/Bob Broadhead and the other characters on Gateway. Sigfrid is a scene-stealer, and the Heechee remain as mysterious at the end of the book as they were at the beginning. Maybe subsequent books in this series will shed more light.

I glanced at a few other previews and a number of readers found the main character to be pretty awful and a reason to not read any other books in the series. I didn’t have that strong a reaction—just wondering how other people think/feel about that character. I could really identify with his strong tendency to intellectualize about rather than actually feel the emotions that seemed so overwhelming.

I thought this held up relatively well for a story almost 50 years old. Stories from that era tend to be a boys club of characters, but we had a number of female characters as well (yes, they were often romantic partners, but they were also starship pilots and crew members with their own agency).

I thought that Rob/Bob was very human. Not particularly likeable, but understandable. He was lucky enough to escape the drudgery of the food mines on earth, but then too paralyzed by fear to risk shipping out on flights to the unknown. Or maybe just too aware of the statistics ... the payoffs could be big, but the odds were not in his favor. A desperate man in rather desperate circumstances.

Sigfried definitely grew on me as the book progressed. And I want to know more about the Heechees! I plan to continue with at least the next book in the series.

My review: 4 stars. The narration here is pretty engaging, and I liked how it flipped back and forth between the main story and later therapy sessions, though the therapy got to be a little repetitive later on. The characters other than the protagonist are not very deep, but Rob is complex enough to largely make up for that. The premise of the book is unique, and the sense of mystery and high stakes throughout is quite well done.

I agree with all the other comments here regarding Rob's character.

A few questions:

For the ships, why do they always send 1, 3, or 5 people? In particular, for 5s, it seems more prudent to send 3-4 people, as there's probably enough manpower to do the work while reducing the risk of starvation.

Is there any meaning to Broadhead's name? It reminds me of "open-minded" but I can't see how that applies here.

Is the psychology during the therapy sessions at all realistic? It seems too Freudian which is more or less debunked at this point. The anal thermometer thing in particular seemed just silly.

In the small flavor section "A Note on Black Holes" Dr Asmenion says "I see old Bob isn't enjoying this discussion." This seems to imply Rob is in the audience, post-Gateway. Why would he be in a lecture at this point, though? Also, is it conceivable that the kicking-the-ship-away trick would give sufficient velocity to escape a black hole? I would think the main thrusters of the ship would be stronger than this.

Ryan wrote: "For the ships, why do they always send 1, 3, or 5 people? In particular, for 5s, it seems more prudent to send 3-4 people, as there's probably enough manpower to do the work while reducing the risk of starvation."
I assume it’s the redundancy principle, to some extent—a person or 2 extra in case something happens to 1 or 2 of the crew. It might improve the chances of the crew not getting to each other as much as you can kind of “rotate” who you’re on good terms with or not such good terms with. Odd numbers ensure you don’t have a stalemate/tie in terms of decision-making. Maybe the reason is something as simple as the fact that the Heechee set the ships up for 1, 3, or 5 Heechee crew (for whatever incomprehensible reason the Heechee did anything), so the humans just went along with that.

Is there any meaning to Broadhead's name? It reminds me of "open-minded" but I can't see how that applies here.
I didn’t see any special significance to his name.

Is the psychology during the therapy sessions at all realistic? It seems too Freudian which is more or less debunked at this point. The anal thermometer thing in particular seemed just silly.
The book was published in 1977. Freudian psychoanalysis was falling out of favor in the 1970s and 1980s, so it may have still seemed appropriate for Pohl to use it.

In the small flavor section "A Note on Black Holes" Dr Asmenion says "I see old Bob isn't enjoying this discussion." This seems to imply Rob is in the audience, post-Gateway. Why would he be in a lecture at this point, though? Also, is it conceivable that the kicking-the-ship-away trick would give sufficient velocity to escape a black hole? I would think the main thrusters of the ship would be stronger than this.
Bob/Rob has almost an obsession with black holes as he struggles to discover what may have happened to Klara (another obsession of his). He may have been in the lecture just for any tidbit of info that might give him hope she is still alive. And I have no idea if the “kicking away the ship” is conceivable or not. The speed something would need to escape the pull of a black hole, even at its edge, would be immense, but the Heechee ships did use FTL engines of some kind.

Great answers! That's an especially good point about the black hole lecture. However, I don't think it was ever in any doubt that Klara was still alive, suffering from the time distortion in the event horizon. I suppose it depends on how good Rob's knowledge was of black holes; maybe that's something he would have learned in a lecture.