The Boy Who Would Live Forever

Motor writes with the review below of Frederik Pohl's The Boy Who Would Live Forever, a series book which he says escapes the release-early, release-often approach of some series. Read on for his take on the book. The boy who would live forever: A novel of Gateway author Frederik Pohl pages 384 publisher Tor Books rating 8/10 reviewer Motor ISBN 076531049X summary The latest Gateway novel The Boy Who Would Live Forever is a Gateway novel. I am sure a big proportion of Slashdot readers need no introduction to Frederik Pohl's Gateway universe. But here goes:

The original novel Gateway, published in 1976, was a Hugo and Nebula award winner and quickly burned itself into the memory of many SF readers. It told the story of the discovery of an asteroid full of alien (the Heechee) ships. The ships are completely functional, but with no way to decode the navigation controls the only possible trips are... well... mysterious. Desperate prospectors from a poverty- and famine-stricken Earth travel to the Gateway asteroid (as it becomes known) to take a trip in a Heechee ship hoping to find something unusual, and perhaps earn themselves a share in the Gateway Corporation. Some never return; some return only after their food and oxygen has long run out; some are sent to destinations that kill the occupants of the craft; a lucky few return to enormous wealth. Later books in the series expanded on the premise and the reasons why the Heechee abandoned many of their vessels and tunnels and vanished.

The Boy Who Would Live Forever is the sixth book in the series. The word 'series' stirs up thoughts of those interminable fantasy or SF series that are pumped out at regular intervals for cash. Gateway books, on the other hand, are pretty rare things:

• Gateway (1976)
• Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980)
• Heechee Rendezvous (1984)
• Annals of the Heechee (1987)
• The Gateway Trip (1990)
• The Boy Who Would Live Forever: A Novel of Gateway (2004)

So a new one is something to look forward to -- at least for me.

The Boy Who Would Live Forever (TBWWLF) begins with the story of Stan, a young man growing up virtually penniless in Istanbul. After his father dies he inherits a life insurance payoff that is just enough to take him and a friend to Gateway. Unfortunately Stan's long-awaited first trip in a Heechee ship comes to nothing. Even worse, he returns to Gateway to find that the secret of Heechee ship navigation has been cracked. No more wild rides into the unknown... and no more big payoffs. But Stan somehow finds himself on a Gateway trip that will make him one of the first humans to find the elusive Heechee.

Other narrative threads involve Gelle-Klara Moynlin: a character from previous books who spent time trapped and frozen in time at the event horizon of a black hole. Marc Anthony: an artificial intelligence, Gourmet cook, and numerous other talents besides. Wan: a rich spoiled psychotic who grew up on a Heechee artifact (the child of stranded Gateway prospectors) and his attempt to get get hold of a weapon capable of destroying a star. Sigfried von Shrink: the A.I psychotherapist from the first Gateway novel makes a repeat appearance. That rarest of things, a mentally unstable Heechee: made that way, unsurprisingly, by having to live with humans. And more details on the Kugels -- or "The Foe" as the Heechee call them -- a race of energy creatures hell-bent on eliminating organic intelligences.

Like most of Pohl's work, TBWWLF has plenty of humour and insight. Cultural misunderstandings between the amiable Heechee and the slightly clueless Stan provide plenty of opportunity for sly jokes, and Wan's obsession with getting back "his" Old Ones (the Australopithecus pre-humans he grew up with on the Heechee artifact) and their lack of personal hygiene are played for a few gags.

Despite being a novel, TBWWLF has been constructed from a number of short stories ("From Istanbul to the Stars", "In the Steps of Heroes", "A Home for the Old Ones", "Hatching the Phoenix") with original material added to tie them together. This is the cause of its only major fault: it is quite disjointed. Some of that is inevitable given that a big chunk part of the novel takes place within a black hole. But even allowing for the difficulties of stitching together a story from threads crossing a time dilation of 40,000:1... in which some of your characters only experience a week or two while others experience a thousands years... the novel still does not hold together satisfactorily as a story. There are entire chapters devoted to a faster-than-light trip to watch the Crab Nebula supernova occur and see the occupants of a planet of that system in its final days. Fascinating it may be (and it is), but it never really feels like part of the novel. The varied threads do eventually come together to provide a conclusion of sorts, but taken as a whole the book is really more of a tour of the Gateway universe.

However, I don't want to give the impression that this is a bad thing. Anyone familiar with the earlier books will find plenty to enjoy. Much of TBWWLF is concerned with filling in the gaps left by previous books -- such as telling the story of humanity's first contact with the Heechee, and some of the religious implications of machine storing humans when their organic bodies run out. New readers, though, might find themselves a bit lost among all the A.Is, downloaded humans, prayer fans, Ones, Twos and Fives.

The Boy Who Would Live Forever does have its faults as a novel, but it is a genuinely enjoyable read and it is a welcome addition to the Gateway series. One can only hope that Pohl is able to continue it.

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