The Boy Who Would Live Forever : A Novel of Gateway

Rating:
Summary: A distinguished addition to the award-winning Gateway series
Review: As aliens go, Frederik Pohl's enigmatic and often elusive Heechee --- created more than a quarter-century ago to propel his popular Gateway series --- have proven difficult to fathom. They aren't morally or socially tidy aliens, with a clear-cut agenda for good or evil. They seem inconsistent and illogical at times; their language (even in English "translation") is all but impenetrable; and they have a maddening tendency to keep the likeable but rather clueless humans in THE BOY WHO WOULD LIVE FOREVER persistently off-balance.

But that's clearly just what Pohl intends. Ever the artist-at-play, he wants us to scramble feverishly after Stan and Estrella, whose spur-of-the-moment choices are sure to land them in big trouble. As omniscient readers, we soon begin to feel rather protective and parental toward this guileless young couple who collide on the Gateway space station in search of (what else?) fame, fortune and adventure --- the dreams they can no longer afford on Earth. How can we not follow them pell-mell into the Core, a black hole whose bizarre time dilation turns even five minutes to long-past centuries back "home"?

Yes, it's the old, old story of escape, renewal, self-discovery and romance, brought about by conditions so strange that nothing can be termed impossible. But it's the way Pohl has his characters live and tell it that makes THE BOY WHO WOULD LIVE FOREVER such an appealing, if somewhat meandering, page-turner.

Right up to the whimsical ending, Stan and Estrella are faced with numerous choices and opportunities as they learn how to live among the mercurial and eccentric (by human standards) Heechee and connect with other diaspora earthlings scattered among planets in yet-unheard-of universes. What they do choose is disarmingly "ordinary" --- to make good, and better, lives for themselves and all the displaced beings the Heechee brought home with them as living "souvenirs" of interstellar travel.

What Pohl does so beautifully and subtly here is to celebrate what it's truly like to be different, not merely alien. Stan with his ever-diminishing immaturity, Estrella with her disfigured face and the uncertainties of new motherhood, and their emotionally disturbed Heechee friend Achiever, are all challenged to grow and discover not simply how to be good, but to become fully themselves, as good beings. And that's pretty important if you're stuck in a universe where you could well end up living forever!

THE BOY WHO WOULD LIVE FOREVER is vintage off-the-wall Pohl from beginning to end, a distinguished addition to the award-winning Gateway series that has turned the science fiction world on its ear for more than 25 years. Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Pauline Finch

Rating:
Summary: huh?
Review: really bad, and I agree with most of what the previous reviewer said...more like an SF book for pre-teens. Is this the same Pohl I remember reading years past?

Rating:
Summary: Terrible
Review: Simply disastrous work by Pohl. After throroughly enjoying the original Gateway, I was looking forward to this sequel. My hopes were utterly shattered. In summary, here is why this book was totally unreadable.
1. The main characters, Stan and Estrella, are totally unbelievable. Their dialogue is only slightly above kindergarten level. They are never given any motivation for their actions.
2. Pohl fills the pages with useless details, including information about plantlife, and cooking, as well as vomitting and bowel movements. I gave up on the book completely when he decided to indulge in an entire page about one man going to the toilet. Maybe he was trying to be funny. It didn't work.
3. Total lack of plot development. The book is basically a loosely connected series of random events, stuffed with filler. Mid-way through the book Pohl begins to introduce entirely new characters in an attempt to generate some kind of plot momemntum. I have never read a more unfocussed science fiction novel. It comes off as really poorly done space-opera.
4. Characters are completely flat. Stan and Estrella are both sickeningly dumb. Every other character is the exact same cardboard cutout. Aliens act just like humans except they talk funny. It is very cheesy and lacks any attempt at originality.
5. Book has an insane number of sex scenes, and they are all badly written. I mean literally, you cannt go more than 15 pages without a sex scene. So juvenile.

I would go on, but I believe my point is made. This book has not a single redeeming feature. If you enjoyed Gateway, DO NOT ruin your memory of it by reading this sequel.


Rating:
Summary: A decent, readable, clever and fun Heechee sequel.
Review: ______________________________________________
This is the latest, and perhaps final, chapter in the Heechee Saga, begun 28 years ago with his classic GATEWAY. "Boy Who" isn't in that class -- none of the Heechee sequels are -- but it's decent, readable, clever and fun.

For a quick reprise of the Heechee series, and a nice reiew of this book, Google the ever-reliable Paul Di Filippo.
Sample: Frederik Pohl is 85 years old. His first story was published more than 60 years ago. The Gateway sequence itself is now nearly 30 years old. Despite-or perhaps because of-all this history, Pohl's new book remains a feast and a pleasure.

"Boy Who" is in part a fixup -- you are most likely to have already seen "Hatching the Phoenix" (1999), in which Gelle-Klara Moynlin pays for a scentific expedition to study the Crab Nebula supernova. The blast also incinerated the planet of the "Crabbers", a decidedly unsympathetic race of aliens. It's a crackerjack story, reprinted in the Dozois Year's Best --though its connection to the rest of the novel is tenuous. Two other previously-published stories are more smoothly integrated.

So the novel reads a bit choppily -- but there's lots of cool Pohl stuff here. My favorite character is Marc Antony, the Stovemind AI. His primary duty is cooking up gourmet meals for humans and Heechees, both organic and machine-stored -- but his collatereal duty is Human-Heechee Security, and who Saves the Day! from the nefarious star-smashing plot that's the McGuffin here, and is a decidedly less-interesting part of the book.

Ol' Fred isn't getting any younger, so I'm very pleased to recommend his latest novel. Recommended for Pohl fans -- and who isn't?


Review copyright ©2005 by Peter D. Tillman