"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters; and the name of the star is called wormwood; and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."
— Frederik Pohl

"They were two lovely choices. One of them meant giving up every chance of a decent life forever...and the other one scared me out of my mind."
— Frederik Pohl (Gateway)

"Wealth ... or death. Those were the choices Gateway offered. Humans had discovered this artificial spaceport, full of working interstellar ships left behind by the mysterious, vanished Heechee. Their destinations are preprogrammed. They are easy to operate, but impossible to control. Some came back with discoveries which made their intrepid pilots rich; others returned with their remains
barely identifiable. It was the ultimate game of Russian roulette, but in this resource-starved future there was no shortage of desperate."
— Frederik Pohl