GW: March 2017 Pick: Gateway by Frederik Pohl

[AndrewP]

I was always a rock heavy metal kind of guy but never put disco down. ( See Tassie Dave's comment above for my reasoning.) Even KISS tried to cash in on it at one point:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7isx...

[John]

I've got to admit I lemmed this book. I quit reading at the 150 page point, so I feel like I gave it a fair shake.

The retro-future tech broke my suspension of disbelief, the fact Rob was so rude to his psychologist pissed me off, the Corperation entrusting a million year old artifact to some random uneducated fungus farmer and not a NASA scientist was just wtf... the list goes on. I could have seen these flaws as 'character' in another book, but in this one they just got on my nerves.

I can sort of see why someone would like this book, but it wasn't for me.

[Robert]

The ending of this book has haunted me or and off for decades, but I could never remember which book it was. A couple of chapters in I realized what I was (re)reading and just went with it. Happy to have found the solution to my mystery.

[John (Taloni)]

Robert, what's your take?

(view spoiler)[Did Broadhead jettison the other 9 to save himself, or did they jettison him since there was no time left, and he got out by sheer luck? (hide spoiler)]

[Robert]

John (Taloni) wrote: "Robert, what's your take?"

(view spoiler)[I *remember* the story as him jettisoning them to save himself but now, upon rereading, I'm not as sure.

Evidence for him just being lucky: The bag in the way, Sigfrid trying to convince him it may not be his fault, the fact that he can't remember hitting the button, the shouting about being out of time.

Evidence for him being the bad guy: no one else made it out at all, not one person, he sealed the hatch, he's an unreliable narrator.

I think Sigfrid had the gist of it; the expedition was a hair's breadth from everybody dying so it might not have been possible to save anybody even if he had tried. I think Broadhead's guilt comes from not trying as much as from anything else he did. This is one of the major themes of this character: Robbie never tries very hard. (hide spoiler)]

[Robert]

Somehow I was reminded of the film Alien with a grubby crew that are worried about bonuses, etc. Not a scientific crew.

[Jason]

When the book began with, “My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male. My analyst (whom I call Sigfrid von Shrink, though that isn’t his name since being a machine he hasn’t got a name) has a lot of electronic fun with this fact.”, I knew I was going to have a rough time trying to finish this novel.

Some author's work feels really dated to me (Pohl, Heinlein) while others (Ballard, Haldeman) seem to age just fine.

At least it's aged better than Man Plus!

[Rick]

It always leaves me a little bemused that an audience that can seemingly accept aliens and other cultures has such a hard time with SF that doesn't conform to current, 21st century attitudes.

[Dominik]

Rick wrote: "It always leaves me a little bemused that an audience that can seemingly accept aliens and other cultures has such a hard time with SF that doesn't conform to current, 21st century attitudes."

Well, aliens and other cultures are fun, "not conforming to current attitudes" usually means some form of bigotry, which isn't. In this case the protagonist being a complete and utter smeghead is mostly on purpose, but at least part of it is simply rooted in the attitudes of the time, and either way you're stuck reading a whole novel's worth of the thoughts of a complete and utter smeghead.

[AndrewP]

Rick wrote: "It always leaves me a little bemused that an audience that can seemingly accept aliens and other cultures has such a hard time with SF that doesn't conform to current, 21st century attitudes."

It's even narrower than that, it's only current Western civilization attitudes:)

[Brendan]

Author: Here is my story about a real asshole who ruins all his relationships and hurts those around him.
Me: Oh neat, does he learn valuable lessons and grow as a person?
Author: No, he gets really rich.
Me: ...

[Rick]

And Dominik illustrates the point...

"Im open minded enough to accept truly alien viewpoints but I can't accept it when any human expresses an attitude that doesn't conform to my narrow views"

This might just be because I'm 58 and have seen attitudes evolve. While you might consider us very enlightened and aware now, many of the things we do and say will be viewed as hopelessly out of date and silly, even biased and bigoted in 40 or 50 years.

Hell, there are other human cultures on Earth right now that differ greatly from 2017 Western attitudes. Go to Japan. To some countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East. Who's to say that we're superior in every way on every issue?

[Rob]

One can criticize the past/ other societies while still recognizing that we are and will be in our society open to criticism.

[Rob, Roberator]

This isn't the place for spoiler discussion Amni. I deleted your post. There is another thread that discusses the ending.

[Albert]

Dominik wrote: "and either way you're stuck reading a whole novel's worth of the thoughts of a complete and utter smeghead"

Which can be quite interesting and an experience out of the ordinary. One reason to why I read books is to get a different perspective on things, to provoke thoughts and raise new discussions. That's why I like SF as a genre. Old SF stories, whether they have aged well or not, can be especially interesting since they are time machines to the past.

If all stories were "fun", contemporary, fair and had a happy ending where the bad guys had to pay for their sins - then I'd be doing something else with my time.

[Natalie aka Tannat]

Sure, you can say that spending time in Rob's head is a novel experience and we should be open to different perspectives, etc. But it honestly didn't feel novel. It felt like the same old stuff that makes me go "ugh" in real life. If I'm spending my leisure time reading a book, I want there to be something interesting in it or I want to get something out of it.

I didn't get anything out of this one. Apparently others did, but that doesn't mean that I'm in the wrong or that anyone else who didn't enjoy it is.

[Dominik]

Rick wrote: "And Dominik illustrates the point...

"Im open minded enough to accept truly alien viewpoints but I can't accept it when any human expresses an attitude that doesn't conform to my narrow views"

Th..."

…of course I was "illustrating the point", I was trying to explain to you why people feel the way they do about this book.

I think we'll just have to do the "agree to disagree" thing on this one. On the bright side, it's only a few more days until we get a completely new book to dislike each other over :P

[Ammi]

Rob wrote: "This isn't the place for spoiler discussion Amni. I deleted your post. There is another thread that discusses the ending."

Oops! Sorry, Rob!

[Albert]

Natalie wrote: "I didn't get anything out of this one. Apparently others did, but that doesn't mean that I'm in the wrong or that anyone else who didn't enjoy it is."

I never meant to imply that those who didn't like the story are wrong. I did however react to comments that implied that it was a bad story and perhaps not worth reading because it's old fashioned and unfair (highly biased summary of previous comments) - neither which I feel is a necessary criteria for a good story.

I found GW to be a rather well constructed story with some literary qualities, well worthy of the awards it received. Sure, the story is told by a despicable coward but that is just a viewpoint into an interesting cut-throat world on the frontier of space and he fits in well. Robert compared to the crew in Alien and I agree. It just wouldn't have worked with some generic hero in this case.

But then I like flawed and tormented characters and we all have different tastes.

[Clyde]

Albert wrote: "I never meant to imply that those who didn't like the story are wrong. I did however react to comments that implied that it was a bad story and perhaps not worth reading because it's old fashioned and unfair (highly biased summary of previous comments) - neither which I feel is a necessary criteria for a good story.
I found GW to be a rather well constructed story with some literary qualities, well worthy of the awards it received. Sure, the story is told by a despicable coward but that is just a viewpoint into an interesting cut-throat world on the frontier of space and he fits in well. Robert compared to the crew in Alien and I agree. It just wouldn't have worked with some generic hero in this case...."

Well said, Albert.