Heechee Saga: reading the rest of the series *Possible Spoilers*

[Kathi, Moderator & Book Lover]

I am planning to read the other books in the Heechee series and will post about them in this topic thread. If you are going to read the other books as well, or if you’ve read them in the past, feel free to comment here, too.

Please mark spoilers as needed.

[Kathi, Moderator & Book Lover]

So, I’m starting Beyond the Blue Event Horizon tonight.

[Ryan]

I'm not sure if I can commit to reading more of the series, but if I do I'll check in here.

[Kathi, Moderator & Book Lover]

I finished Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, 7/10.
Mixed feelings about this. I think I wanted to enjoy it more than I actually did.
Not serious spoilers, but I’ll put my comments behind a spoiler tag anyway. (view spoiler)[This is a book of contrasts. There are the very human stories of the Herter-Hall expedition, of Wan, and even of Robin and Essie, which are engaging, frightening, frustrating, funny, and sad. These stories are set against a backdrop of alien technology and actions and serious theories and questions about physics, astrophysics, and astronomy. It is those theories and questions that require some pretty hefty infodumps, mostly handled by the Albert Einstein computer program/personality. While they are central to the overall story, they also pull the reader out of the flow of the characters’ lives, notwithstanding Pohl’s efforts to make Albert a unique character and relieve a little of the tedium of the infodumps. And then there’s the tantalizing final chapter—our first from the Heechee POV! (hide spoiler)]

[MadProfessah]

I had no idea there were 5 books in the Heechee series!

[Kathi, Moderator & Book Lover]

MadProfessah wrote: "I had no idea there were 5 books in the Heechee series!"

LOL—I just looked at the 3rd book, which describes itself as the “conclusion to the trilogy”. I guess Pohl decided he wasn’t quite finished telling the story of Robin and the Heechee since he wrote 2 more novels and a short story collection after the trilogy!

[Kathi, Moderator & Book Lover]

I finished book 3, the conclusion of the original trilogy, called Heechee Rendezvous, 8/10.

This book brings the Heechee out of storage, so to speak, and into the world. Some readers dislike Pohl’s style in these tales of the Heechee and of Robinette Broadhead, but I enjoy it. The hard science parts are not overwhelming and the human aspects—love, guilt, ambition, fear—are explored in creative and novel ways.

Pohl does have a way of writing rather unlikable characters, or maybe just emphasizing the unlikable aspects of ordinary characters, or maybe just showing humans as they are, full of faults and fears and general messiness. Essie is a bit unrealistically smart, talented, and unselfish, but a marvelously grounding character for both Robin and the Albert computer program.

This was originally the finale of the Heechee trilogy, but Pohl has gone on to write 2 more books in the Heechee saga, and I’m looking forward to reading them.

[Kathi, Moderator & Book Lover]

OK, book 4, The Annals of the Heechee, 5.5/10.

I almost quit after reading about 30-40% of the book, just because I couldn’t stand Robin, the first person narrator, and his whining about how slowly “meat people” did things and how many things he (and others like him) could do in the space of a second, or a fraction of a second. Really, the reader understands it after the first, second, or third time, so stop repeating it!

The second half of the book picked up in terms of more plot movement and ended up being quite good (I read the last 40% in one sitting!). But what a slog to get to that point!

The final book was written about 16 years later, and I’ll be tackling that before the end of the year.

[Shel, Moderator]

It’s been many years, but I remember the last book feeling very different than the earlier ones.

[Kathi, Moderator & Book Lover]

Shel wrote: "It’s been many years, but I remember the last book feeling very different than the earlier ones."

Yes, it was!

The Boy Who Would Live Forever: A Novel of Gateway, 8/10

Author Frederik Pohl returns to the form of his original Heechee book, Gateway, with this final installment in the Heechee Saga. Robin Broadhead plays only a background role, which was a relief to this reader, and the cast of characters, including humans, Heechee, Kugels, Old Ones, and AIs, was a mix of familiar and new, but all were interesting. The story was told in several POVs and a variety of locations, so the “voice” was never tiring or too repetitive the way the previous few books were with an overload of Robin’s POV and voice. Best of all, there were both intimate, personal stories and universe-wide aspects to the plot. All in all, I’m glad I persevered through some of the middle books to get to this one.