Beyond The Blue Event Horizon (2000) - Plot & Excerpts
I loved Gateway, the first novel in the Heechee series by Frederik Pohl. Where Pohl came up with the term "Heechee" would be interesting to know, although I dislike this word. It sounds so lightweight to me to represent in language sentient beings and a culture that will have such a huge impact on humanity and the universe. Pohl dreams big. I like that. I also like his style of writing -- it's easy to read, comfortable, natural. In Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, the second novel in the Heechee series, Pohl takes the reader on an expedition to the Food Factory, a Heechee construction in the Oort Cloud designed to collect essential elements from comets and manufacture food from them. Earth is fast approaching a critical food shortage and humanity needs the Food Factory. The expedition is a family affair: Paul Hall, his wife (and the pilot) Lurvy Herter-Hall, her much younger sister, Janine Herter, and their father, Peter Herter. Each has a desire that comes into conflict with the others as well as the expedition. When they arrive at the Food Factory, they stumble onto a young teen boy, Wan, who is human and the son of a pair of Gateway prospectors. They believe that he knows about the Heechee. He knows about "Heechee Heaven," his home, and the Dead Men, the Old Ones, and reading Heechee books. Wan is one of the keys to unlock the Heechee for the expedition, but he also leads them into danger.Meanwhile, back on earth, Robin Broadhead, the protagonist of the first novel, has partnered with Gateway Corp. to run the Food Factory expedition, so he and his much younger Russian wife, Essie, are following its progress closely. A fever strikes earth and all of humanity every 90 days or so and lasts varying durations, but does a great deal of damage with loss of life, property damage, etc. No one knows why or where it comes from. The source of this fever turns out to be quite interesting, and surprisingly controllable by the Food Factory expedition, but can also be used to hold humanity in thrall. I loved this idea about dreams, mental energy transfers, and the underlying energy connection shared by all humanity (and perhaps all living things). Robin continues to be haunted by the loss of his first love in a Black hole (in the first novel), and there is a LOT of science in this book (and story) about Black holes -- "blue event horizon" is the thin membrane between a Black hole and the rest of space. Robin wants to rescue his first love. Do the Heechee actually have knowledge about Black holes and how to enter and leave them that he could use? This was another really interesting scientific thread that kept me reading.I have a quibble, and as a writer I think it's kind of a big one. Robin determines that he needs to take a computer to the Food Factory. The largest spaceship available would carry the large computer, one human, and very little else. Pohl makes a point of putting in Robin's conversation with his science program Albert that there wouldn't be enough room for enough food and water to sustain the one human for the duration of the space voyage. But then...in an action-packed section, Robin takes advantage of the advent of the fever to steal the spaceship and take off. Although Pohl does describe how the large computer is transferred to the spaceship, he does not include anything about loading food and water onto it. So when Robin steals the spaceship and takes off for the Food Factory, I was thinking that he had no food and water. But...Pohl writes this section as if he DOES have food and water on the ship, because when the ship hits the halfway point 9 days late, Robin realizes he doesn't have enough food, water and air to keep him alive until he arrives at the Food Factory. To compound my dismay about this really sloppy treatment of this important, life-sustaining (for Robin) detail, Robin just shows up at Heechee Heaven. Smacked a bit of deus ex machina, Mr. Pohl, even though in the last 2 chapters, you explain what happened.I love science fiction books that raise interesting, relevant questions about cosmology, the universe, physical laws as we know them, and the nature of time. Pohl does this in his Heechee series. He sets up the next book wonderfully at the end by finally taking the reader to see where the Heechee are and why they are there. It's terrifying and fascinating. I also love science fiction books that deal with anthropological and sociological issues, as well as psychological issues. Pohl does this also to a certain extent. He develops his characters truly well, gives them interesting flaws or weaknesses, and gives them dimensionality, including senses of humor. The story rockets forward, driven by the characters' desires, not one or two, but all of them. Including "the oldest one." So, I loved this novel, loved it! I would highly recommend it to sci fi readers, but read Gateway first. I could not put this novel down.
Review: Beyond the Blue Event HorizontIt might be 4.5 but since this is my third reading of it I'm thinking it is probably 5+ if my actions have any meaning. tI'm a bit surprised to learn there are 6 “HeeChee” books. In my earlier days I read the trilogy... twice. Once because it was recommended, and a second time because I liked it and it made me feel good. tScience Fiction and Fredrick Pohl's Gateway (HeeChee) series: Mr. Pohl is no slouch when it came to “science” in science fiction. When I first encountered this series I was fascinated with the science and the speculations that seemed rather rational to me with my young scientific interests. And he didn't restrict himself to astrophysics or theoretical mathematics... he dabbled in anthropology, evolution and several other sciences as well. Today, as I've finished this second book a couple decades later, for the third time, I'm thinking he was probably off on a number of things in his speculations but not by much. One thing he seemed to know but couldn't quite label it was Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Oddly though, by his writings he suspected such things he just hadn't quite put that 2+2 together back then but really it is only in the last several years folks have come up with these labels for what Pohl describes in places. t*Semi-Spoiler --- Skip this paragraph to avoid the spoil* The HeeChee series is about Robinette Broadhead who is something like a Bill Gates except his rags to riches came mostly from gambling at first and probably like Bill Gates, by wise speculation by this second book. To prevent a total spoil let's just say his adventures are typically “plot” where the book builds in waves of challenges he must overcome until a climax, and then, in this particular book, it dwindles until it politely runs out of steam. It is more than a plot driven book though. Pohl gives you plenty of reason to love his characters... or in some cases just connect with them, so it isn't simply a bang-em-up SciFi thriller. In each of the three times I've read THIS book in the series I've stayed up longer than I planned to get to the next chapter... then the next.
What do You think about Beyond The Blue Event Horizon (2000)?
I love the space opera stuff but the heavy breathing sexuality wore on me pretty quickly. That everyone is so horny might be a welcome change after the celibate golden age but I felt like it was slowing the space adventure stuff down. Also, some stuff that was probably progressive in 1980 seems a bit not P.C. now, maybe. Other 1980-isms, like 'bubble memory' and videotape and the idea that by now-ish the rich would live in reasonably good health for an absurdly long time, are fun. I love expired science fiction and it is always interesting to me when a story has, like this one, holographic, anthropomorphic AIs that can speculate but cameras still store video on tape. It is more challenging to write SF that takes place in the next half-century or so than far future or low-tech dystopia because you don't have to try to get the science "right." One of the cool things about Pohl is that he takes a page or two to explain how the alien FTL ships work. If you leave that stuff unexplained or make up some mumbojumbo one sentence excuse, that's cool, but Pohl belongs to what the nerds call "hard-SF" which means that you can read it and pretend that it really was scientific. So that's also fun, if you are into that sort of thing.
—Benjamin
Cuando un libro es muy bueno y gana muchos premios, generalmente la segunda parte surge para aprovechar el éxito del primero y vender muchas copias. La mayoría de las veces el segundo libro no esta a la altura del primero, ya sea porque se lo compara con el y se espera que sea también una obra maestra, o porque el primer libro no se escribió pensando en que formara parte de una saga y la adaptación no resulta del todo satisfactoria. No tengo idea de si Pohl escribió Pórtico pensando en que fuera el punto de partida de una saga, pero la verdad es que Tras el incierto horizonte me resulto mucho mas interesante y atrapante que el propio Pórtico y de hecho en esta segunda entrega de la saga, pasan a cobrar sentido muchos detalles que en Pórtico eran meras curiosidades. Creo que se le da a los temas que quedaron pendientes en Pórtico (como ser la situación de Klara, el misterio de los Heechees y cosas referentes a su tecnología) un trato muy acertado y un cierre (por el momento) muy bueno en términos generales. Lo único que tengo para recriminarle a Pohl es el darle demasiada importancia a algunos personajes que no resultaban interesantes, como por ejemplo Peter y a otros que si lo eran, no darle participación en la medida justa, como por ejemplo Wan. A su vez me parece que la extensión de varios capítulos es demasiado excesiva y fastidia un poco al lector. Como comentario final quisiera agregar que cuando ya todo parecía encaminado a terminar de una determinada forma, la cual resultaba mas que aceptable, el autor en una demostración de gran inspiración y originalidad sale por otro lado totalmente diferente y genera un final para el libro que en mi opinión es memorable y que a su vez deja abierta la puerta para la tercera entrega de la saga, ya que plantea muchas nuevas interrogantes. En conclusión me pareció un libro excelente, altamente recomendable. Lastima que la traducción realizada en la edición que leí es bastante pobre y en algunos pasajes resulta un tanto difícil de leer sin perderse, no se si es la traducción o la digitalización.
—Rodrigo Aguerre
...I guess you could say Pohl took a bit more conventional approach in writing Beyond the Blue Events Horizon. It makes the book less groundbreaking than Gateway was and probably is part of the reason why it didn't win any of the awards it was nominated for. The scope of it is obviously much wider too, and the many switches in point of view makes it appear a bit less structured than its predecessor. If you view the story as the unveiling of (part of) a mystery, it makes more than enough sense to me. In the end I guess I agree with many of the critics that it is not quite as good a novel as Gateway was. I also think it would have been nice if it had been a little more self contained; if it were fantasy I'd say this book suffered from the middle book syndrome a bit. That being said, it is a good science fiction novel in the classic sense. Plenty of hard science, scientific speculation and a much larger scope than the first book in this series offer their own attractions. I guess it depend on what you want out of a novel but I thought it was an enjoyable read.Full Random Comments review.
—Rob
