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The Boy Who Would Live Forever

Posted by timothy on Fri Dec 10, 2004 04:59 PM
from the eternality dept.
Books Media Sci-Fi Book Reviews
Motor writes with the review below of Frederik Pohl's The Boy Who Would Live Forever, a series book which he says escapes the release-early, release-often approach of some series. Read on for his take on the book.
The Boy Who Would Live Forever is a Gateway novel. I am sure a big proportion of Slashdot readers need no introduction to Frederik Pohl's Gateway universe. But here goes:

The original novel Gateway, published in 1976, was a Hugo and Nebula award winner and quickly burned itself into the memory of many SF readers. It told the story of the discovery of an asteroid full of alien (the Heechee) ships. The ships are completely functional, but with no way to decode the navigation controls the only possible trips are... well... mysterious. Desperate prospectors from a poverty- and famine-stricken Earth travel to the Gateway asteroid (as it becomes known) to take a trip in a Heechee ship hoping to find something unusual, and perhaps earn themselves a share in the Gateway Corporation. Some never return; some return only after their food and oxygen has long run out; some are sent to destinations that kill the occupants of the craft; a lucky few return to enormous wealth. Later books in the series expanded on the premise and the reasons why the Heechee abandoned many of their vessels and tunnels and vanished.

The Boy Who Would Live Forever is the sixth book in the series. The word 'series' stirs up thoughts of those interminable fantasy or SF series that are pumped out at regular intervals for cash. Gateway books, on the other hand, are pretty rare things:

  • Gateway (1976)
  • Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980)
  • Heechee Rendezvous (1984)
  • Annals of the Heechee (1987)
  • The Gateway Trip (1990)
  • The Boy Who Would Live Forever: A Novel of Gateway (2004)

So a new one is something to look forward to -- at least for me.

The Boy Who Would Live Forever (TBWWLF) begins with the story of Stan, a young man growing up virtually penniless in Istanbul. After his father dies he inherits a life insurance payoff that is just enough to take him and a friend to Gateway. Unfortunately Stan's long-awaited first trip in a Heechee ship comes to nothing. Even worse, he returns to Gateway to find that the secret of Heechee ship navigation has been cracked. No more wild rides into the unknown... and no more big payoffs. But Stan somehow finds himself on a Gateway trip that will make him one of the first humans to find the elusive Heechee.

Other narrative threads involve Gelle-Klara Moynlin: a character from previous books who spent time trapped and frozen in time at the event horizon of a black hole. Marc Anthony: an artificial intelligence, Gourmet cook, and numerous other talents besides. Wan: a rich spoiled psychotic who grew up on a Heechee artifact (the child of stranded Gateway prospectors) and his attempt to get get hold of a weapon capable of destroying a star. Sigfried von Shrink: the A.I psychotherapist from the first Gateway novel makes a repeat appearance. That rarest of things, a mentally unstable Heechee: made that way, unsurprisingly, by having to live with humans. And more details on the Kugels -- or "The Foe" as the Heechee call them -- a race of energy creatures hell-bent on eliminating organic intelligences.

Like most of Pohl's work, TBWWLF has plenty of humour and insight. Cultural misunderstandings between the amiable Heechee and the slightly clueless Stan provide plenty of opportunity for sly jokes, and Wan's obsession with getting back "his" Old Ones (the Australopithecus pre-humans he grew up with on the Heechee artifact) and their lack of personal hygiene are played for a few gags.

Despite being a novel, TBWWLF has been constructed from a number of short stories ("From Istanbul to the Stars", "In the Steps of Heroes", "A Home for the Old Ones", "Hatching the Phoenix") with original material added to tie them together. This is the cause of its only major fault: it is quite disjointed. Some of that is inevitable given that a big chunk part of the novel takes place within a black hole. But even allowing for the difficulties of stitching together a story from threads crossing a time dilation of 40,000:1... in which some of your characters only experience a week or two while others experience a thousands years... the novel still does not hold together satisfactorily as a story. There are entire chapters devoted to a faster-than-light trip to watch the Crab Nebula supernova occur and see the occupants of a planet of that system in its final days. Fascinating it may be (and it is), but it never really feels like part of the novel. The varied threads do eventually come together to provide a conclusion of sorts, but taken as a whole the book is really more of a tour of the Gateway universe.

However, I don't want to give the impression that this is a bad thing. Anyone familiar with the earlier books will find plenty to enjoy. Much of TBWWLF is concerned with filling in the gaps left by previous books -- such as telling the story of humanity's first contact with the Heechee, and some of the religious implications of machine storing humans when their organic bodies run out. New readers, though, might find themselves a bit lost among all the A.Is, downloaded humans, prayer fans, Ones, Twos and Fives.

The Boy Who Would Live Forever does have its faults as a novel, but it is a genuinely enjoyable read and it is a welcome addition to the Gateway series. One can only hope that Pohl is able to continue it.

You can purchase the Boy Who Would Live Forever from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

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  • Excerpt (Score:2, Informative)

    by kngthdn (820601) *
    Amazon.com has the first six pages [amazon.com] on their website.

  • Until the cows come home... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead (54550) on Friday December 10 2004, @05:03PM (#11056032)
    > Desperate prospectors from a poverty- and famine-stricken Earth travel to the Gateway asteroid (as it becomes known) to take a trip in a Heechee ship hoping to find something unusual, and perhaps earn themselves a share in the Gateway Corporation. Some never return; some return only after their food and oxygen has long run out; some are sent to destinations that kill the occupants of the craft; a lucky few return to enormous wealth.

    ...in the form of personal computers casemodded to resemble cows [mini-itx.com]. Spending too much time at the Gateway Corporation can do that sort of thing to you.

  • Born 1919 (Score:4, Informative)

    by nagora (177841) on Friday December 10 2004, @05:08PM (#11056064)
    Just in case anyone was wondering just how old Fred Pohl is these days. Pretty good going to still be an active writer.

    TWW

  • The Boy Who Would Live Forever (Score:3, Funny)

    by BRSQUIRRL (69271) on Friday December 10 2004, @05:10PM (#11056080)
    Is it just me, or does that sound like it should be the title of a Heinlein book?
    • Yes, however I don't believe this book contains any immortal immoral supermen who bed every women (and most of the men) in the galaxy while not so secretly lusting after their mother. Who happens to be a super genius that developed the first AI/machine that travels to other universes/star ship and a crack sharp shooter to boot. Neither of them will be detailing their ideas on how the universe should work through 10 page monolouges complaining about the idiocy of the comman man.

      But perhaps I'm wrong.
    • > Is it just me, or does that sound like it should be the title of a Heinlein book?

      No, that'd be more like The Boy Who Would Live Forever While Simultaneously Having Freaky Sex With Superwomen Who Are Oddly Submissive In The Bedroom And Spouting Off About Weird-Ass Libertarian-Fascist-Anarchic Politics.

  • I read this book (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ok, I have to start by saying that I really enjoy Frederik Pohl's writing. Gateway, Annals of the Heechee and now The Boy Who Would Live Forever are all interesting books with unusual twists and refreshing new ideas. This book crosses many genres and should appeal readers of all of them: sci fi, tech thriller, and romance. To start, this book goes into great depth about the computer industry. I have to assume whatever Frederik Pohlis writing about is viable and true because I do not have a deep understan

  • Series Books For Money (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rheagar (556811) on Friday December 10 2004, @05:14PM (#11056117) Homepage
    The reviewer decides to bash book series that come out more frequently than once every four years, implying that they are just out for money.
    Now, Robert Jordan is one thing. But if you can manage to get past that you will find some great series fantasy that does go to print more frequently. Some great examples are:
    (1) George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. This is my favorite series of all. The characters are realistic, the story draws you in, and the outcome is anything but expected. I could only wish that these books came out every month.
    (2) Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Tales of Alvin Maker series. Card is a great storyteller who dreams up tales that capture your imagination with stories of what might have been or what might be.
    (3) David Duncan's Tale of the King's Blades series mixes swordplay with interesting storylines. The books are truly exciting recounts of great adventures.
    I'd just like to point out that some of the "other" series out there are more than just cash cows.

    When will Robert Jordan ever finish his series?
    • I think everyone is afraid he is going to die before he finishes it..
      Then we would all be just stuck here wondering what the hell...
    • A moment of silence for Roger Zelazny. His "Amber" series was the highlight of my sci fi reading youth.
    • (1) George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. This is my favorite series of all. The characters are realistic, the story draws you in, and the outcome is anything but expected. I could only wish that these books came out every month.

      I just have to echo your sentiments that this is one of the best series I have ever read. I love how he has no particular attachments to his characters, and yet how he doesn't forget any of them either - every single chapter is as interesting as the last and I don't have the
    • Thank god there isn't a new R.R.Martin book each month! I'd never get any sleep!
    • I just want to echo your GRRM and OSC recommendations. OSC writes a lot of other stuff, too, and I've read most of it. His least interesting work so far is the Ender's series, which is what he's most famous for, and that was still pretty darned good.
        • He's homophobic, militaristic, overly religious and a zealot - basically he is the Bush of sci-fi authors.

          How so? There is plenty of theological discussion in his books, often from the point of view of someone who isn't Mormon or even religious. I generally get the impression through his work that he is pretty level-headed with respect to religion, and his characters are all extremely human with flaws and virtues intact. If Bush were to write Ender's Game, Ender would have tried to convert the Buggers
    • I haven't read the other series, but both of Orson Scott Card's series show significant decline in quality after the first couple of novels. I believe there's a credible reason to be suspicious even of good authors that produce too much. OTOH, if your standards were sufficiently low to begin with, then even pulp series like old time Doc Savage or almost everything by Piers Anthony can meet it without slithering off the ground.
  • The Gateway corperation is involved in the story? Do they buy up a crappy computer company called E-Machines in an effort to thwart their inevitible bankrupcy?

  • clarification please (Score:3, Funny)

    by XO (250276) <<blade.eric> <at> <gmail.com>> on Friday December 10 2004, @05:19PM (#11056161) Homepage Journal
    Now, was the boy from Istanbul, or was he from Constantinople?
  • I'm really bummed that his Eschaton books didn't capture the public's imagination quite the way the Heechee books did. Well, perhaps they weren't quite as good, but they were darned good, and still don't feel quite concluded.

  • The gateway series. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Zangief (461457) on Friday December 10 2004, @05:20PM (#11056174) Homepage Journal
    The gateway series is genial. Period.

    Once, I readed that Pohl asked Asimov permission to continue the Foundation Saga (in the 70's decade), and Asimov considered this offer, and finally denied it.

    Seeing how Pohl has become a better writer with the years, and the crap that it is anything Foundation written after the original trilogy, I think this is the single greatest lost opportunity of the science fiction,
    --
    Wiki de Ciencia Ficcion y Fantasia [uchile.cl]
    • I would disagree that the entire series is genial as I found the books that came after the original, Gateway, to be weaker by comparison to the book that started it all. In a certain respect, though we all wanted to learn about the Heechee, I almost regret how much Pohl 'gives away' in the last couple books. There was a certain atmosphere brought to the book with the mystery that surrounded the Heechee technology, and this was lost in the later books. I will say however that by normal standards the later bo
      • It's all a matter of taste. However, in the latter Foundation novels, he betrayed himself, and retconned the originally self contained Foundation Trilogy, with his robots stories, which, IMHO, were of a much lower quality. And you cannot but feel underwhelmed, when the original trilogy is left as a small annotation of his whole (and completely not epic, ordinary) universe.
  • We have a reviewer who admits to being a fan and basically says there is no story is not that good but its still worth buying and hopes the author can carry on with same. WTF sort of review is that?

    I can only take from this that while the original idea had some merit this book must really suck.

    Why do no reviewers here ever say do not buy this book, its not that good?
    • My guess would be because books that are on the "do not buy" list aren't worth reviewing, or even finishing for that matter. Personally, I've gotten part way into a few of those type of books and I wouldn't even bother telling anyone about them, let alone writing a rewview.
    • I heard an interview with the editor of an alternative weekly paper discuss why he only published good reviews for books and music. His response was there was not enough space to review all the books and music that come out so he thought people would like to know about good books and music that they would enjoy rather than what not to get. Things that were bad did not merit space in the paper.

    • We have a reviewer who admits to being a fan and basically says there is no story

      No I didn't.

      is not that good

      No I didn't.

      but its still worth buying

      No I didn't -- I never suggested anyone buy anything.

      and hopes the author can carry on with same.

      First thing you've actually got right.

      WTF sort of review is that

      An honest one. I like the Gateway novels, but even I found the that it didn't work all that well as a novel. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it for what it was, a series of short stories ti

    • If you're a fan of Pohl, then it's a great review. I find Pohl's books odd and sometimes frustrating. But there are some great gems within his writings, and the payoff always out-weighs the frustrations.

      This review told me "After all these years, Pohl brings the same formula to the table." I wanted to hear about this, and I'm going to buy the book. The reviewer was honest, not gushing like a little fan-boi. Kudos to him for attempting to review someone as odd as Pohl in the first place.

  • Depth and Development... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CygnusXII (324675) on Friday December 10 2004, @05:29PM (#11056234)
    I read this book last weekend and found it a light read, and somewhat disappointing. More detail could have been added to "Wans'" Vastening, in that I wished that we could have seen further into his hastily done procedure and also more into his adaptation and development of his surroundings, instead of jumping into the Kill the Heechee, right off the bat scenario. I dunno, it seemed to be more of a get-er-done than a really good wrap up, like all of the other books. I mean I have read the other Heechee books several times, and they were page turners all the way through, and the stories made you want to jump right into the next novel in the series. I didn't getthe feeling with this one.

  • Check out the Sparrow (Score:5, Informative)

    by WankersRevenge (452399) on Friday December 10 2004, @05:30PM (#11056236) Homepage
    I've never read the above book, but it reminds me of a very insightful book called "The Sparrow" by Maria Doria Russell. It is about a group of missionaries traveling to another planet via a spaceship built out of an asteroid. The characters are really fleshed out and the themes are something to chew on. It's basically about why you shouldn't break the star trek prime directive. It also debates science versus religion in a very thoughtful manner.

    Here's the amazon review [amazon.com]:

    In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being "human." When the lone survivor of the expedition, Emilio Sandoz, returns to Earth in 2059, he will try to explain what went wrong... Words like "provocative" and "compelling" will come to mind as you read this shocking novel about first contact with a race that creates music akin to both poetry and prayer.
    • Man I hated that book. They go through the whole mission thinking how blessed they all are and when things go to pot the survivor never considers that there might not be a god, only that God has betrayed him.
    • Man, I couldn't disagree more with centauri's response to you. The Sparrow is a fantastic book. Irrespective of the philosophy/theology of the book, it's just a pleasure to read such extraordinary characters. Her humor is wonderful and subtle. And, ultimately, the questions she has about faith are disturbing and thought-provoking.

  • Release often? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zerocool^ (112121) on Friday December 10 2004, @05:34PM (#11056261) Homepage Journal
    release-early, release-often approach

    I'm looking at you, Robert Jordan.

    I would trade the Wheel of Time books 24-45 for A Feast for Crows [amazon.com].
    • I'm looking forward to Volumes 12 through 14. Rumor is that another character takes a bath! I won't reveal the name, as that would spoil the fun.
      • Eh, I think we all know it's going to be Egwene. Egwene, taking bath after bath, ignorent of the source of her problems even after a giant magic sign decends from the heavens pointing with glowing arrow at it.
    • Absolutely. In fact George R. R. Martin's page on how "A Feast For Crows" is coming along [georgerrmartin.com] is one of the few web pages I check regularly. Maybe done by the end of the year he says now. Ah, anticipation.

    • Re:Release often? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bhima (46039)
      I just have to vent after reading this comment...

      Never before have I read a series (and listened to the audio books) which made me suffer through such awful tripe to experience a small core of good ideas, story telling and fantasy. It is as if parts of a book geared towards 7 year olds were pasted in a book for folks at least in or past high-school. The recurring theme of the juvenile 'battle of the sexes' ruins the story and is out of place!

      oh... the audio aooks really are much better than just reading th

  • I have read this book and I think a more accurate review is found on amazon.com [amazon.com]
  • Why is disjointed a fault?

    A favorite SF novel of mine is Harry Harrison's "One Step From Earth." Each chapter is a short story more or less centered around a method of instantaneous teleportion between any two points in the Universe. The first chapter tells of the initial discovery. Each subsequent chapter takes place further and further in the future. No real dates are given, but some of the jumps appear to be thousands, if not tens of thousand of years. Collectively they sketch out a basic history of hu

  • Obligatory Baen Free Library Plug (Score:5, Informative)

    by LeninZhiv (464864) * on Friday December 10 2004, @06:23PM (#11056622)
    On the OP's criticism "of those interminable fantasy or SF series that are pumped out at regular intervals for cash": Fans of Sci-Fi and Fantasy genre fiction should all be aware of the Baen free library [baen.com] , a simple and admirable approach to genre fiction. Check out the first (few) books of a series free, and if you like it, you can buy the rest on paper or electronically and in a non-DRM'd format. Finally a publisher who gets it!

    So, if you're a fan, check out the site, and if you're a writer looking to get published in Fantasy/Sci-fi fiction, look to Baen first and foremost as a geek-friendly and utterly avant-guard publisher. I will grant that I've only paid for 1 e-book from Baen heretofore (having read 4-5 freely), but that would definately have been 0 sales instead of 1 if they had not instituted the free library, so I still hold that the concept works and is fair. This is a system where you only pay for quality genre writing and I think that's exactly what a lot of readers have been waiting for.
  • Indeed, if this is a compendium of earlier works, stitched together with some new text, that question is up for debate. He's got to be in better shape, though, than was Larry Niven when he took on the later [awful] Ringworld novels...
    • Niven is about twenty years younger than Pohl.

      I last saw Pohl in '97: Wrinkled, moved slowly, bad spine, but still full of piss and vinegar. (We'd put him on a panel with Vinge about the Singularity. Pohl thought the idea was as dumb as a bag of hammers, although I believe he anticipated the idea in his 1966 short story "Day Million.")

      Last saw Niven around 2000. (He was plugging _Ringworld Throne_, which would nail the date down.) Looked late middle age.

      If Niven's later Ringworld stuff is crappy, it's pe

  • This was a NOVEL?? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Suchetha (609968) <suchetha AT helagaman DOT com> on Saturday December 11 2004, @12:49AM (#11058496) Homepage Journal
    i got myself a book back in 2002(???)

    it was a collection of shorts/novellas by soem of the top writers to expand the universes they created.

    Brin wrote about some of the dolphins from the Uplift Universe, Card wrote about how Ender met Jane, McCaffrey wrote a coda to "the ship who sang" and pohl WROTE THIS AS A SHORT. (there were others but those were my favourites)

    now the question is, did he write the short and say "hey this would make a great novel", or when he got the offer to do the compilation did he just hack the novel into a core book and put it out???

    of course i haven't read the book, so i can't say

    atb

    Suchetha

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