"Gateway" by Frederik Pohl

This was the first book that got Pohl a worldwide success, though he has been active in the SF community for several decades before, notably as the editor in chief of 'If' and "Galaxy'. Gateway is written in a hard boiled style, the main character Robinette Broadhead, although having quite effeminate name, is actually a tough talking hedonist, who would risk his life and all he has for a chance to become a millionaire. His character softens in the consequent books (the 'Heechee Series' consists of four novels, of which 'Gateway' is the first one).

The action is set not too far from our present time, a 100 years at most. The earth has not been destroyed in any kind of nuclear disaster, and the nations are pretty much like today, the major powers being USA, Russia, China and Brazil, but they are much more cooperative and friendly to each other than today, The biggest problem is overpopulation and the lack of food. The population of the Earth is 11 billion people, and they are so strapped for food that they stopped using oil for anything else but to grow fungi and other edible lichens. Obviously Pohl bought into the fear mongering of the day when he wrote the novel (mid 70s) which still persists today, although it is scientifically proven that our planet can sustain up to 1,000 billion people, and no food shortages will occur. Why no one is using the oceans to raise algae on Pohls Earth - is anyone guess.

I read this book and the subsequent one when I was quite young, and in Croatian translation, and was quite impressed by the depth and breadth of Pohl's imagination. This goes to say that I was very impressionable and inexperienced then, but the Pohls vision still captivates me today, although not to the same level as during my first reading many years ago.

So, the earth has developed enough technology (and motivation) to colonize the Moon and Venus (why not Mars is anyone's guess). On Venus, mysterious underground tunnels are found and lots of artifacts from an ancient alien race (Pohl says 500,000 years, although I am always doubtful of time spans beyond 1,000 years) which the humans give a name 'Heechee'. Many artifacts are found, most mysterious, but some close enough to our technology to provide for reverse engineering and huge leaps in human technology though uneven. But everything becomes more interesting when an entire Heechee star base is found on an asteroid called 'Gateway' with many operable ships, though only set to a predetermined course, with instrument panels which are mostly a mystery.

Thus brave 'prospectors' get into Heechee ships, and press the go button and hope that it takes them to another space base or planet base, and some do, but many never return, or return with dead prospectors inside. The Gateway corporation, which is setup by the four most powerful nations on earth, controls the incoming prospectors and their missions, and keeps the lion share from any industrial application of whatever artifact they find, but whatever is left is more than enough sometimes to make the prospectors millionaires for life, and this is what attracts them to risk their lives, including Broadhead.

Broadhead is very reluctant to go on trips, and even destroys one Heechee ship, but on his last trip he witnesses 'Event Horizon' which is the border area of a Black Hole, where his 9 team mates, including the love of his life remain trapped and only he escapes and becomes a millionaire, albeit with a guilty conscious, which he cures with the help of the psychoanalytical AI called 'Sigfried'. The book ends when Broadhead finally confronts his demons and forgives himself for leaving the other nine people, especially the girl of his life, in the event horizon.