Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Pohl's Gateway

Found this book to be amazing, with a dreaded hangover, I sat on my couch perfectly intent to grow roots. A student lent me this book and I just let it go on the side for so very long. Other books kept grabbing my attention, not to mention the unbelievable amounts of summer reading I had to do (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ugh, I call it quite simply the philiosophy machine).

I tore this book apart. Ripped it to shreds and went from the couch to the porch to the bed, to the floorboards with its wonderful pages. I had to find out more about the Heechee. Pohl just knows exactly how to create suspense. He is a sci-fi Alfred Hitchcock.

The book is about the human race finding an alien way station filled to the brim with alien spacecraft. We humans wholeheartedly start using the ships, even though we cannot control them. Some ships will fly into suns, planets, or belts. Others will go to long dead colonies where the crew can make a killing on retrieving profitable alien technology. But the risks far outwiegh the pay-off- maybe.

The very idea that the human race would simply grab an alien technology, start using it, disregarding the consequences- is not only shocking but damn plausible. If someone were to make money there would be no hesitation.

The minute I finished this one, I got online to my library and ordered the next one "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon". Must read inn a must read series

No comments: