Enchilada Relaunch

Hugo Award for Best Novel, 1978

One of my earlier memories concerning my family’s beloved Apple IIe computer involved a program called “Eliza.” Though this program had been developed first in the 60’s as a demonstration of a possible model for artificial intelligence, Eliza has been circulated constantly on many platforms since then. She (or it, I guess, but the feminine seems a more comfortable fit) simulates one half of a conversation. Her method involves posing a question such as “How do you feel?” and then waiting for typed response. She reads in the response and attempts to formulate a response of her own. She’s not very good at this, of course, only being a computer program. For example, if you type “I feel sad,” her response will be “Why do you feel sad?” But if you type in “I feel dumbwaiter,” she’ll respond “Why do you feel dumbwaiter?” Eliza can only formulate her end of the conversation within the constraints programmed into her. She may give an illusion of depth, but in the end Eliza possesses nothing real in the way of original thought.

The reason I’m mentioning this curiousity is that, prior to reading Frederik Pohl’s Gateway, I would never have believed that a program of this type would make for a compelling character. The dialogue such a program outputs is by necessity formulaic. Yet Sigfrid, the “Freudian computer" in question, is a fascinating and very likable fellow. Pohl was probably familiar with Eliza, as he includes samples of Sigfrid’s programming in the text and it reads very much like the BASIC code on my Apple IIe would have. On the one hand, this dates the novel and Pohl’s vision of a far future computer, as it relies on what are now obsolete programming models. On the other hand, I was impressed with Pohl’s attempt to make Sigfrid realistic by seriously thinking through how he would be designed and what the nuts and bolts of his programming would involve.

It's not just Sigfrid, though. The whole work is impressive. Gateway stands out as one of the best designed and most emotionally involving science fiction works I’ve read. Before picking it up from the library a few weeks back, I’d heard vague things about the Heechee series, of which Gateway is the first entry. I wish I'd heard more. Pohl has created a rather simple but intriguing universe. Avoiding major spoilers, I’ll give a very basic history lesson for the purposes of this review.

A long time ago, in a galaxy not at all far away (in fact, it was right here) the alien Heechee built an empire based on their massive technological power before decided to take it all and leave for points unknown. Their clean-up job had one glaring omission, however. Inside an asteroid near Venus dubbed “Gateway,” humans have recently discovered a shipyard of nearly a thousand Heechee ships. I can’t spoil anything here, having read no further into the series, so I’ll put forward a guess that in later books we may discover this omission was no accident. The whole setup seems a little convenient.

The Earth’s nations quickly form a sprawling mercantile organization to exploit the newfound Heechee fleet. The Corporation has a major roadblock, however: no one can figure out how to work the darned Heechee ships. The technology is so far ahead of anything known and the language and symbols so foreign that humans are at a loss to get the ships to do anything we’d like them to do. So, the humans decide to work it the other direction and adapt their goals to what they can figure out how to get the ships to do. Two things are discovered: by pressing a few buttons, a ship can be flown to the last destination stored in its computer. By pressing some other buttons, the ship will return to Gateway. Each vessel becomes a ferry from one particular point to another particular point.

Thus a whole new profession opens up: that of prospector in this futuristic Gold Rush. A few week’s training is all that is needed to get someone ready to be a pilot (after all, the only skills needed are the ability to avoid touching any buttons). These journeys are not without danger, however. Quite a few of the prospectors never return, falling prey either to insufficient supplies (no one knows how long a trip will take before embarking), inhospitable destinations or strife between the crew members.

While there is great risk for Gateway prospectors, the rewards can be equally great. A pilot who returns from his or her trip with either new knowledge of how the Heechee technology works or some new Heechee doodads from the trip’s endpoint, can reasonably expect to make enough to retire on. A handful of pilots end their stay at Gateway as millionaires. Many more die or retire from trip-induced injuries. Some simply never return from their journeys.

The narrative of Gateway involves one such prospector, Bob Broadhead. Pohl describes two different time periods in Bob’s life, each one narrated in exactly half the chapters. The even chapters deal with Bob as a younger man who has recently won the lottery. Bob’s immediately quits his job in a Wyoming “food mine” (needless to say, the product garned via rocks dug up from the ground and a device called a “slime-skimmer” is unpleasant both to mine and to eat). Instead of retiring to a tropical island, Bob blows the entirety of his new fortune on a ticket to Gateway. This half of the story deals with his experiences there.

The odd chapters of the novel are something quite different. They describe Bob at a later era in his life. His prospecting days are over and he’s living the life of a rich playboy. Pohl intentionally (and wisely) omits many facts about what has happened between the two time periods in order to avoid spoiling the events of the earlier era chapters. What we do know about Bob is that something horrible has happened to him; he spends every moment we see him in this period in his psychiatrist’s office with Sigfrid.

The novel flows briskly, advancing the action and sense of mystery in both eras simultaneously. Pohl does an excellent job keeping the pace consistent between the two. I never felt like it was a drag returning to one time period, which seems like a very real risk in a novel following this structure. For a good half of Gateway it is not clear where the psychiatry storyline is going, though there’s enough motivation to find out what is wrong with Bob to keep the reader interested. The scenes involving Sigfrid and Bob are intriguing. Bob absolutely hates his weekly sessions with Sigfrid and will try any manner of tricks to outwit Sigfrid’s programming and keep the conversation away from the pain that Bob feels. Yet Bob keeps going to these sessions week after week. As readers we come to feel the urgency for resolution that Bob does without even understanding the nature of his problem. Some of the passages that explore the relationship between Bob and Sigfrid, particularly near the end of the novel, are among the finest I’ve read in science fiction. Pohl creates a very endearing relationship that is not all that different in substance than my experiences as a child typing input for Eliza’s perusal, but he makes it feel like an event of the greatest importance.

My theory on why Pohl dedicates half of the work to this relationship is that he sees it as a microcosmic view of the entire Heechee setting. Sigfrid tries to understand his patient by the rare pieces of insight that Bob shares and by a basic reading of his vital signs. Sigfrid is hampered, however, only being able to go as far with Bob as Bob will let him. Similarly, humanity tries to assemble a model for understanding the Heechee from the meager evidence left behind (mostly piles of debris and stripped out buildings). The scientists, pilots and administrators employ systematic and frankly rather uninspired methods to glean anything they can about the aliens, changing one setting at a time on each ship and seeing what happens. They repeat this over and over, desperate for understanding. Likewise, Sigfrid plays every game with Bob that his programming will allow, constantly needling Bob with repeated questions and carefully timed, unsettling comments. Humans and this Freudian machine aren't much different in Gateway; each is yoked with a giant mystery that is slightly beyond their capabilities to solve.

Before this review extends into the territory where further reading would occupy a significant fraction of the time it takes to read Gateway, I must mention a unique literary trick employed in it. Pohl intersperses supplementary material throughout the work. I’ve seen authors like Kurt Vonnegut include drawings in their works, but these were integrated into the text of the narrative. Fantasy novels like Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series sometimes include maps for the reader’s convenience. And of course many novels include footnotes for consumption after the book is finished. But I can’t recall seeing anything like what Pohl does in this novel, including classified ads, debriefing reports and professors’ lectures inside the text but without reference to it. I was never quite sure how to read these passages. Should I stop mid-sentence and read the supplementary material exactly where it appears? Or wait until the end of a section and go back and read it? I compromised: where the narrative action was too exciting to stop reading, I skipped the material for later perusal; where the action was moving at a slower pace, I would interrupt the story to read over these bits. It certainly is an interesting trick, but I’ll admit to being glad most novels don’t use it.

My last thought on Gateway is simply that I enjoyed it greatly. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in years and a deserved Hugo winner. It's also the perfect work to kick off this series and is sure to be a tough act to follow.