Gateway trilogy
The so-called Gateway Trilogy consists of the books Gateway , Beyond the Blue Horizon and Return to Gateway by Frederik Pohl . The original English titles are: Gateway , Beyond the Blue Event Horizon and Heechee Rendezvous . Within science fiction literature , they are assigned to the genre of space opera .
In the American original, however, other titles belong to the canon, so that the term trilogy only applies to titles published in German.
action
Gateway
On the accidentally discovered asteroid "Gateway" near the sun, almost a thousand extraterrestrial spaceships of a lost race - called Hitschi - are found. Nobody knows how these spaceships work and where - if they can be successfully launched - their course will lead. But there are enough daring pilots, so-called prospectors , who fly them to their unknown destinations in order to search for further Hitschi technology or to make discoveries. Although the loss rate is extremely high, people see the Hitschi ships as an opportunity to escape the misery on the plundered earth, which is always on the brink of international conflict. Anyone who survives an expedition and finds artefacts from the Hitschi or makes important scientific discoveries will receive bonuses from the international Gateway Inc., which manages and economically exploits the Hitschi's legacy. The royalties on significant finds are sufficient to acquire 'full medical protection' and live the rest of your life in prosperity on earth.
The main character Robinette Broadhead grew up under poor conditions in the food pits of Wyoming. When he wins $ 250,000 in a lottery, he decides to buy a ticket to Gateway and try his luck as a prospector. After arriving on the asteroid, however, after completing his training course, he hesitates to take a flight and initially keeps himself afloat with auxiliary work. At Gateway he meets the prospector Gelle-Klara Moynlin, with whom he begins a love affair. She has already completed three flights, but the rewards received are not yet enough to retire. Like Broadhead, she shies away from a (renewed) flight. After several months, the two finally struggled and undertook a flight together with a group of three other prospectors, which, however, did not bring any particular results. The circumstances of the flights are - as shown in this example - inhumane, since the occupants of the ships are at the mercy of the Hitschi technology and can only somehow kill time in the narrow space without privacy. Broadhead's second flight is more a reaction to the separation from Klara after the flight together. When he learns that she has left Gateway, he takes on the first one-person mission he finds to clarify his relationship with Klara. During this flight he finds another way to "Gateway II", an asteroid like Gateway, but which is in a different solar system. As a result of this flight, the researchers come to new knowledge about the control of the Hitschi spaceships.
To test this theory, they are planning a two-ship research flight. The two ships should start shortly after one another and - if the theory is correct - arrive at the same place. The target coordinates, however, are a black hole that inevitably attracts both research vessels. To escape, all prospectors must transfer to one ship and abandon the other. During the hectic evacuation that followed, Broadhead was left alone in one of the ships and activated the drive. He is the only one to escape, while the second ship with the evacuated prospectors remains in the area of influence of the black hole. However, since the flight was a tremendous success from a scientific point of view, Broadhead receives the entire mission award alone and returns to earth a rich man.
The entire story is told in flashbacks while Broadhead is under psychoanalytic treatment by a computer program to process the loss of his girlfriend for which he feels responsible.
Beyond the blue horizon
Robinette Broadhead, who is now very wealthy, finances a research flight to the Oort Cloud to investigate a Hitschi food factory that had previously been discovered there. Like Gateway, it is a hollowed out asteroid filled with Hitschi technology. There is also a distant supply station called "Hitschi Heaven", which, in contrast to the other legacies of the Hitschi, is still active. When researching the station, it turns out that the residents found are by no means the missing Hitschi, but rather the descendants of early humans from Earth who were brought here by the Hitschi for unknown reasons. They also find the orphan boy Wan, the child of a missing pilot who was unable to turn back after docking at the station because the automatic system deactivated the ship. The factory's computer also contains the scanned consciousnesses of numerous other stranded pilots, all of which are damaged because the Hitschi technique was able to transfer living consciousnesses to machines, but the human brain structure produced incorrect results.
With the support of his private AI "Albert Einstein", Broadhead manages to fly to the factory in a hit ship, where he can defeat the robot that is responsible for collecting and scanning the intruders. He succeeds in bringing Hitschi Heaven , which turns out to be the largest Hitschi transport spaceship to date, to earth. With the technology of the food factory and the immeasurable CHON reserves (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen) of the comet belt, food for the world's population is now secured.
The epilogue tells where the Hitschi have disappeared to: They have retreated behind the horizon of black holes to hide from an unknown enemy.
Return to gateway
The earth is terrified by terrorist organizations. At the same time there is increasing evidence of other extraterrestrial races. In addition, the Hitschi appear for the first time. Startled by reports from their outposts, they leave their black hole to see if everything is going well. Concerned that the old enemy might become aware of you and the other races supervised by the Hitschi, collect the slush dwellers , extremely slow-thinking, whale-like inhabitants of cold gas planets and invade the solar system to dissuade them from further space flights .
In the course of the story, Robinette Broadhead suffers an age-related death. Due to the advances in Hitschi research - the purpose of the data storage media known as "prayer fans" is now known - his dying consciousness is scanned and his psychic substance is transmitted.
Broadhead's long-lost lover Klara is brought out of the black hole by Wan, who searches various black holes for his missing father, barely aged (Gateway), but finds Broadhead only as AI - the tragic end of an unfulfilled love story.
Humans obey the orders of the Hitschi because they accept the news of the threat to the universe from a race living as an energy form. This is hidden behind an arrangement of ball lightning on the edge of the universe, has an inexplicable hatred of all material existence and, according to the Hitschi, has extinguished intelligent life forms several times in the past. Further information is not given, so the end remains open.
Annals of the Heechee
Another title is the Annals of the Heechee , which is not published in German . The action takes place on a space station far outside the Milky Way. The Hitschi have now agreed with mankind that there is probably no point in hiding from the speed cameras in the long term . Instead, one wants to use manned outposts to unobtrusively investigate whether they have become active again and to take appropriate countermeasures. This is done by telepathically gifted people whose minds reach into the regions of the speed camera .
By mistake, however , the speed cameras become aware of the Milky Way Galaxy. Although apparently doomed, the humans and Hitschi succeed in a surprising ending: Impressed by the Broadhead AI and other people who have voluntarily given up their biological existence in favor of a massless, virtual life, the speed cameras refrain from carrying out their extermination train.
Prices
The Roman Gateway received the Nebula Award in 1977 , the Hugo Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1978 .
background
Strictly speaking, the title “Gateway Trilogy” is misleading and only applies to the German-speaking area, as there are other books that deal with the Hitschi and the characters of the three volumes. The third volume, Return to Gateway of the trilogy listed above, is by no means the end of the saga, because many remaining questions about the Hitschi are only answered in the following books. In contrast to the USA, only the first three books were published in Germany - the so-called trilogy. In fact, there are now seven titles in which the Hitschi play a role or are at least mentioned.
The American therefore contains the following titles in total:
- The Merchants of Venus (1972), a short novel in which the Hitschi are mentioned for the first time (German: The merchants on Venus, contained in the short story collection Beyond the Sun - Warning: not to be confused with the novel A handful of Venus and honorable Merchants from Pohl / Kornbluth)
- Gateway (1976), German: Gateway, first part of the "trilogy"
- Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980), German: Beyond the Blue Horizon, second part of the "Trilogy"
- Heechee rendezvous (1985), German: Return to Gateway, third part of the "Trilogy"
- Annals of the Heechee (1987), Part Four (available in English only)
- The Gateway Trip (1990) (A collection of short stories), a collection of short stories (available in English only)
- The Boy Who Would Live Forever: A Novel of Gateway (2004), part five, Pohl's last Hitschi novel (only available in English)
Other media
In 1992 Legend Entertainment released the computer game Gateway . In interactive fiction, the player is a prospector who seeks his luck on Gateway. In 1993, Gateway II: Homeworld followed, the gameplay is largely identical and takes place ten years after the first part. Both games are considered abandonware .
In March 2014 it became known that the production houses De Laurentiis Company and eOne were working on a series adaptation of the fabric.
Further information
Web links
Reviews on fictionfantasy.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mario Giglio: Gateway: serial adaptation to Frederik Pohl's SciFi saga planned . In: Serienjunkies.de . March 11, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2014.