Frederik Pohl, Gateway

I am almost at the end of re-reading Pohl's gateway after couple of years I had read it for the first time. Now I am older and I highly appreciate this novel. I would even recommend this to anyone who doesn't like scifi books. The main character is a typical anti-hero remembering old times at the gateway. Every other chapter he is having those psychiatric sessions with Siegfried which allows reader to really get to know this person and his motivations, feelings. The story of Bob Broadhead is revealed in very honest and open way and as his story is revealed gradually, you start to feel very emphatic towards this ordinary man in his difficult life situations. It's pessimistic, it's sad, it's sometimes even boring - it's the true human psyche of a gateway prospector revealed!

Frederik Pohl, Gateway - This is a peculiar novel. For 300 pages you think you're reading a SF novel and it's only in the last 13 pages that you become aware of the fact that all along it was mainly about psychology. The SF elements are only the background for this novel.

The two main characters are Bob, his full name is Robinette Broadhead, and Sigfrid, a psychotherapist.

Bob, a poor devil who wins the lottery, is finally able to leave the Earth (or at least what is left of the habitable part of it) for an asteroid named Gateway. Gateway has a complex of tunnels dug by the Heechee, an alien civilization that vanished half a million years ago. A part of their spacecraft - still intact - are left behind on Gateway. They still can be used by humans for exploration of the universe. You don't need special training because the ships are almost entirely automatic. You can earn a lot of money when you make a new discovery - an unknown star or a new planet in another solar system, or when you find signs of alien intelligent life and things like that. You have to come back to life of course and that's the tricky part.

The second character is Sigfrid, a robot-psychologist. What can you say about a robot? I guess Sigfrid is like any other psychologist (OK, bad joke, forget it).

Now what's the problem with Bob? On his last discovery voyage, something nasty happened. He's the only one of his crew who got away. The others are still alive and well but something very odd happened to them. Bob is feeling very guilty about it, hence his weekly visits to Sigfrid.

The last 13 pages are very emotional.