Pohl, Frederik Books - Page 2

Gateway Trip

Frederik Pohl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Heechee were perhaps the greatest and most tantalizing mystery the human race had ever known. The first Heechee artifacts were uncovered on Venus, and in the beginning they were treated as nothing more than costly souvenirs and curiosities for tourists from Earth and Mars. But when an asteroid stocked with autonavigating spacecraft was discovered, suddenly the Heechee universe was thrown wide open, giving birth to the Gateway Corporation and bringing untold riches to the adventurers who risked the unknown to see where those Heechee spacecraft would take them.

Many of those brave souls never returned. The ones who did brought back technological wonders that transformed life on Earth -- but of the Heechee themselves there was no sign...

The Gateway Trip, lavishly illustrated by artist Frank Kelly Freas, presents the tales of those perilous journeys and marvelous discoveries, as those intrepid pioneers followed the trail of the elusive Heechee and changed the course of human history forever!

The Siege of Eternity (Eschaton)

Frederik Pohl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Pohl at his best 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Part of a true three novel trilogy Eschaton, including (The Other End of Time, The Siege of Eternity, The Far Shore of Time). This trio deals with first contact but Pohl couldn't let it be a simple aliens encounter, there are two different and of course warring alien alliances but that is as far as the "of course" goes. The leaders of earth first have to come to terms among themselves so they can choose correctly from slim, hidden and misleading evidences, which group of aliens is truthful and altruistic and which will conquer and enslave.
Besides the wonderful Sci-Fi and multitude of sentient beings there is a good study of the human psyche in captivity. Also a twist in dealing with unwanted clones; not knowing which is the original, if there is an original, which clone gets the spouse and like conundrums.
You have to stay alert to the fast pace and changing / multiplying cast. A very good read with interesting alien customs and biology's.

Editorial Review:

The aliens aren't coming. They're here.

We've captured some of them. Are they our saviors, or are they out to destroy us? We've seen no spaceships, received no ultimatums--but the aliens may have a more insidious plot....

Government agent Dan Dannerman and astronomer Patrice Adcock were kidnapped by the aliens and have been returned in altered states, cloned and implanted with strange devices. To what end?

Before the reasons behind their abduction can be made clear, a wave of extremist threats and terrorist attacks sweeps the globe. Are the attacks a reaction to the aliens' arrival--or a part of their plan? A race around the earth and into space begins, as humankind desperately tries to prevent the aliens from establishing a beachhead no Earth.

The siege has begun.

The SFWA Grand Masters, Volume 2: Isaac Asimov, Alfred Bester, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Andre Norton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Nice sampler for a beginning SF reader. 3 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I'm the first to review this book. Hope this will be helpful to would be buyers.
This book is not very interesting for an advanced SF reader. Why?
Writers featured in this book are Asimov, Bester, Bradbury, Clarke and Norton. Good and popular writers, but their work is still very easy to come by. Want stories of Asimov? Buy his two-volume collection. Same for Bradbury, who has a very nice one-volume collection, and for Clarke and Bester. The stories in this anthology will tell you that these writers deserve to have a single-author collection on your bookshelves. Why buy stories you already own?
For starters then. Buy this book. Some stories in here are classics, others are mere filler. They point out to you their writers' vision. Still, it's your decision. The truth: There are better anthologies out there.
Whatever your decision, do check out the first item in this series. It's somewhat better.
I appreciate this series. A good Idea. You won't throw your money away.

Editorial Review:

The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented by, active members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. The Grand Master Award is given to a living author for a lifetime's achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.

Frederick Pohl, an eminent figure in SF, has been authorized by the SFWA to edit an anthology in three big volumes featuring substantial selections of the work of all the first fifteen Grand Masters. These are the seminal SF writers of the modern SF field, whose works are of dominant importance and influence. This series of collections is a permanent record of greatness in SF.

Volume Two, presenting the second five writers to receive the award, features the fiction of: Andre Norton, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Alfred Bester, and Ray Bradbury.

The Far Shore of Time (Eschaton)

Frederik Pohl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

I expected better 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

There just isn't much to praise in this book. Standard aliens, standard plot, and one glaring scientific error at the end when Pohl's plot relies on methane having a greater density than average Earth atmosphere and sinking and pooling at the surface of the Earth-- in fact, methane has only about half the density of "air" and rises up through it. How does someone of Pohl's experience and stature make a freshmen chemistry mistake like this? Answer: it was a rushed book, and it shows.

Editorial Review:

Dan Dannerman has been through hell. Caught in the middle of an interstellar war that will end only with the death of the universe, he's been captured by aliens who call themselves the Beloved Leaders, cloned repeatedly, torn from his wife, and brutally tortured.

Sitting in a prison cell on an alien world, slowly going mad, Dan is finally freed by the Horch, the sword enemies of the Beloved Leaders. The time has finally come for Dannerman to strike back--but at whom?

Trusting neither side, Dannerman must somehow convince the Horch to send him back to Earth so he can warn humanity of the approaching alien menace. But when he finally returns he finds an Earth far stranger than he can possibly imagine, an Earth that already has two Dan Dannermans--an Earth already under seige by the Beloved Leaders...

Annals of Heechee

Frederik Pohl

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Man Plus (SF Masterworks) (S.F.Masterworks)

Frederik Pohl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Its Evolution Baby 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Its Evolution Baby

The evolutionary dream, the end point of human desire, the ability to leave behind the limitations of the Earth and take to the stars, is fraught with it's own limitations. Pohl speculates that, while a hostile environment may kill a person, we can survive because we take a bit of a friendly environment with us. We can take air, food, water and fuel to the Antartic, the Moon, Mars and beyond but the environment remains hostile and the human body, fragile and ill adapted. "Man Plus", as may be evident from the title, is concerned with the possibilities of adapting the human body and how the body itself is tied up with notions of identity and belonging.

The cyborg is familiar at least to Science Fiction readers and has been for many years, so, to most of these veterans, Pohl's ideas may seem rehashed, even clumsy in this age of genetic manipulation. Leaving aside these anachronisms (the book was written in 1976), we see in "Man Plus", the raw power of the cyborg as a work of imagination. This power manifests itself in the predominantly earthbound text in the emotional responses, clinical discourses, whispered asides and outright revulsion of those around the cyborg. Political intrigue as the project is kept from view, as well as carnivalesque musings on cyborg sexuality thicken the texture of Pohl's writing.

The counterpoint to the inhumanity of the cyborg is his superhuman abilities and his adeptness once in the right environment. After the death of the original cyborg, Roger Torraway goes through the intimate manipulations of surgeons as all his organs are removed or bypassed, a computer is attached to his back and "wings" containing solar receptors are installed. His life on Earth becomes miserable as the "monster" becomes estranged from his wife and friends by his grotesque appearance but, like the robot in the Asimov short story "Stranger in Paradise," is so ideally suited to the Martian environment that his life there is filled with the joy of belonging. The solar wings transform from demons' to angels' wings in this environment.

This is both a deeply personal look at the transformation of Torroway from man to cyborg and a socio-political reflection on the contingencies of the space race. The growing threat of nuclear armageddon and the sense of overcrowding and paranoia that this engenders on earth also formed the internal logic of the race to the moon. The inevitability of nuclear aggression is dealt with here (and during the cold war) as a force of nature rather than as a result of human actions. Dealt with in this way, it becomes a generic "threat to humanity" and we could almost read this, from a contemporary viewpoint, as the threat of ecological armageddon. It is the clock against which the "free world" is racing to start a Mars colony and the best computer predictions grant them a few years at most. Between the lines, there is room to question the inhumanity of a humanity unable to address its problems without some outside impetus such as the threat of war or ecological disaster or the illusion of same....

The emotional journey we take with Torroway is as pot-hole ridden and treacherous as it is full of hope and freedom. The freedom that exists in the absense of armies and nuclear arms. The relief of escape from the maddening political situation on Earth is accompanied by the discovery of a personal feeling of belonging by Torroway.

A twist at the end of tale seems to indicate that the plot had a former life as a short story but also initiates(?) an idea that has grasped many a Science Fiction imagination since. (No spoilers here).

Editorial Review:

Ill luck made Roger Torraway the subject of the Man Plus Programe, but it was deliberate biological engineering which turned him into a monster -- a machine perfectly adapted to survive on Mars. For according to computer predictions, Mars is humankind's only alternative to extinction. But beneath his monstrous exterior, Torraway still carries a man's capacity for suffering.

CHERNOBYL: A NOVEL (Bantam Spectra Book)

Frederik Pohl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Very good indeed 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

A totally gripping book. Written a very short time after the Chernobyl accident, this novel is a wonderful story about the people of that doomed town. I loved the way Pohl, a great SF writer, mixes the engineering details with the human drama.

The political stuff in the book has been overshadowed by the unrealness what *really* happened in Russia after it has been written; but it's still a must-read, in my opinion.

O Pioneer!

Frederik Pohl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Predictable plot line + uninteresting characters = mediocre 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Boring. This book is far oversold by the reviews above. The story is passable and the aliens are not at all compelling. Better than 80% of science fiction novels, but still only passable.

Editorial Review:

The overcrowded Earth isn't room enough for Evesham Giyt, a solitary and brilliant computer hacker who yearns for the long-gone frontiers of the past. Chasing stories of unspoiled beauty and endless possibility, he takes a leap across the stars to the rugged colony world of Tupelo and soon finds himself a respected member of the community and mayor of the colony's human population.

Humanity isn't the first race to colonize Tupelo: as mayor, Giyt is part of a council of races trying to peacefully coexist despite wildly disparate cultures and traditions. But as Giyt learns to like his alien neighbors, he begins to realize that his fellow humans may have other plans for Tupelo, plans that don't include peace but do include lots of dead aliens. It will be up to Giyt to crack the human conspiracy and carve out a future for all of Tupelo...before it gets him killed!

Science Fic Stud Film

Frederick Pohl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

A fun book, BUT.... 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is a fun "page-turner" of a book filled with all sorts of trivia and anecdotes about some of the greatest science fiction films ever made. The problem is the author was careless with facts...there are many errors and generalizations in this book. Still, the book is fun so long as you're not trying to do serious research using it as a source.

The Best of Lester Del Rey (Del Rey Impact)

Lester Del Rey

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Good stuff for the era, but nothing really essential 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This is a rather dated collection of science fiction tales from the 30's, 40's, and 50's, but still pretty good. "Helen O'Loy" is the oldest tale in the book, and is considered something of a classic, more for its assessment of human nature than for its science, a caveat which is typical of Del Rey overall, who is not by any means a "hard" science writer. Many of these stories wrestle with philosophical issues, often from a robotic or other non-human perspective. The end of the human race is another common theme. There are a number of tales that strike this reviewer as anti-religion, which some may find borderline offensive, although the turning-against-God yarn "For I Am a Jealous People" is probably the most memorable story in the collection.

The earlier stories are generally the more precise, and feature clear moral lessons: the work ethic of "The Coppersmith", the hope for the future evoked in "Into Thy Hands", the release from ignorance in "Superstition". Overall, not a bad collection. Only the plotless dog story, "The Keepers of the House" is a complete failure. Of course many of the ideas in these stories have since been used by other writers in better stories, and while this isn't Lester's fault, it does somewhat undercut this book for modern readers. A sound enough choice for fans of the speculative fiction of this era, but because it's so old-fashioned in style and approach, and because there aren't any stories that are just essential, three stars seems enough.

Editorial Review:

The Pyrotechnics of Lester del Rey

SF's most protean personality--writer, editor, critic, publisher--sets off an incomparable fireworks display in these tales of robots and humans, animals and aliens, ghosts and gods, science and the supernatural . . .

HELEN O'LOY
If you want an ideal mate, build her!

HEREAFTER, INC.
This is Heaven? The hell it is!

LITTLE JIMMY
The invisible kid was a ghost for sure. But whose?

INSTINCT
The robots labored to re-create the extinct human species--
but there was one element they somehow left out.

FOR I AM A JEALOUS PEOPLE
"In God We Trust" is a great motto--until you find you can't.

And much more!