Heechee Rendezvous

I read this book when I was young and loved it then, enough to make me remember about it and order it to re-read. Still a great book.

Heechee Rendezvous is a gripping continuation of Pohl's Heechee Saga. Once again, Robinette Broadhead returns as the main character, this time within a world that suffers from strife; from frequent terrorist activities, to mass hunger, the world is detailed as flawed, in light of the advancements made possible by the technology of the Heechee. However, the main thrust of the book lies in the greater revelation of the Heechee. In Gateway, not much is known about this mysterious race, but much is explained in Heechee Rendezvous. Gone are the Herter-Halls of the previous book, replaced by a few new characters. Besides Broadhead and his wife, whose relationship is wonderfully developed, a couple of older characters return. One of these 'characters' is Broadhead's computer generated advisor/confidant/friend, Albert Einstein. Suffice it to say that Pohl does a good job at developing the theme of artificial intelligence, to the point of trying to bring people back from the dead via computers. Each book in the Heechee Saga is a direction continuation of its predecessor, so reading book 4 is a must after this one is finished. Unfortunately, this leads to an unsatisfying ending since the book reads like a cliffhanger. My first inclination is to pick up the next book to see what happens.

At 17 years old, I haven't read a whole lot of books. Although I read quite a lot, I don't quite have all the experience that these other critics do. But I do know one thing. When I first got a book by Fred Pohl, I couldn't put it down. Now I'm 3 books into this saga, and I can't find the last part. Either way, Fred Pohl has made an awesome story. Too bad nobody knows who this guy is around here, he's my favorite author.

his best

"Heechee Rendezvous" is, for me, the strongest of the the four novels that comprise the Heechee Saga. In this, the third volume, all of Pohl's complex and ingenious concepts and rich characters come together to form a truely satisfying story, as well as set up an intriguing conflict for the final book, "Annals of the Heechee". It is definitely worth your while to read the first two books, if for no other reason than to reach this one; I wouldn't recommend reading them out of order. "Heechee Rendezvous" is one of my favorite sci-fi books to date.