Both interesting novels by Frederik Pohl. As with my other reviews, I really will not get in too much into the plot anybody could look up the plot on the internet today, Wikipedia something like that. With me, it's always the technology that thrills me in the story. If one had the opportunity to read some of the Gateway stories it will be understood that the primary cause of the story has to do with humans finding ancient technology from an advanced civilization.
And the way individuals make their money in this universe is by taking the risk of getting on to advanced spaceships and then going to the destination that the ships had in their navigation computers and returning and of course in returning if you bring something of value the more money you earn. The plot centers around an individual whose name is Robin who took some risk and became wealthy. The other side of the Plot has to do with his ex-girlfriend who got stuck in the event horizon of a black hole.
However I digress, what I find interesting is that there are many stories that indicate that humanity would progress on the basis of leftover or abandoned technology. It is not the first science fiction novel written like that and I am pretty sure it will not be the last one. One has to wonder sometimes do people really think that humanity will meet an extra push from outside to progress? There are other aspects of The Heechee Saga that I would like to explore.
One has to do with artificial intelligence, in the novel you have AI constructs that are supposed to imitate famous people or at least their characteristics before they died. The Saga use Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, and others. In fact, sometimes they are called " the dead men". One has to wonder if these constructs are sentient and self-aware. Even towards the end of the novel the "Rendezvous" The main character Robin, dies: And his wife who is an excellent programmer finds a way to transfer his memories and to also place him in an AI construct. The question is, is Robin still alive or not.
If you had read the series I am interested in your opinions.
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