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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Some
Space adventure violence and some deaths of mission crews
Language
Some
Adult language in Pohl's 1970s SF register
Sexual Content
Some
Adult content across Broadhead's life and relationships
Substance Use
Some
Heavy drinking as one of Broadhead's defining coping mechanisms
Emotional Intensity
A lot
Survivor's guilt and the psychological damage of knowing you survived when others didn't — and that you may have made choices that caused their deaths — is the novel's sustained and brilliantly structured subject
What this book is about
Frederik Pohl's Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning SF novel follows Bob Broadhead, who leaves his mining job for Gateway — an asteroid full of alien Heechee ships preprogrammed to unknown destinations — and strikes it rich in the worst possible way. Told through therapy sessions with a computer analyst, the novel is simultaneously hard SF adventure and psychological examination of guilt and survivor's trauma. Adult content and heavy drinking throughout.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
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