The Boy Who Would Live Forever

I've read a lot of great Pohl books and this one ranks up there with the best. There's a lot going on and several characters get to carry the story at one time or another. After a few adjustments, this book would make a fantastic film. This story seems like a good conclusion to the Heechee saga but I for one would love to read more.

______________________________________________ This is the latest, and perhaps final, chapter in the Heechee Saga, begun 28 years ago with his classic GATEWAY. "Boy Who" isn't in that class -- none of the Heechee sequels are -- but it's decent, readable, clever and fun. For a quick reprise of the Heechee series, and a nice reiew of this book, Google the ever-reliable Paul Di Filippo. Sample: Frederik Pohl is 85 years old. His first story was published more than 60 years ago. The Gateway sequence itself is now nearly 30 years old. Despite-or perhaps because of-all this history, Pohl's new book remains a feast and a pleasure. "Boy Who" is in part a fixup -- you are most likely to have already seen "Hatching the Phoenix" (1999), in which Gelle-Klara Moynlin pays for a scentific expedition to study the Crab Nebula supernova. The blast also incinerated the planet of the "Crabbers", a decidedly unsympathetic race of aliens. It's a crackerjack story, reprinted in the Dozois Year's Best --though its connection to the rest of the novel is tenuous. Two other previously-published stories are more smoothly integrated. So the novel reads a bit choppily -- but there's lots of cool Pohl stuff here. My favorite character is Marc Antony, the Stovemind AI. His primary duty is cooking up gourmet meals for humans and Heechees, both organic and machine-stored -- but his collatereal duty is Human-Heechee Security, and who Saves the Day! from the nefarious star-smashing plot that's the McGuffin here, and is a decidedly less-interesting part of the book. Ol' Fred isn't getting any younger, so I'm very pleased to recommend his latest novel. Recommended for Pohl fans -- and who isn't? Review copyright ©2005 by Peter D. Tillman

As aliens go, Frederik Pohl's enigmatic and often elusive Heechee --- created more than a quarter-century ago to propel his popular Gateway series --- have proven difficult to fathom. They aren't morally or socially tidy aliens, with a clear-cut agenda for good or evil. They seem inconsistent and illogical at times; their language (even in English "translation") is all but impenetrable; and they have a maddening tendency to keep the likeable but rather clueless humans in THE BOY WHO WOULD LIVE FOREVER persistently off-balance. But that's clearly just what Pohl intends. Ever the artist-at-play, he wants us to scramble feverishly after Stan and Estrella, whose spur-of-the-moment choices are sure to land them in big trouble. As omniscient readers, we soon begin to feel rather protective and parental toward this guileless young couple who collide on the Gateway space station in search of (what else?) fame, fortune and adventure --- the dreams they can no longer afford on Earth. How can we not follow them pell-mell into the Core, a black hole whose bizarre time dilation turns even five minutes to long-past centuries back "home"? Yes, it's the old, old story of escape, renewal, self-discovery and romance, brought about by conditions so strange that nothing can be termed impossible. But it's the way Pohl has his characters live and tell it that makes THE BOY WHO WOULD LIVE FOREVER such an appealing, if somewhat meandering, page-turner. Right up to the whimsical ending, Stan and Estrella are faced with numerous choices and opportunities as they learn how to live among the mercurial and eccentric (by human standards) Heechee and connect with other diaspora earthlings scattered among planets in yet-unheard-of universes. What they do choose is disarmingly "ordinary" --- to make good, and better, lives for themselves and all the displaced beings the Heechee brought home with them as living "souvenirs" of interstellar travel. What Pohl does so beautifully and subtly here is to celebrate what it's truly like to be different, not merely alien. Stan with his ever-diminishing immaturity, Estrella with her disfigured face and the uncertainties of new motherhood, and their emotionally disturbed Heechee friend Achiever, are all challenged to grow and discover not simply how to be good, but to become fully themselves, as good beings. And that's pretty important if you're stuck in a universe where you could well end up living forever! THE BOY WHO WOULD LIVE FOREVER is vintage off-the-wall Pohl from beginning to end, a distinguished addition to the award-winning Gateway series that has turned the science fiction world on its ear for more than 25 years. Highly recommended. --- Reviewed by Pauline Finch