| Author: | Frederic Pohl |
| Copyright: | 1984 |
| Date Reviewed: | 5/4/85 |
| Rating: | 6.0 |
Synopsis: Robin Broadhead is a very wealthy man. Granted a million dollar award for finding a black hole in a Heechee ship, he was able to parley that into a billion dollar enterprise. He owns a large interest in a hundred large companies. Robin is also, finally, a happy man. Although he still feels guilt about how he obtained those millions, (he left the woman he loved at the black hole), he is content with his wealth and his stunning, intelligent wife, Essie.
Audee Walthers, one time friend of Robin's, is not so happy. He meeks out a small living on Peggy's planet as a pilot. After his last run, shuttling oil seeking Arabs (who coincidentally work for Robin), he comes home to find that his wife has run away with Wan. Wan was brought up without human company in a Heechee spaceship. Without human contact, he never learned love or compassion - only self interest. Audee's wife Dolly accompanies Wan in a Five searching for his long lost father. Meanwhile, Audee travels back to Earth as a plot and falls in love with another pilot, Janie Yee-xing. Together they find three abandoned telepathy couches used to effect other people's minds. Audee accidentally comes in contact with the couch and feels the minds of slow moving creatures. Unfortunately for Audee, the rest of the crew also hears his forbidden contact with the couch and he and Yee-xing are fired.
The minds that Audee reaches are not Heechee but a race that the Heechee know. Their Eddas told the Heechee a million years ago that a race of Assassins exists and has previously destroyed two technologically advanced civilizations. The Assassins prefer an energy rich universe and are molding ours to fit their needs - destroying anything in their way. When the Heechee found out about the Assassins, they hid themselves in a Black Hole at the center of our galaxy.
Meanwhile, Wan and Dolly reach the Black Hole that Robin discovered and rescue his one time love Gelle-Klara Moynlin (we never really find out how). There are no other survivors (which is convenient to the plot). The three of them return to Gateway and when the questioning gets rough, Wan and Klara escape. Klara decides to leave when she sees Essie; she knows Robin would surely be close behind. When Dolly is left holding the bag, she is arrested. Audee and Janie attempt to see her (why would Janie want to do this) and they are arrested too. Robin and Essie, having more clout, secure the release of the three lovers and aboard their private cruiser, they head out to no where in particular.
On the way out, Robin's friend, a computer program named Albert Einstein (designed by Essie) begins to display some alarmingly human emotions and subsequently has a breakdown. Albert retreats into his database, leaving the ship without navigational capabilities. After several days Albert comes back but the strain on Robin has been too much and he dies. With Albert's help, Essie transfers his essence into a Heechee data fan and Robin's conscious survives. Albert teaches Robin to interface with the real world as a hologram. As this is going on, in another part of the galaxy, Klara and Wan are captured by real live Heechee who have come out of hiding to try and warn the human race to be quiet, lest the Assassins hear them and come out. They come with a huge armada, not to destroy the humans but to ferry them to where they want to go, including the core, so they will be quiet.
Review: When I began reading "Heechee Rendezvous" I had hopes of reading a really fantastic science fiction. The first of the series, "Gateway" certainly classified as a 'best'. Although the next one, "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" was not exceptional, it was entertaining. Pohl's style is to tell the story as a narrative; as the person telling it might. In this case Robin is not a novelist but a fairly ordinary man, somewhat amazed at how the world works. We get a clear, concise telling of what events are happening, past, present and sometimes future. Every few pages, Robin's computer program, Albert, injects some clarifications. In "Gateway" those injections were not just text. We saw computer programs, letters, contracts, etc. It made the story much more fun. "Heechee Rendezvous' did not live up to its predecessor.
The title suggests that the story would be about the Heechee and that is something to look forward to. Unfortunately, the story never goes any where. It is a narration without a plot. The Heechee's do come out but only a very few chapters are given to them. Instead of revealing this fascinating civilization, Pohl tells us all about how Robin loves Essie and Essie loves Robin even after twenty five years. They are the perfect couple and we are reminded of this ad nauseum. Since this wholesome relationship may not be enough, we are also given Audee, who sleeps with Dolly and Janie; Dolly, who sleeps with Audee and Wan; and finally Wan who sleeps with Dolly and Klara. Klara never gets to sleep with Robin in this book but probably would if he still had a body. I was very sorry that so many characters were introduced with the sole purpose of showing us how nice and painful relationships could be. They travel from one place to another for no apparent reason. Fully half the book was more soap opera than science fiction. The book also dealt a lot with intelligence, both real and artificial. Albert is described in ways reminiscent of "Computerworld" by A. E. Van Vogt but not as bad. Word by word and page by page "Heechee Rendezvous" is very well written but as a whole it is a very bad novel. After I read the last page I tried to recall what the book was about but had a difficult time of it. There just wasn't much plot, good or bad, to be worth remembering.