The Boy Who Would Live Forever by Frederick Pohl

This book follows many years after Gateway, which I also read many years ago...well, July of 2006 actually. I read Gateway for book group, and we appreciated and enjoyed the concepts and ideas Pohl presented. About the same time (2006 that is) at either Minicon or Worldcon The Boy Who Would Live Forever was brought up at several panels as a "must read" recommendation. I dutifully wrote it down where it remained on paper. It was a recent trip to Uncle Hugo’s where I found a used copy and snatched it off the shelf.

The premise of The Boy brings us back to the Gateway universe. Young Stan talks a cousin into going to Gateway to try their hand at striking it rich. Instead, after returning from their first voyage, they find that the mystery if the "Heechee" has been solved and in fact, they have been discovered. All further trips are henceforth cancelled. Stan’s cousin returns to Istanbul with Stan’s and his meager earnings, while Stan remains on hoping for a slot on an exploratory ship.
It is with no small amount of luck that Stan is awarded a slot on a two person ship to the Core (the center of the black hole where the Heechee live) with Estella. Their initial welcome was less than warm, but soon they are set up in a house of their own and meeting people. Estalla becomes pregnant - which does play a role toward the end of the book. I’m still not certain that guys should be writing about pregnancy, but I’ll give Pohl credit, he did a good job of portraying it from both sides.

Meanwhile, the reader meets Marc Antony. Computer AI extraordinare. His main programing is as a chef for real people, uploaded people and the Heechee. Oh, and when he’s not cooking, he’s saving the universe. I really liked him - he was probably the most interesting character presented.

By and by, Marc Antony meet Stan and Estalla, Stan and Estella find themselves in a bit of a spot and the three of them (with the help of a few other characters) save the Core from certain demolition by a lunatic.

I’m greatly simplifying here, there were so many little sub-plots that wove in and out of the main plot that I really can’t do them justice in one small blog. However, I did enjoy this book. It had a lot going on, it moved around a bit, it had interesting interactions between the AI’s, Heechee and people. Even the science was plausible (Pohl discusses that briefly at the end) to a great extent. And certainly it had it’s drawbacks - it bounced around a lot which made following some of the plots a bit distracting; new sub-sub characters would be introduced 2/3 of the way through which often left the reader wondering if one was ever going to get to the end of the book (one of my trepidations, finding out a book doesn’t really end in 800 pages).

Worth reading? Definitely, especially if you enjoyed Gateway.