Frederik Pohl's Gateway trilogy (which I'm reading in German translation) includes "Gateway", "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" and "Heechee Rendezvous". They were written between 1976 and 1984; so far, I've only finished the first book "Gateway".

In a dystopian future where Earth is inhabited by 25 billion humans, alien and technically highly superior artefacts have been discovered. The alien have been named "Heechee" but remain in the dark - no one knows how they look, what they wanted in the solar system or why they left.

However, they left behind an asteroid - the eponymous Gateway - and some hundreds of their ships. These ships still function but unfortunately no one has found a way to control them. You only find out where they're bound when you get there; and not every ship is coming back.

Still, there are enough people willing to take the risk and travel to an unknown destination looking for new Heechee technology. Because a lucky find can make you a millionaire. One of those is Robinette Broadhead (despite the name he's a man), and in "Gateway" he tells his story, alternated with conversations with his (machine) psychiatrist.

The introduction told me that this novel won both the Hugo and the Nebula award, and I can easily see why. Pohl doesn't do much general world building - colonies on Venus and some other planets are merely mentioned - but concentrates on the description of Gateway and the people who are desperate enough to play Russian Roulette with their own lives. There are no shining heros here, only different degrees of self-interest and luck.

The whole world is dominated by greed - there are no scientific ideals motivating the prospectors (the guys taking a chance in a Heechee ship). This is no Star Trek universe. On the other hand, life conditions for the ordinary man and woman are so bleak that it leaves no room for the luxury of ideals.

Robinette himself needs some time to pick up the courage for a trip with an Heechee ship even after he has travelled to Gateway, so he's clearly no dear-devil type. Rather, he's an ordinary guy who finds living up to his decision to gamble his life in the race for fortune difficult.

And his misgivings are justified, quite from the beginning we can see in the sessions with Robinette's psychotherapist that he is a broken man. He suffers massively from survivors' guilt and loss of his love, Klara. Yet, he has achieved his goal and is a rich man, and he lives a rich man's life. In the end, I wanted to know if he'll be able to cope with his trauma just as much as I wanted to know the events causing the trauma.

The story is very intense; and though it's not really fast-paced I always wanted to read on. The alternation between the conversations with his psychotherapist and his own telling of his story is cleverly done. This way Pohl can hint early on that Robinette was successful but has paid a high price for this.

Gateway differs from most science fiction I read - it is rather a psychological study. World building and descriptions of space travel are there but not dominant. But in it's intensity it's definitely a memorable read. ( )