Help me remember a sci-fi book title.

[KnowledgeSeeker]

I am trying to track down the title of a science fiction book I read many years. Can you help? If yes, would you email me at jaws @ mems . caltech . edu

The following is a short summary of the book:

Some time in the future, humans have found a space port (maybe in the asteroid belt) that was left behind by an ancient or alien race. They find a collection of spacecraft capable of jumping (instantly?) to points hundreds or thousands of light years distant.

While able to use the spacecraft, their operation is not completely understood. Some explorers go out and find new habitable planets and become instantly wealthy. Others jump and never return.

Researcher believe that clues to the failed missions may be found in the computer display that may indicate hazardous jump zones during flight plan design. However, the "warning" symbols sometimes coincide with extradinarily rewarding explorations.

Testing the theory and seeking to find a lost ship, a team jumps to a location visited by an earlier team that was lost. Upon arrival they find themselves in the gravity well of a black hole. They also find the lost ship and its crew. To escape the black hole, the two ships combine forces and one ship is sacrificed to save the other.

 

[Thunderchild]

This sounds interesting - if someone knows it could you post it here too?

 

[iansales]

It's Gateway by Frederik Pohl.

 

[ambershadow]

definatly gateway and there are several more in the series

 

[Hiro Protagonist]

Any thoughts on them? That summary has my mouth watering.

 

[T5.2]

The Gateway books are perfect for rainy autumn afternoons. Nice settings, just enough suspense to wet your interest but not overdone. Mystical yet not so ubercosmic as Baxter's Xeelee books (allthough I like those too).
Allthough this can be said about most of Pohl's books.

 

[Briareus Delta]

I seem to have spent most of my time since joining the site recommending people to read Gateway (Evva posted a similar request in the Classic SF&F Sub-Forum). Gateway is excellent - an SF classic. The sequel - Beyond the Blue Event Horizon - is also very good. There are a few more in the series after that, all good reads but not as good as the first two.

While I'm at it, can I just take the opportunity to highly recommend Frederik Pohl to anyone who loves classic (vintage) SF and hasn't yet read him (where have you people been?!!)

 

[j d worthington]

Briareus -- while I am not that knowledgeable about Pohl's writing, I admit, I think one of the problems is that he was such a "quiet" writer... brilliant, used the language beautifully, thought-provoking, well-thought out ... but seldom with lights flashing or bells ringing, and therefore his work all-too-often got overlooked in favor of more charismatic writers. Nonetheless, I'd easily second any suggestions that anyone interested in good, meaty classic sf should definitely read Pohl's work, or at least a good sampling of it, both his novels and his short stories. "Day One Million", to me, is one of the absolute classics of the genre, being able to both be ironic, stand sf on its head, fit absolutely beautifully into the whole concept of futuristic thinking, be almost Victorian in its handling of sexual matters yet be utterly daring on the subject, and written with a terse restraint that really does repay frequent rereadings. Pohl is definitely due for a reassessment, I think.

 

[Briareus Delta]

No argument from me there, JD - he is, as you've no doubt gathered by now, one of my favourite authors