''The Annals of the Heechee'' is a science fiction novel by the American writer

Frederik Pohl Frederik George Pohl Jr. (; November 26, 1919 – September 2, 2013) was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satelli ...

, published in 1987 by

Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains ...

. It is about a dead space explorer's machine-stored version who is trying to discover why the Assassins, a mysterious type of pure energy beings, are threatening the stability of the universe. It is part of Pohl's

Heechee Saga The Heechee Saga, also known as the Gateway series, is a series of science fiction novels and short stories by Frederik Pohl. The Heechee are an advanced alien race that visited the Solar System hundreds of millennia ago and then mysteriously d ...

, which is about the

Heechee The Heechee Saga, also known as the Gateway series, is a series of science fiction novels and short stories by Frederik Pohl. The Heechee are an advanced alien race that visited the Solar System hundreds of millennia ago and then mysteriously d ...

, a fictional alien race created by Pohl. The Heechee developed advanced technologies, including interstellar space travel, but then disappeared.

Plot

The novel is about the multimillionaire space explorer Robinette Broadhead's efforts to solve a mystery. Even though he died in a previous novel in the series, his personality is stored on a machine. Broadhead is trying to resolve the issue of the "Assassins", which are pure-energy beings that stopped the

expansion of the universe The expansion of the universe is the increase in distance between any two given gravitationally unbound parts of the observable universe with time. It is an intrinsic expansion whereby the scale of space itself changes. The universe does not exp ...

and triggered its contraction. The Assassins have concealed themselves in a black hole. Broadhead and the Heechee are trying to find them. When the Assassins come out, they converse with one of Broadhead's data-gathering computer programs and they reveal that they're not enemies.

Reception

''Kirkus Reviews'' stated in 1987 that Pohl's Heechee series "...has been growing steadily less involving", and calls ''The Annals of the Heechee'' the "...dullest of the lot". ''Kirkus Reviews states that the novel has " plot, a subplot that fizzles, chunks of cosmological explication, uninteresting aliens, and thoroughly boring characters" and calls it "...one of the least engaging Poh ooksin many a year, and thus strictly for Heechee addicts."

David Langford David Rowland Langford (born 10 April 1953) is a British author, editor, and critic, largely active within the science fiction field. He publishes the science fiction fanzine and newsletter ''Ansible'', and holds the all-time record for most ...

reviewed ''The Annals of the Heechee'' for ''

White Dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

'' #98, and stated that "Though the quality of writing stays at an unflashy 'good average' throughout, this is a classy example of hard SF as it sometimes used to be."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Annals of the Heechee, The 1987 American novels 1987 science fiction novels Novels by Frederik Pohl Del Rey books