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• Read by: Scott
• Date read: 2009-12-08

Synopsis

A Hechee Food Factory is discovered and Robin Broadhead commissions an expedition to go bring it back to earth to help alleviate the impending food shortage. The party consists of Lurvy and Paul Hall (husband and wife), Janine Herter (Lurvy’s 14 year old sister) and Peter Herter (Lurvy and Janine’s father). After an over 3 year flight, the group arrives at the Food Factory, but it perfectly counteracts every attempt they make to change its direction.

The Herter-Hall party begins they will have to return without the Factory (and thus without the millions in reward) when Wan arrives. Wan is a young man who’s parents were Gateway explorers. They ended up on Hechee Heaven, where Wan was born. He has been traveling between the two for the last 11 years (he’s 15 now) alone except for conversations with the Dead Men (computer records of other Gateway travelers) and the Old Ones (ancient primates from earth that the Hechee had been breeding on Hechee Heaven for 500,000 years).

Wan tells the group about the dream couch, which it turns out gives the person sleeping in it the ability to transmit their consciousness to all humans on earth. Wan has been doing this for the last 11 years, and it was being mistaken for the 130 day fever. Paul, Lurvy, and Janine decide to return to Hechee Heaven with Wan.

Back on Earth, Robin’s wife Essie (who develops sophisticated computer programs) is killed in an accident during Wan’s last trip into the dream couch. She is reanimated, but her outlook is grim. Peter Herter remains at the Food Factory, and begins to go mad, and uses the dream couch to try to improve his stake in the expedition. On Hechee Heaven, Wan teaches everyone how to read the Hechee Prayer Fans (which are, in fact, books).

Essie continues to heal, and it is clear that she will survive. Janine, Wan, and Lurvy are captured by the Old Ones who we learn are lead by an AI called the Oldest One. Robin, with the help of his AI helpers Albert (Einstein) and Sigfrid von Shrink, devises a method to use the Dead Men to learn Hechee secrets and save the captured crew. Peter dies in the dream couch, forcing everyone on earth to live through his death.

Robin takes a shuttle to Hechee Heaven and nearly dies. With Paul’s help he is able to rescue their companions, use the Dead Men to extract the means to pilot and create Hechee ships, and returns to earth. Everyone becomes disgustingly wealthy from all the discoveries.

Finally, we learn that the Hechee have created a black hole at the center of the galaxy where they are hiding until the universe collapses again. Albert hypothesizes this is so they can reset the galactic variables to make the universe more hospitable to life. It turns out, though, that the Hechee are not the ones making the changes, but they are aware of some other race of beings (Them) who are. They are just hoping another intelligent race comes into existence to stand between the Hechee and Them when the time comes.

Clearly I must have enjoyed Beyond the Blue Event Horizon considering I read it in about four days. It’s interesting, though, because for the first couple days it really didn’t feel like I was enjoying it all that much. I was moving through it, interesting things were happening, but it didn’t capture me quite the same way as the first book. I think, part of that, is similar to what my experience with Fall of Hyperion was compared to the first. In Gateway, it jumped back and forth between the present of Robin’s therapy sessions with Sigfrid, and the past on Gateway. This was done masterfully, and created a strong tension and mystery throughout the book. This same tension simply didn’t exist in the sequel. That isn’t to say it was bad, or that the mysteries that did exist weren’t well presented, just that it didn’t hold the same weight as the first book.

Speaking of the structure, this is another area where the original was superior. In Gateway, each chapter had something before it that presented facts about the world via Gateway trip logs, therapy notes, and so on. This book, however, was just straightforward chapters with nothing as creative as the introductions in the last book. It did do a nice job of transitioning from the first person sections focusing on Robin and the third person sections following the crews in space, but that wasn’t enough to make up for what was so good about the first book.

Were these transitions from first to third person superior to those I complained about in Fall of Hyperion? Not really, but they simply didn’t bother me as much. Perhaps because of the time I took between reading the first and second book in this series? Not sure, but for whatever reason, I accepted it easier this time.

The hardest thing for me to accept, however, was Robin himself. He simply seemed far different from the character he was in the first book. Some of this could, of course, be explained by the personal growth he experienced in that book, and his ability to overcome the guilt that was destroying him at the time. Still, the jump from Robin at the end of Gateway to Robin in Beyond was extremely difficult to come to terms with at first. It didn’t bother me after awhile, but I never could quite accept that they were the same character. Maybe this was intentional, but I disliked it.

The ending, and the revelation that there is actually a third race, even more advanced and intelligent that the Hechee, was extremely cool. It took me from minor interest in reading the third book, to a burning desire to put it next on the list. I also really enjoyed the whole struggle that existed due to the delay in communications between the party that was on the Food Factory, and the people on Earth who wanted to tell them what to do. This was particularly fascinating considering how much we take instant communication for granted these days. I would appreciate a book that took this struggle and explored it more deeply, making it the sole cause for conflict.

Ultimately this isn’t a great book. It’s a good book, with plenty of interesting ideas that are presented well. The writing is good, but it lacks the creativity and depth of the first book, just as Fall of Hyperion lacked the subtlety and creativity of Hyperion. Nevertheless, it was still enjoyable, and has done its job of moving the series forward by answering many questions from the first book, while presenting enough new ones to make the reader excited to pick up the next volume. It is, though, definitely only for the more hardcore science fiction fans out there.

“All myths and deities are tolerable enough to believe in; but what if they become real?”(76)

16 – references to sex, but not explicit

Yes