The Gateway Trip

The Gateway Trip is a collection of science fiction "tales and vignettes", including a novella, [1] by the American writer Frederik Pohl.

The Heechee are a fictional alien race which developed advanced technologies, including interstellar space travel, but then disappeared.

The book consists of nine new short stories published in the first three 1990 issues of Aboriginal Science Fiction, and "The Merchants of Venus".

The book includes anecdotes and "...meditations on planetary and stellar physics, evolution, sociology, and the future of the human race" that "fill in the background of his Heechee novels".

Kirkus Reviews states that the book is "[m]ore history text than story", as the "...characters of the vignettes are barely seen shadows, a background for pure speculation.

Cover of the first edition, published by Del Rey Books . Art by Frank Kelly Freas .