Sorry for the delay in replying. I haven't been blowing you off (or spitting in
your face ;-), honest; when I got your note, I immediately looked for the list
of questions. I couldn't find it on my notebook computer. I was a little puzzled,
but thought maybe I had been addled enough to type it on our downstairs machine.
When that failed, I thought maybe it was on the new HP upstairs. When that failed,
I thought maybe on my office machine (though that was getting *really*
far-fetched). It wasn't on any of these machines, so I'm guessing it got
somehow trashed (or kidnapped by the Core, as Simmons said of a draft of
his ;-)

Here's my new list of questions, based on my foggy memories of what I had
before. Alas, as Silverberg says, "It's an axiom among writers that material
written to replace inadvertantly destroyed copy can't possibly equal the
lost passage -- which gets better in one's memory all the time."
Still, I hope that you find this stuff useful.

Sincerely,

Raja Thiagarajan
raja@pannis.com

=========================CUT HERE===========================

Why did the author choose his particular narrative structure? (two threads
 running in parallel, one past, one "present"). How does this compare to
 other books with a similar structure? (e.g., _Gate to Women's Country_,
 _Venus Plus X_)

What purpose do the "sidebars" serve?

How does the author introduce and evoke his settings (the future Earth
 and Gateway)? Are the settings plausible?

How plausible is the computer science presented in this novel? (in particular,
 are there any direct hommages to Eliza? ;-) [Eliza was AI researcher Joseph
 Weizenbaum's late-1960s parody of a Rogerian psychotherapist.]

How plausible is the astrophysics presented in the novel? [The brilliant SF
 critic John Clute talks about the "real decade" or "real year" in which
 a novel is set, as distinct from the year given in the story. Thus:] What
 is the "real year" of the astrophysics in _Gateway_?

Is _Gateway_ sufficient? What do the three sequel novels add?
[_Gateway_ is itself a sequel to Pohl's earlier novella, "The Merchants
 of Venus".] (Re)read "The Merchants of Venus". Is _Gateway_ consistent
 with it? In what ways is _Gateway_ better (or worse!) than the
 earlier novella?
