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aimee70807's review against another edition
5.0
One of my favorites --- deeply angsty characters, the merchant family ships, etc.
irate59's review against another edition
5.0
If were to only read ONE science fiction book, or just one from C.J. Cherryh then this should be that one.
...But DON'T JUST READ ONE!
The Merchanter series is a first person account of a future we can only hope our children's children will live to see, one we hope they will survive.
The story and characters stand on their own, you feel their fear, their sweat, their joy at overcoming fierce opposition. Merchanters tells the tales behind adventurers who struggle to survive, and give flesh to your wildest imagining of multiple planets, wondrous stars, and the many cultures and life forms who dwell there.
...But DON'T JUST READ ONE!
The Merchanter series is a first person account of a future we can only hope our children's children will live to see, one we hope they will survive.
The story and characters stand on their own, you feel their fear, their sweat, their joy at overcoming fierce opposition. Merchanters tells the tales behind adventurers who struggle to survive, and give flesh to your wildest imagining of multiple planets, wondrous stars, and the many cultures and life forms who dwell there.
icfasntw's review against another edition
3.0
QUICK PITCH: A desperate captain takes some jobs he shouldn't have and ends up way over his head.
VERDICT: Cherryh is extremely laconic, but it works here. She does more in a sentence than some writers can manage in a paragraph. And it's an interesting painting of desperation from two sides: Sandor is deeply lonely but maniacally dedicated to his ship (and, by extension, his family's legacy), while Allison is entwined in a world full of family and legacy but can't realize her ambitions.
VERDICT: Cherryh is extremely laconic, but it works here. She does more in a sentence than some writers can manage in a paragraph. And it's an interesting painting of desperation from two sides: Sandor is deeply lonely but maniacally dedicated to his ship (and, by extension, his family's legacy), while Allison is entwined in a world full of family and legacy but can't realize her ambitions.
jambery's review against another edition
3.0
While I was reading, I just wanted more - more meat for all the characters, more plot, more space. More of everything! Now that I look the book up here, I see it's #2 in a series, so maybe if I had started with #1 I'd be more satisfied.
accidentalspaceexplorer's review against another edition
5.0
A little while ago, I read Jo Walton's What Makes This Book So Great. It's a collection of essays about books, mostly science fiction and fantasy, that are all essentially "What Makes [Insert book here] So Great" - or, in a few instances, "What Makes [Insert book here] Not So Great". It was fantastic, and I devoured it and came out with a giant reading list of science fiction/fantasy novels, and this was one of them.
I wasn't really expecting much out of it, because the way Walton says to read Cherryh's universe is to read Merchanter's Luck, Finity's End, Rimrunners, and the other one that I can't quite remember (oh well) first, so that by the time you get to Downbelow Station, you will already love her and her universe.
So I was sort of expecting it to ramp up through Merchanter's Luck and then get better and better and better, but it's already good in Merchanter's Luck. Rather better than good, actually. I loved it. It was fun enough to keep me reading, but also serious, and I do so enjoy the privateer kind of people, the ones that operate in the grey area of the law, like Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his crew in Firefly. I especially like watching them or reading about them in space, because I think space isolates you like very little else does, so it forces all of the characters on the same ship to interact more, and be pushed into awkward, frustrating, painful, or emotionally fraught situations that you wouldn't get otherwise.
There were places where I would have liked more detail, towards the end, where Cherryh doesn't really give hints about what'll happen to them afterwards, so I'm hoping they'll turn up in one of the others. I care about the characters, especially Sandor and Allison, and I want to see what happens to them.
Excepting this, Cherryh painted a vivid portrait of the lives of these characters and the characters themselves in the brief window of time that the book covers, and it was absolutely wonderful, and I'll be picking up the next ones and likely devouring them in an afternoon just as I devoured this one.
I wasn't really expecting much out of it, because the way Walton says to read Cherryh's universe is to read Merchanter's Luck, Finity's End, Rimrunners, and the other one that I can't quite remember (oh well) first, so that by the time you get to Downbelow Station, you will already love her and her universe.
So I was sort of expecting it to ramp up through Merchanter's Luck and then get better and better and better, but it's already good in Merchanter's Luck. Rather better than good, actually. I loved it. It was fun enough to keep me reading, but also serious, and I do so enjoy the privateer kind of people, the ones that operate in the grey area of the law, like Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his crew in Firefly. I especially like watching them or reading about them in space, because I think space isolates you like very little else does, so it forces all of the characters on the same ship to interact more, and be pushed into awkward, frustrating, painful, or emotionally fraught situations that you wouldn't get otherwise.
There were places where I would have liked more detail, towards the end, where Cherryh doesn't really give hints about what'll happen to them afterwards, so I'm hoping they'll turn up in one of the others. I care about the characters, especially Sandor and Allison, and I want to see what happens to them.
Excepting this, Cherryh painted a vivid portrait of the lives of these characters and the characters themselves in the brief window of time that the book covers, and it was absolutely wonderful, and I'll be picking up the next ones and likely devouring them in an afternoon just as I devoured this one.
antrapp1026's review against another edition
4.0
While it doesn’t reach the highest heights of the other Cherryh books I’ve read, this is still a wonderfully rich portrait of a traumatized captain doing his best to survive, and of the crew he finds himself working with. I remain deeply impressed by Cherryh’s ability to immerse me fully in the world she’s created, and I always believe everything her characters do and say. She allows them to live and breathe and earn their moments, and again she never lets her reader get one inch ahead of where she’s taking the story.
I have tremendous respect for the serious ideas and themes with which she infuses her stories, and I’m so happy there are many more books of hers to read.
I have tremendous respect for the serious ideas and themes with which she infuses her stories, and I’m so happy there are many more books of hers to read.
myxomycetes's review against another edition
4.0
Fun space opera.
It's books like this that make me miss the world of 60-70K novels. Sure, it says "Company Wars, #4", but nothing in the book made me think I was getting anything less than a stand-alone story.
It's books like this that make me miss the world of 60-70K novels. Sure, it says "Company Wars, #4", but nothing in the book made me think I was getting anything less than a stand-alone story.
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