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lyrrael's review
3.0
I've given up on this book for the time being; I was halfway through, put it down, and then realized I hadn't picked it back up in a week and hadn't missed it, which is a flashing neon warning sign that it's not worth the work to finish it. Might come back to it sometime since it's been suggested that it's such a pivotal work of fiction, but I dunno.
sisimka's review
challenging
dark
inspiring
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
5.0
titusfortner's review
3.0
The first half of this book was slow. Very very slow. The second half picked up considerably, but overall it still felt like a slog. I can see why some people love this book so much - the world-building is impressive; but for the most part I can't say I found it especially appealing. I'll give Cherryh's other Hugo-winning novel a read later this year, but I don't think I'm going to read the whole series.
dreadpirateshawn's review against another edition
2.0
I really liked the breadth of POV characters, and the general focus on the character interactions more so than big action. And right away, a historical recap sketches a very interesting universe layout, and slams a central conflict of the story into place beautifully abruptly.
But. :-/
The action that *was* present was often confusingly described, somewhat on the intimate level but especially at the grand level.
For all the character variety and focus on personal dynamics, the motivations of a couple major players felt incoherent.
As the story progressed, it felt like the universe grew slowly *less* interesting -- glimpses of deep ecosystems become fleshed out as simplified notes, characters with complex internals reach their vectors and then stall into predictability.
In the end, I felt that there was great material crafted for the story, but its potential energy ebbed over a stretched-out story, and landed flatter than I expected.
But. :-/
The action that *was* present was often confusingly described, somewhat on the intimate level but especially at the grand level.
For all the character variety and focus on personal dynamics, the motivations of a couple major players felt incoherent.
As the story progressed, it felt like the universe grew slowly *less* interesting -- glimpses of deep ecosystems become fleshed out as simplified notes, characters with complex internals reach their vectors and then stall into predictability.
In the end, I felt that there was great material crafted for the story, but its potential energy ebbed over a stretched-out story, and landed flatter than I expected.
jennykeery's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mjfmjfmjf's review
4.0
A re-read though it has been awhile. Big and ponderous at times. But also I was intentionally reading it slower so as to stay somewhat in synch with friends. I had vague memories of how this ended that weren't too off track. There are a lot of intricate details in this one. And you are dropped right into the middle of the story as though you had picked up a book 10. The author seems to mostly have super fast books and super complicated slow books. This one is more of the latter except as you get closer to the end. But it pays off and I remember the series also pays off. This aged pretty well, the technology bits didn't get in the way.
fetch's review against another edition
It felt dry. I couldn't see where it was going or what it was about. I didn't care about what was going on.
essinink's review against another edition
4.0
Take a space station, carefully balanced.
Dump in 6,000 refugees.
Stir vigorously over wartime heat.
After a ridiculous info-dump of a first chapter, Downbelow Station opens with crisis. Earth Company forces, lead by Captain Signy Mallory, dock at Pell Station and promptly unload 6,000 panicked, malnourished civilians from recently destroyed stations, most without valid identification. They stay only long enough for Pell Station forces to quarantine the unexpected influx.
It’s a desperate, claustrophobic introduction, and the situation tumbles from there. Inside the station, tensions between Pell citizens and Q refugees disrupt the delicate balance of power, while the war between the Company and the Union outside the station rapidly refocuses on Pell as Earth’s last foothold in the Beyond.
This is Grand Space Opera, worth reading slowly. The writing is terse, and the cast moderately large. (Fair warning, many characters are members of the Konstantin family, which can be confusing if you’re not paying attention.) A common complaint seems to be that the book is just too-darn-long. A surface reading supports this; not a lot happens and it happens very slowly. Action occurs at a distance, with smaller human dramas taking center stage in the tight tunnels of Pell Station.
...And yet because the book is focused on those ‘smaller’ dramas, I think it’s exactly as long as it needed to be. I found myself engaged with the various personalities on and off the station, despite (or perhaps because of) the moral ambiguity at play. More than that, though, I found the book oddly apropos to today’s political anxieties. The locked-room refugee scenario on Pell is one reason, and the other is Signy Mallory, who is one of the most interesting fictional characters I’ve encountered in some time.
The reader’s first encounter with Norway’s captain is of a ruthless and brutally efficient woman. She’s well aware that she’s about to dump riot conditions on an unprepared station, but she’s out of options and in no mood to argue. She lays out what’s going to happen if lives are going to be saved at all and goes forward, and it’s as brutal as it is admirable. But lest the reader get too attached to Mallory’s efficiency, Cherryh immediately follows it by exposing Signy as a sexual predator who has abused a mind-scrubbed Union PoW in her care, a scene all the more chilling for its tenderness. (For those concerned, the scene in question is non-explicit. The abuse is clear, but mostly happens off-page.)
Throughout the book, Mallory’s characterization and loyalties evolve, raising questions about whether a leader should be rated by their efficiency, their goals, their means, or the loyalty they inspire. She’s arguably the only character who actually changes, which isn’t to say she’s redeemed so much as she lands firmly in the gray zone by the end of the book. She loves her troops, and they adore her right back, but enemies and allies alike hold her in justifiable fear. As a character, I love her, but I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with her in real life.*
Speaking of leaders, I also have complicated feelings toward the Konstantin family. Angelo Konstantin has been stationmaster of Pell for some time, and his sons Emilio and Damon both feature heavily in the plot. As characters, they would seem to be the default protagonists. Their aristocratic nobility marks them as Good and Honorable and Just even as they naively perpetuate an exploitative and ineffective system of governance. They are among the few characters who treat the “Downers” (the alien Hisa) as people, but they make no effort to shift the status quo that uses the Hisa as cheap labor.
As for the alien Hisa, they spend the entire book as Noble Savage archetypes. Used as cheap labor both on the station and Downbelow, their treatment by human characters is used as a signalling device to the reader to determine who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad.’ There are enough hints about future cultural development in the Hisa Satin’s PoV that I spent most of the book waiting for these gentle folk to wake up and show some greater self-determination, but as this didn’t happen, I’m left uncomfortable with the overall depiction.
All told, this book comes across as a locked-room exploration of society in crisis. When civilization collapses and there’s nowhere to go, who makes it through? And this is where the book doesn’t quite work. Most characters get a perfectly just ending. Treat others right, and it might save your life. Treat people like crap and they turn on you. Go figure. Frankly, I found the ending rather more optimistic than I expected, and slightly dissonant with the body of the text, which kept its seethingly claustrophobic ambiance throughout.
...But you know what? I liked it, and I’m intrigued, so I guess I’m going to go read more Cherryh.
---
*I do strongly encourage everyone to look up the filk song “Signy Mallory” (Originally by Mercedes Lackey and Leslie Fish, though I’m partial to the ‘Finity’s End recording)
Dump in 6,000 refugees.
Stir vigorously over wartime heat.
After a ridiculous info-dump of a first chapter, Downbelow Station opens with crisis. Earth Company forces, lead by Captain Signy Mallory, dock at Pell Station and promptly unload 6,000 panicked, malnourished civilians from recently destroyed stations, most without valid identification. They stay only long enough for Pell Station forces to quarantine the unexpected influx.
It’s a desperate, claustrophobic introduction, and the situation tumbles from there. Inside the station, tensions between Pell citizens and Q refugees disrupt the delicate balance of power, while the war between the Company and the Union outside the station rapidly refocuses on Pell as Earth’s last foothold in the Beyond.
This is Grand Space Opera, worth reading slowly. The writing is terse, and the cast moderately large. (Fair warning, many characters are members of the Konstantin family, which can be confusing if you’re not paying attention.) A common complaint seems to be that the book is just too-darn-long. A surface reading supports this; not a lot happens and it happens very slowly. Action occurs at a distance, with smaller human dramas taking center stage in the tight tunnels of Pell Station.
...And yet because the book is focused on those ‘smaller’ dramas, I think it’s exactly as long as it needed to be. I found myself engaged with the various personalities on and off the station, despite (or perhaps because of) the moral ambiguity at play. More than that, though, I found the book oddly apropos to today’s political anxieties. The locked-room refugee scenario on Pell is one reason, and the other is Signy Mallory, who is one of the most interesting fictional characters I’ve encountered in some time.
“You clear that section or we do. You start now, strip out everything of value or hazard, down to the walls; and you put those doors on lock and weld the access panels shut. You don’t know what we’re bringing you. And if you delay us, I may have a shipload dead…”
The reader’s first encounter with Norway’s captain is of a ruthless and brutally efficient woman. She’s well aware that she’s about to dump riot conditions on an unprepared station, but she’s out of options and in no mood to argue. She lays out what’s going to happen if lives are going to be saved at all and goes forward, and it’s as brutal as it is admirable. But lest the reader get too attached to Mallory’s efficiency, Cherryh immediately follows it by exposing Signy as a sexual predator who has abused a mind-scrubbed Union PoW in her care, a scene all the more chilling for its tenderness. (For those concerned, the scene in question is non-explicit. The abuse is clear, but mostly happens off-page.)
Throughout the book, Mallory’s characterization and loyalties evolve, raising questions about whether a leader should be rated by their efficiency, their goals, their means, or the loyalty they inspire. She’s arguably the only character who actually changes, which isn’t to say she’s redeemed so much as she lands firmly in the gray zone by the end of the book. She loves her troops, and they adore her right back, but enemies and allies alike hold her in justifiable fear. As a character, I love her, but I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with her in real life.*
Speaking of leaders, I also have complicated feelings toward the Konstantin family. Angelo Konstantin has been stationmaster of Pell for some time, and his sons Emilio and Damon both feature heavily in the plot. As characters, they would seem to be the default protagonists. Their aristocratic nobility marks them as Good and Honorable and Just even as they naively perpetuate an exploitative and ineffective system of governance. They are among the few characters who treat the “Downers” (the alien Hisa) as people, but they make no effort to shift the status quo that uses the Hisa as cheap labor.
As for the alien Hisa, they spend the entire book as Noble Savage archetypes. Used as cheap labor both on the station and Downbelow, their treatment by human characters is used as a signalling device to the reader to determine who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad.’ There are enough hints about future cultural development in the Hisa Satin’s PoV that I spent most of the book waiting for these gentle folk to wake up and show some greater self-determination, but as this didn’t happen, I’m left uncomfortable with the overall depiction.
All told, this book comes across as a locked-room exploration of society in crisis. When civilization collapses and there’s nowhere to go, who makes it through? And this is where the book doesn’t quite work. Most characters get a perfectly just ending. Treat others right, and it might save your life. Treat people like crap and they turn on you. Go figure. Frankly, I found the ending rather more optimistic than I expected, and slightly dissonant with the body of the text, which kept its seethingly claustrophobic ambiance throughout.
...But you know what? I liked it, and I’m intrigued, so I guess I’m going to go read more Cherryh.
---
*I do strongly encourage everyone to look up the filk song “Signy Mallory” (Originally by Mercedes Lackey and Leslie Fish, though I’m partial to the ‘Finity’s End recording)
drelyk's review against another edition
5.0
What starts as a large scale refuge crisis aboard a remote space station, turns into a vast interstellar conflict, highlighting the thoughts and deeds of numerous characters. The station master and patriarch, Angelo Konstantin, grapples with crisis after crisis and wonders how to escape from this man-made hell. The two Konstantin brothers do their best to lead their own spheres of influence, keeping to their values while wrought with internal conflict. Captain Mallory, the ruthless commander, struggles to justify continuing to follow Mazian, the rouge Fleet commander. The mind-wiped and tortured former Union soldier, Josh Talley, struggles with his own resurfacing memories, and longs to feel like he belongs aboard Pell. Jon Lukas, the leader of a prosperous company aboard the station, undergoes subterfuge to hand the station over to the enemy and gets far more than he bargained for. Ayres, a representative of the isolated Earth Company, struggles to stall invasion of the last remaining neutral station in the long conflict with the Union. And the native Hisa, so loving and trusting, who long to see the Sun in her own domain.
There were a lot of characters, a lot of different perspectives as things ramped up and the citizens of Pell dealt with numerous occupations. Each character has their own nuance and perspective to tell, everyone being a different shade of gray. Mallory and Josh were the highlights for me, especially when Mallory went Rouge and Josh found out the truth about his past.
I love the idea of the Union, this vast empire with unchecked growth far beyond the reaches of Earth's once long-reaching influence. I look forward to exploring more of this universe and seeing how the newly formed Merchanter's Alliance interacts with the existing superpowers. It's about time the stations and merchanters has a voice of their own.
There were a lot of characters, a lot of different perspectives as things ramped up and the citizens of Pell dealt with numerous occupations. Each character has their own nuance and perspective to tell, everyone being a different shade of gray. Mallory and Josh were the highlights for me, especially when Mallory went Rouge and Josh found out the truth about his past.
I love the idea of the Union, this vast empire with unchecked growth far beyond the reaches of Earth's once long-reaching influence. I look forward to exploring more of this universe and seeing how the newly formed Merchanter's Alliance interacts with the existing superpowers. It's about time the stations and merchanters has a voice of their own.
shellwitty's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5