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A review by havespacesuitwilltravel
Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh
3.0
In theory this book should be incredible, it’s a tale of interstellar war featuring evil businessmen, rogue captains, mind wiped enemy operatives, and other sci fi delights. It just doesn’t quite deliver in practice.
In a nutshell the plot depicts a space station that is caught in the middle between a piratical fleet from Earth (sort of) and an inhuman faction that live very far from Earth. A strong suit of the plot is that it is very easy to see why the station wants to be involved with neither faction and there is a lot of suspense as to what will happen to the citizens. On the negative side of this, I felt that so many bad things happen to the station that by the end it was difficult to believe anyone was still even alive there.
This book is pretty dark and lots of bad things happen but it didn’t have much emotional impact. From the start there is death and riots and it never really stops. It got very repetitive for me when every other page the characters had to run in a new riot. Overall though the plot is solid, unpredictable and the ending sequences were a real high point.
This book doesn’t live up to the heights it could have. I think the main issue is that the Author focuses too much attention on uninteresting things. In the beginning you follow lots of characters, which is interesting because you see different perspectives, but, if more time had been spent with the main characters I would have been more attached to them.
Also, all the plot lines with the indigenous species on the planet below the station completely fell flat. The hisa are introduced as a fairly primitive but sentient ape-like species that have been recruited for work on the station and in farming. They get a lot of screen time but it all feels pointless. They don’t really change through the novel and they speak broken English which gets grating after a while.
If this book had some cuts it would be really good but as is it’s just alright. I’m a huge Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 fan so I enjoyed coming back to space station fiction but for other sci fi fans it is not really worth a read.
In a nutshell the plot depicts a space station that is caught in the middle between a piratical fleet from Earth (sort of) and an inhuman faction that live very far from Earth. A strong suit of the plot is that it is very easy to see why the station wants to be involved with neither faction and there is a lot of suspense as to what will happen to the citizens. On the negative side of this, I felt that so many bad things happen to the station that by the end it was difficult to believe anyone was still even alive there.
This book is pretty dark and lots of bad things happen but it didn’t have much emotional impact. From the start there is death and riots and it never really stops. It got very repetitive for me when every other page the characters had to run in a new riot. Overall though the plot is solid, unpredictable and the ending sequences were a real high point.
This book doesn’t live up to the heights it could have. I think the main issue is that the Author focuses too much attention on uninteresting things. In the beginning you follow lots of characters, which is interesting because you see different perspectives, but, if more time had been spent with the main characters I would have been more attached to them.
Also, all the plot lines with the indigenous species on the planet below the station completely fell flat. The hisa are introduced as a fairly primitive but sentient ape-like species that have been recruited for work on the station and in farming. They get a lot of screen time but it all feels pointless. They don’t really change through the novel and they speak broken English which gets grating after a while.
If this book had some cuts it would be really good but as is it’s just alright. I’m a huge Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 fan so I enjoyed coming back to space station fiction but for other sci fi fans it is not really worth a read.