Downbelow Station

...many authors write themselves into corners. Few can write their way out. C.J. Cherryh starts herself out in a corner: Imagine Beirut in space, a space station caught in the effects of nearby wars, suddenly dealing with an influx of refugees (some of whom are surely terrorist agents of governments who may be looking here for their next target).But Cherryh is not content with the difficulty of writing her way out of this. She makes it even harder by weaving a layered tapestry of conflicts, overlapping in ways that make them hard to resolve. In one storyline the protagonist (heck, call them "good guys," they usually are) may be the bad guy at another level in the tapestry. And yet she gets the reader rooting for and against them simultaneously. This is hard enough to achieve, yet almost impossible to resolve.Still, somehow Cherryh manages to attack this Gordian Knot with a climax which slices through to enormous complexities she's raised with a thoroughly satisfying conclusion.Perhaps we should send her as our next ambassador to Lebanon.

There is no doubt that this book portrays a dark, frightening universe in which various forces fight for their very survival. Not too different from our world, eh? What is refreshing about this book is that, unlike most other science fiction writers (and today's newspapers, radio, and government spokesmen!), Cherry does NOT gives us a simplistic view of right/wrong, good/bad, but makes the clear the economic and ideological forces that put whole peoples into opposition. The opening scenes of this book are unforgettable, with panicked civilians driven to riot, violence, and murder. And yet even the most villainous characters are not irrational and clearly have reasons for what they are doing. I found this a fascinating book, with an intelligently thought out political and economic system. I only wish Cherryh could so clearly explain why WE continue to have violence and riots in OUR world.

I first met Carolyn Cherry(h) at AggieCon in the late '70s, when she was still teaching school in Oklahoma and had just completed her first novel, _Brothers of Earth_. She had written that book in a sort of social vacuum, with no notion of the existence of the fannish world and was amazed at the warm reception she received from a bunch of enthusiastic strangers. That book and its sequels, plus the "Morgaine" trilogy, made me a fan and I enjoyed her work for years, including this first installment in the "Merchanter" series when it first appeared. Unfortunately, success seems to have made her lazy in recent years and she has recently been churning out interminable formulaic series, often sharing the credit with younger writers, and I find most of those efforts to be unreadable. Anyway. Downbelow Station showcases Cherry's inarguable talent for complex but understandable geopolitical plots, many-layered characterization, and truly alien cultures that humans are never really going to fully understand. There are several sides to the conflict here: The Company, now in charge of an isolationist Earth; the Fleet, once the enforcement arm of the Company but now pretty much independent; Union, formed out of the farther worlds of the Beyond and possessed of a new psychological style completely foreign to Earth; Pell, a station circling a planet which circles Tau Ceti, and which only wants to left alone; and the free Merchanters, making a living hauling goods between the worlds and the stations. Pell is a civilized republic in the best tradition, but they're about to lose all that. Mazian's Fleet has been on its own devices for far too long to have a regard for any other culture and is quite willing to destroy a station and all its thousands of inhabitants in order to keep it out of Union's hands. And Union is a chilling example of nascent fascism based on state-controlled cloning. The Merchanters, who are the focus of most of the later books in this universe, must find a way to work together if they are to survive at all. Peopling this tumultuous plot are the Konstantin family, the sort-of Medicis of Pell, willing to believe the best of others and appalled at what power-seekers are doing to their station, especially the Lukas family. And there's Capt. Mallory of Fleet carrier NORWAY, a bloody-minded commander who nevertheless hews to her own kind of morality. And the hisa, the indigines of Downbelow, whose nonviolent assistance to Pell becomes crucial as the story progresses. And Jessad, the Union agent who has his own agenda on Pell. And Josh Talley, ex-Union agent who wants to find a new home there -- or maybe he's not so "ex." And there's a large supporting cast, all of them also exceptionally well developed. This is a fat book, more than 500 pages, but it never slows down and you'll never lose interest. Definitely one of Cherryh's best.

I first met Carolyn Cherry(h) at AggieCon in the late ?70s, when she was still teaching school in Oklahoma and had just completed her first novel, Brothers of Earth. She had written that book in a sort of social vacuum, with no notion of the existence of the fannish world and was amazed at the warm reception she received from a bunch of enthusiastic strangers. That book and its sequels, plus the "Morgaine" trilogy, made me a fan and I enjoyed her work for years, including this first installment in the Merchanter series when it first appeared. Unfortunately, success seems to have made her lazy in recent years and she has recently been churning out interminable formulaic series, often sharing the credit with younger writers, and I find most of those efforts to be unreadable. Anyway. Downbelow Station showcases Cherry's inarguable talent for complex but understandable geopolitical plots, many-layered characterization, and truly alien cultures that humans are never really going to fully understand. There are several sides to the conflict here: The Company, now in charge of an isolationist Earth; the Fleet, once the enforcement arm of the Company but now pretty much independent; Union, formed out of the farther worlds of the Beyond and possessed of a new psychological style completely foreign to Earth; Pell, a station circling a planet which circles Tau Ceti, and which only wants to left alone; and the free Merchanters, making a living hauling goods between the worlds and the stations. Pell is a civilized republic in the best tradition, but they're about to lose all that. Mazian's Fleet has been on its own devices for far too long to have a regard for any other culture and is quite willing to destroy a station and all its thousands of inhabitants in order to keep it out of Union's hands. And Union is a chilling example of nascent fascism based on state-controlled cloning. The Merchanters, who are the focus of most of the later books in this universe, must find a way to work together if they are to survive at all. Peopling this tumultuous plot are the Konstantin family, the sort-of Medicis of Pell, willing to believe the best of others and appalled at what power-seekers are doing to their station, especially the Lukas family. And there's Capt. Mallory of Fleet carrier Norway, a bloody-minded commander who nevertheless hews to her own kind of morality. And the hisa, the indigines of Downbelow, whose nonviolent assistance to Pell becomes crucial as the story progresses. And Jessad, the Union agent who has his own agenda on Pell. And Josh Talley, ex-Union agent who wants to find a new home there -- or maybe he's not so "ex." And there's a large supporting cast, all of them also exceptionally well developed. This is a fat book, more than 500 pages, but it never slows down and you'll never lose interest. Definitely one of Cherryh's best.

It's been quite a few years since I first read "Downbelow Station", having found a dog-eared copy in a used-book store in Silver Spring, Maryland, and since then just about every book Cherryh ever wrote has come to grace my bookshelf. But still, I come back to this novel, which won the Hugo award in the early 80s (1981, I believe).It's evident from the style that this is one of Cherryh's earlier books; it's not as smooth or sophisticated as "Tripoint" or "Cyteen", both of which are set in the same universe. It does, however, represent a sweeping vision of humanity's possible future, showing not only how we may colonize the stars, but how living among the stars may change us as humans.For it is one of the most impressive things about this book that the characters are human. Over a year after my last re-reading, I still recall Angelo Konstantin, Elene Quen, Jon Lukas, Signy Mallory, Vassily Kressich, Satin and the rest as if they were old friends. "Downbelow Station" is not only a splendid introduction to Cherryh's thoroughly explored and well-populated Alliance-Union universe, it's an excellent introduction to science fiction in general, as a novel that addresses the tough questions of humanity's future