Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh

[2DaveWixon]

I've always considered the Faded Sun series and most of the "Company Wars" novels as fairly accessible. Didn't care for Heavy Time or Hellburner, but found Merchanter's Luck and the rest quite enjoyable. On the other hand, brace yourself before dipping your toe into the "dense" waters of the Cyteen universe. I got through all three books, but just barely.

Strange how people are...I really liked HEAVY TIME and HELLBURNER. But I also liked MERCHANTER'S LUCK quite a lot. Apparently, I'm pattern-less...
Dave

 

[clovis-man]

Strange how people are...I really liked HEAVY TIME and HELLBURNER. But I also liked MERCHANTER'S LUCK quite a lot. Apparently, I'm pattern-less...
Dave

It might have just been the mood I was in at the time. Hard to be precise after so many years.

 

[clovis-man]

Unintended duplicate message. Ignore.

 

[2DaveWixon]

Unintended duplicate message. Ignore.

Shucks -- and I was just about to "like" it...

 

[Bick]

I did.

Still enjoying the book btw - space battles and lots of running around, death, heartbreak and worry going on at the station now. What strikes me about it, is that by taking her time and describing things in some detail, Cherryh makes the station come alive and seem more 'realistic' than a lot of SF (I accept 'realistic' is a relative and somewhat inappropriate term).

 

[2DaveWixon]

Thanks for that Dave. I'm going a little slowly with it, but that has much more to do with being busy with work than the book, I've not had much time the last few days it seems. That said, I am on about page 300 - I'm enjoying it and looking forward to reading more. Having read the Faded Sun series already, this seems like a lighter read to be honest. I think it was J-Sun who described Faded Sun as 'dense', and that is a perfect description.

I think I differ on that -- that is, I found DOWNBELOW STATION harder to read than the Faded Sun books -- but a caveat about that reaction: I was intrigued by what I saw as strong analogies between the Faded Sun stories and classical Arabic culture...
Hmmmm -- I'd better read them all again...

Dave

 

[2DaveWixon]

It might have just been the mood I was in at the time. Hard to be precise after so many years.

You are correct. And I think that's just one of the things that make it worthwhile to read something a second or third time...after having let it steep in the back of the head, of course. Of course, it's never the book that has changed over the intervening period...

 

[KC York]

I did.

Still enjoying the book btw - space battles and lots of running around, death, heartbreak and worry going on at the station now. What strikes me about it, is that by taking her time and describing things in some detail, Cherryh makes the station come alive and seem more 'realistic' than a lot of SF (I accept 'realistic' is a relative and somewhat inappropriate term).

I realize this post was made a year ago but I was reading over this thread because Downbelow Station is absolutely one of my fave space opera books ever, and you comment here captures why: the whole of the station itself is very much a character, and so well described I often think of this book more as a tv show/movie than a book!

Not to say that some readers' criticisms are not right, esp. in that you have to hang in there through the beginning to get to the meat of the story. That said, it's aged fairly well, given that it was released in 1981 (am I that old??? shhhhh!). But it makes me sad that so many younger SF fans are unfamiliar with this classic, epic story. It definitely shaped me as both a reader and a writer.

Dunno but that it seems like a natural progression I took from being a huge James White fan to loving this book, which was I'm pretty sure the first one I ever read by Cherryh.

 

[GNDN]

I really like CJ. The first writer to make me feel interested in the personal relationships of the characters above and beyond the narrative.

GNDN

 

[Parson]

She is special. No doubt about that.

 

[MWagner]

After having it on my To Read pile for over a year, I'm finally digging into Downbelow Station. This is the kind of SF that hits the sweet spot for me - more plausible than the pew-pew action of lighter fare, while more engaging than heavy stuff like Peter Hamilton. And Cherryh is one of the best genre writers around at realistic psychology and characterization. I'm already looking forward to reading more books in the Company Wars series.

 

[2DaveWixon]

I have the feeling that I will shortly start re-reading my Cherryh library once more (and I'm grateful that the library keeps getting bigger)...