Downbelow Station (Cherryh)

[cahn]

4/5. I... have curiously little to say about this book, except that I am glad I read it after Cyteen, because Cyteen drew me in with its genetic speculation and gave me a primer on how Cherryh works: the book goes on until she's finished writing it, with one major plot-line maybe resolved and a bunch of minor ones dangling; also, people will act like people and it will generally be grim and people will get grim comeuppances. So I was prepared! And actually I was unprepared for the awesomeness that is Elene Quen and the accompanying awesomeness that is Elene/Damon and Josh Talley. Although I was slightly more prepared for the grim sort of awesomeness that is Signy Mallory.

I don't like it as well as Cyteen; it doesn't have the interesting genetic Big Questions or the heartstopping moments when you realize you've just taken a dagger to the heart (except, okay, that last scene). But I liked it very much. Recommended if you like careful, methodical worldbuilding and history (apparently Cherryh herself said her books should read like that, and it does -- detailed and messy and without clean endings) and don't mind Cherryh's quirks, and very much not recommended if you want your plots wrapped up nicely or are not in the mood for grim...

Comments

[ase]

Seconding seekingferret's Cold War comments. The mass-produced culture and huge industrial scale of Union really rang back to the USSR for me. I'm not sure how much has full circle in the last decade: espionage, maybe, but history paints a picture of real fear that an alien culture would destroy or dominate the United States in a way that's different from the fears (or culture of fear) shaped by the events of September 11th and the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

Though other interpretations may be relevant: the destruction of Mariner Station, for example, might play a little differently in the era of banana republics vs the era of the Twin Towers. The Fleet's insurgency tactics are probably another aspect that's come back into relevance.

It is a brutal novel. And Signy Mallory is awesome.

May I agree with both of these statements? I have always been wistful that Mallory doesn't show up more in Union-Alliance canon. There's Downbelow Station and Merchanter's Luck and that's it.

[seekingferret]

Yeah, I think there are elements in DS that are relevant any time our culture is locked in a war it views as dualistic, between two opposed and mutually exclusive world views, but I also think that Cherryh is very specific in places in marking her two sides as being the US and the USSR. In general I think it strengthens the novel that she is so specific and thoughtful about the metaphor, but it did make reading it after the fall of the Berlin Wall an interesting experience.

[cahn]

I wonder too if this was something that reading it after Cyteen blunted for me. Because when I read about Union mass-produced and industrial scale and so on, I mostly thought of, well, Reseune and Ari Emory and how clones are (or are not, depending on who you ask) people too, darn it! and, uh, yeah. As you've remarked to me, I think it must have been such a different experience to read it the other way!

But yes, now that seekingferret has brought it up, I can absolutely see it.