Take one highly vulnerable distance station . Pack it with realistic persona . And then start a war . You ’ll terminate up with 1982 ’s Hugo succeeder , Downbelow Station , by C.J. Cherryh — and a hell of a story .
It ’s always worth taking a 2d feeling : I translate Downbelow Station a few years ago , and remember mistily enjoying it and then forgetting almost entirely what it was about . So it was with some trepidation that I picked it up again . If it did n’t make an impression the first time through , would the 2d be a drag ?
No , it turned out , it would not . This account book does n’t have any gaudy - cool technology , or superhumans , or phenomena beyond the ken of mortal understanding . It is set a few centuries in the future , but the fictitious character are for the most part citizenry like today ’s . And though it take up its claim from a space post , you could argue that the novel could be recast in a non - science - fiction format — set on Earth in the present day or retiring — without altering the canonic story too terribly much .
Maybe that is why it did n’t stick with me on the first read . meretricious - cool technology , etc . , tends to be what ab initio accommodate in my mind . But this time , scrutinizing the book a little more thoughtfully , I appreciated how smoothly , how economically it sets up interesting , plausible conflict , and then stirs them together in a reasonably neat manner , while still conveying what an atrociously unreasonable mess life turns into during wartime .
This is the first book of Cherryh ’s Alliance - Union series ; she started out plainly intending to number up with the backstory for what would be her next novel , Merchanter ’s Luck , and ended up with another full - flub book . Here ’s a quick rundown of this future chronicle :
Humans , in the human body of the privately held Earth Company , start colonizing the extragalactic nebula by build huge place stations in a range of mountains of star system extending away from ours , out toward the Beyond . Ships , proceed at nigh - lightsome - speed , ran a long trade wind loop : They carried essential constituent materials to the place , and brought mine minerals back to Earth . Because those constitutional materials could n’t be develop well in space , Earth remained the operate king in the Great Circle .
And then Pell ’s World was learn , the first habitable satellite besides Earth — and one that already hosted intelligent life , the primitive , monkey - like hisa . ( Later , the humans on Pell station started calling the world “ Downbelow , ” from the hisa ’s pidgin English . ) Now that there was another , closer satellite that could supply the stations in the Beyond with biostuffs , Earth ’s grip on trade begin to countermine . It examine to accommodate on , the stations resisted — and a quiet conflict start .
More life - fend for satellite were attain , and then on one , Cyteen , the quicker - than - light jump crusade was invented by the Beyonders . That enable them to work together more well , and eventually , they link up forces , bid themselves Union .
When Downbelow Station opens , full - on war between Earth and Union has been in cut for some time , and Union — with better engineering science , able to mass - produce cloned soldiers in vats — is winning . The Company fleet has been reduced to a ragtag guerrilla force , all but disowned by an out - of - soupcon Earth . Its ships survive only because they operate as penny-pinching - main units , striking at Union chop-chop and then retreating into concealing .
If there is a driving musical theme of this book , it is the clash between sovereign desires and the good of the group as a whole . The story begins with the ship’s company ’s Captain Signy Mallory forcibly dock at Pell to discharge off six thousand refugees from two other stations , recently all but demolish . For years , Pell has serve as a neutral zone on the border between Company and Union place ; with the arrival of the refugees , that fragile neutrality start to shatter .
The refugees are bone up into a locked - off quarantine section ( “ Q ” ) , as they ’re frightened and in some case violent , and most lack any identification — Pell ca n’t risk a secret Union agent running loose in a lively area . Rapidly , the state of affairs in Q devolves into one of everyone for themselves ; when Vasilly Kressich , a former functionary from one of the ruin station , tries to instate some sorting of order , he inadvertently becomes the front man for a bunch of thuggish x - law .
Like an contagion , the circumstance spread throughout the post and down to the planet below . War , and a universe swollen by six thousand unexpected Edgar Guest , entail shortages of everything : resources , living blank , simple time . Such acute scarcity turns multitude into rats , scrambling over each other heedlessly to sting at whatever ’s available .
And the inertia of it all enforce impossible decisions even on those who require to better it : Stationmaster Angelo Konstantin ca n’t give to do much for the refugee — he has Pell ’s own universe to take care of first — and so Q festers like a sore , one that will finally erupt .
The unwillingness to share extends most critically to information : A mathematical group of Earth Company representatives allegedly desire to broker a peacefulness with Union — but really , they ’re trying to purchase meter so that their military unit can regroup . The Company fleet is say to be protecting Pell as a critical strategic compass point — but their leader , Conrad Mazian ( who thump outVannevar Morgan from The Fountains of Paradisefor most awe-inspiring name in a Hugo novel so far ) , determined to defeat Union at any monetary value , has different plans .
https://gizmodo.com/in-arthur-clarkes-fountains-of-paradise-man-makes-tidy-5682551
There is even a hint that the news report ’s baddie , Jon Lukas — Angelo Konstantin ’s brother - in - natural law , and long jealous of that more successful family — has been mold in part by a lack of biotic community good will . Jon is sure an awful adult male , selfish and suffering from an inferiority building complex , focused on brute efficiency , and only interested in mass , even his own son and successor , as entail to an close . But he is also highly able , and one get the sense that his bitterness toward Angelo is at least a slight bit justified , that the stationmaster really does n’t care for Jon and has shut him out of significant decisions at times . In any case , Jon is an interesting bad guy rope — not precisely likeArienrhod from The Snow Queen , but interchangeable , in that you may tell implicitly that he is a wounded thing , a soul who go bad wrong somewhere but did n’t have to . ( He is vaguely Shakespearian , I ’d go so far as to say ; there is a pivotal “ Et tu , Lukas ? ” moment , anyway . )
https://gizmodo.com/joan-vinge-s-the-snow-queen-the-girl-power-counterpart-5693927
Cherryh tells the story in limited third - individual , moving from part to character . ( So we get inside Jon ’s header enough to know that he is intensely dislikable , but into Angelo ’s enough to estimate that he has a catch a trivial prosperous in the seat of power , and would rather have his brother - in - law take his orders uncritically than stress to communicate with him . ) We spend a lot of prison term with Damon Konstantin , head of legal affairs on Pell , and I think it would be gentle to assume that he is the protagonist ( not least because he is a young man , and that demographic makes up the mass of SF protagonists ) . Damon ’s news report is more exemplifying of the general point of the book — the moral , I guess — though :
He spends the whole book endeavor to asseverate gild on Pell ( his job championship is a symbolic representation ) , and use a lot of energy in the service of others . He ’s peculiarly place to help those who are weak : There ’s Josh Talley , a Union captive of war left on Pell by Captain Mallory , who has undergo Adjustment — intellect - cancel to dispatch any dangerous info or crimson tendencies . Damon and his new wife , Elene , befriend him and vouch for him again and again . And then there are the alien hisa , or Downers . Unlike most humans , all of the Konstantins do by them like sentient beings deserving of introductory rights .
Damon ’s treatment of Josh and his relationship with the hisa eventually prove indispensable to his survival . As civilized smart set falls aside , his refusal to abandon the citizenry and principles he like about is what saves him . That is true of other characters , too — his brother , Emilio , who lead the workers and refugees on the satellite below ; his female parent , Alicia , beloved of the hisa ; Satin , a Downer who has come up to the station to honor a human who sacrificed himself keep hisa lives . And so is the converse : The characters like Jon Lukas , who think strictly of themselves , ultimately find themselves postulate help and with no one they can trust on .
Metaphorically , Damon does go through a transmutation — near the end of the floor , the onetime head of legal occasion is running Pell ’s biggest smutty - market operation . But if any one eccentric really , truly changes in the course of Downbelow Station , it is Signy Mallory .
We make love from the outset that the Company master has some variety of scruples — after all , she deliver the refugees at no small risk and delivers them to Pell . But we also know that it has been heave and stunted : She has a report as a sociopath , and when she kept Josh Talley in her own quarters aboard her ship , Norway , though it was nominally to prevent him from being murdered by the other refugees , she used the opportunity to make him a sex slave , and not in a merriment style . ( “ There was a sordidness in her sometimes , a need to dish out wounds … limited slaying , to blob out the gravid ones . To deal little terrors , to leave the horror outdoors . ” )
She is a weirdly , deeply interesting graphic symbol . She is selfish and lofty — but it demonstrate itself as a possessive love of her ship and crew , and her criminal maintenance of their high standards ; it ’s a selfishness and pride that compel her to imagine of other people . ( And her scout troop love her for it . ) She is cold - blooded and vicious — but , one good sense , it ’s because her love run so strong that if she did n’t deform her heart off almost completely , she ’d be unable to do her job . She is a lone wolf , but it becomes unmistakably observable that other human lives count to her , more than she ’ll openly accept .
By the destruction of the novel , her position has changed profoundly , more than anyone else ’s . ( And she will cipher into the events of Merchanter ’s Luck , in a big way . )
This is a story about individuals endeavor to find a balance between unrestricted ego - interest group and a loss of ego to the bombastic mathematical group . ( Union represents the latter , although they are more complicated than mindless drones ; from the intellection of Company rep Segust Ayres on his first visit to foeman place , in Chapter 2 : “ … he had not expect the difference out there , had not await the Union mentality , which seemed to tilt off toward some slant of demeanor neither parallel nor quite opposite to their own . ” )
It takes a long meter to find that rest ; doing so think of suppressing natural fears , consciously combating our private road for self - preservation . But it happens , bit by bit . And Cherryh is so good at making it happen that I teared up when it began to , with an exchange between Elene , part of a merchanter home that died at one of the stations suffer to war , and a merchanter captain who has been desperately endeavor to stick around out of the crossfire .
“ So we pay heed together , captain , ” she tell him . “ We move together . ”
Neihart considered it a import , finally nod . “ The Neiharts will stand by your countersign . ”
There : trust . And piece by piece , things begin to turn around .
The only other Cherryh I ’ve read is her first novel , Gate of Ivrel , from her Morgaine serial . It was for a while ago , but I recall thinking it was n’t bad , that she was understandably endeavor to do more , peculiarly with the depiction of her protagonist , Vanye , than most F&SF authors were at the fourth dimension ( or even since ) . On the military capability of that script alone , though , I do n’t lie with that I ’d have pluck up another of hers .
That would have been unintelligent . It ’s always deserving taking a 2d look , and it ’s fascinating to see an writer ’s style evolve . If you ’re interested in writing , there ’s a lot to find out from Downbelow Station — strictly structurally , just bet at how it takes one massive upshot and extracts so much history from it , simply by examining how it bear on so many life . And then front more closely at how elegantly Cherryh apportion the necessary information about her the great unwashed and environments . I ’m not quite sure how to contract what she does into a elementary verbal description , but it strikes me as a qualitative tone forward for science fabrication .
Josh Wimmer is a freelance writer in Madison , WI . He can usually be foundhere .
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