Rating: 
Summary: Beirut in space...
Review: ...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.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Story
Review: A good story that holds your attention. That is the point as to why we read fiction isn't it? Cherryh gives a bleak interpretation on the future migration of spacefaring humankind, however it is a perfectly plausible one and that makes this read all the more interesting. There were irritating typographical errors and omissions in this paperback edition. Granted, not the fault of the author, nor a reason not to enjoy her work...but in this day and age, what is the excuse for typos except as laziness on the part of the publisher? A personal pet peeve.
Rating:
Summary: Great addition to the continuing saga.
Review: Again, I was enthralled with the characters and plot. Having read some other works by this author, the consistant great writing continues to draw me back.
Rating:
Summary: A classic among classics from C.J. Cherryh
Review: As usual in "Downbelow Station" C.J. Cherryh creates a believable Universe with a cast of characters that you can truly care about. There is one point about this book that makes it stand out however, and that is the ending. The plot in this book contains threads within threads that keep the user interested and wondering how it could all possibly come together. Cherryh's masterful weaving of these threads brings together an ending that is unpredictable and altogether satisfying. If you like the ending in this book, try Cuckoo's Egg by C.J. Cherryh, it's even better.
Rating:
Summary: One of her best
Review: Cherryh has always taunted me with a sensation that she is so close to greatness but can never quite give me believable characters and situations enough to get there. I have not read her entire canon, however. And though I have yet to read Cyteen or Tripoint, I found this book and it's world very engaging. Her greatest success in this novel, for me, is in her contrasting the innocence of the downbelow natives with the selfishness and brutality of humans. Powerful and touching, though a bit unsatisfying in the way Cherryh resolves some of the plot threads (a little too simple and not all believable), this book is one of her best. -sc
Rating:
Summary: A good introduction to the Alliance Union universe
Review: Downbelow Station is one of Cherryh's earlier works and her style is not quite as good as in later novels.
Nevertheless the book contains a thrilling story and it is hard to stop reading.
It also provides a good introduction to her Alliance - Union universe. I can highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read something from her because it is a good starting point.
Daniel Spichtinger
Rating:
Summary: It just gets better each time you read it
Review: First read this shortly after publication when I was 20. Since then have re-read it every two or three years and still find a different story from the one I recollected, and each better than the last. This is a dense and complex book but that is probably why it pays re-reading, and it operates on several levels. The plot is detailed in the many other reviews here (and the number of these tell you something) but it the first of her Union/Alliance Universe and is as good a place to start as any. Don't expect constant action a la Star Wars (though action there certainly is), or technophilia. What you get is a claustrophobic steel world where the characters are sufficiently delineated to allow you to fill in the missing parts according to your prejudices and expectations without affecting the read. The science is woven into the day-to-day activity of the characters and never put on a pedestal for us to forcibly admire. You absorb the ideas as you go along.
Most of all, it has that believability that the best sf/fantasy possesses. You can just feel that this is what the future is going to be like... warts and all.
Sadly, there is no sign that C J is going to revist Signy Mallory and her crew - this is a great shame as she needs a further novel to allow us to better appreciate her, just as her "Exiles' Gate" did for Morgaine (A similar style of heroine in another related universe).
Rating:
Summary: One of Cherryh's best . . .
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: One of Cherryh's best . . .
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book!
Review: I first read this book seven years ago and I then thought that it rated way below her Faded Sun trilogy which I just then finished reading also. But since I was impressed by Faded Sun, I kept the Downbelow Station copy in my shelf also. Since then I've reread Downbelow 5 times and found that it was my maturity as a reader that was lacking that was the reason I failed to fully appreciate this book the first time. I've then come to know Cherryh's works very well and have loved all her books.
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