Downbelow Station

Executive Summary: If you like politics and war in a sci-fi setting where the focus is on the people and not the battles, this book is worth checking out. If you're looking for a lot of space battles however, you may be disappointed.

Full Review
I read this book as the March pick for Sword & Laser. It's still early in the month but so far most of the discussion seems to be in the Is anyone else having a hard time getting started? thread. I must say I don't really understand this.

Sure this book is dense at times. The book also starts with a lot of world building. It gives you several character perspectives as well. But it's well written, and the plot is compelling.

It centers around a neutral space station over the planet Pell caught in the middle of a war between “The Company” and “The Union”.

This book reminds me a lot of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 or Babylon 5. To a lesser degree Battlestar Galactica. Mostly because the latter had a lot more space battles.

Cherryh doesn't spend pages detailing epic battles here. Sometimes you see the aftermath, or get the report of a distant battle when news reaches Pell station. There aren't completely missing however. I like a good space battle as much as the next sci-fi geek, but it's not a requirement for me.

What this books does have is political-driven agendas, greed, ambition, and a surprising amount of compassion (at least from some of the characters).

Like some popular fantasy series I've read (Song of Ice & Fire/Malazan Fallen) Cherryh gives you multiple points of view on the situation. Unlike those books however, there aren't as many shades of grey. Or weren't for me. I knew pretty early on mostly whose good and whose bad, and I'm not suddenly surprised at the end.

There are some exceptions however that seem to reside in a shade of grey, but not many.

Overall a very enjoyable book. I'm a little disappointed to find out there is no true sequel to this book as there are a lot things I'm interested in reading more about in the aftermath.

The conclusion is satisfying however, and I hope to check out more books in this universe at some point down the road, but I won't be rushing out to get the next book just yet.