Customer Reviews

Merchanter's Luck: Rendezvous at Downbelow Station

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This is a must read book for those that like to think about what kind of cultures could develop in the future as humans expand into outer space. The book dicusses the hardships of a family ship raided by space pirates. The one survivor tries to keep his family memories alive by aligning himself with one of the major merchant powers. The book also gives the other side of the story from the eyes of the corporate family. It gives a realistic feel of what it may be like to live in a corprate ship with long lived family members.

The book also gives the reader with a dream he or she can identify: "To be free but to live your traditions."

Carolyn Cherryh has the true storyteller's knack of being able to approach a huge, sprawling, complexly plotted yarn in terms of its constituent characters and events. But where _Downbelow Station_ -- which you really ought to have read in order to grasp all the back-story and milieu of this future -- is a tangled skein, _Merchanter's Luck_ is a single twist of two threads. Sandor Kreja is the only surviving member of the trading family that operated and lived aboard LUCY, a down-at-the-heels merchant ship not unlike a tramp steamer, carrying small cargoes and unfussy passengers and getting by on the margins of life. Allison Reilly, on the other hand, is a promising member of the large, wealthy mercantile family that inhabits DUBLIN AGAIN, a name to be reckoned with and respected among the stations whose ports it frequents. But that's just the problem: The Reilly family is *too* large. Allison is likely to be on rejuv herself by the time she climbs the advancement ladder far enough to be able to sit the bridge. They meet happenstantially, Sandy is completely taken with the tall, beautiful, regal Allie, and when DUBLIN goes off to Pell on the next leg of her trading loop among the stations, he pilots LUCY through a series of jumps singlehandedly in order to follow her. One thing leads to another, and when his past, checkered like that of all marginers, leads to potential major troubles with the Alliance and with the ominous Captain Mallory of the warship NORWAY (a shivver-provoking force in _Downbelow Station_), Allie jumps in to help him -- and, not incidentally, herself -- by leaving her family with a few like-minded cousins and making a crew for LUCY. But now, Sandor has to learn to trust others with his ship and its ghosts, and the Dubliners have to learn to trust someone who's not one of them. Cherryh is also expert at divulging her characters' minds and motivations through telling detail, so everyone you'll meet here is fully realized. And their story becomes the kind of tale merchanters, and even stationers, will tell each other for many years in the portside bars of Pell and Viking.

What a gem of a book MERCHANTER'S LUCK turned out to be. It's short and it packs an emotional punch. At its heart, the book is about trust. How do you know when to trust someone? What can it cost you? Set in Cherryh's brilliantly rendered universe, it can cost you your life and your very heart and soul. The universe feels lived in and the characters all ring so true you'd swear they were real (in spite of the fact that they are cruising the galaxy in spaceships!). People who complain that hard science fiction is only about ideas and never gives you characters you can care about have clearly not read C.J. Cherryh. She gives you both and by doing so, her books transcend the genre.

A gorgeous little gem in the fabulous Merchanters Universe series from Cherryh. Because its shorter than most in the series I highly recommend it as a starter novel to introduce you to the fascinating lives of the shipborn-and-bred spacefaring merchanters in their giant trading ships that thread their way across a complex human-occupied section of space. Don't expect a simple piece of Space Opera - yes, there's excitement, danger and even combat - but Cherryh's characters, motivations and multiple societies are COMPLEX. Underneath it all this is a book about trust - and redemption - and it is a mind-enhancing read - BUY IT!

Merchanter's Luck (1982) is an SF novel in the Alliance-Union Universe. After the Company Wars, the Alliance and Union try to restore the old trade routes between their spaces. Rumors have associated Pell Station with the new routes.

In this novel, Sandor Kreja is a minor merchanter within Union space operating under false papers and a false name. His ship -- lately called the Lucy -- is really Le Cygne, an almost forgotten vessel. He docks Lucy on Viking Station and goes looking for crew to replace the man rejoining his ship at the port. He takes a few credits to buy drinks and talks to a couple of potential crewmen. Then he encounters Allison Reilly, a tall dark-haired silver-clad woman from the Dublin Again.

He loses track of his conversation and just stares at the Allison. Then she stares back briefly and walks out of the bar. Sandor pays his bill and follows her out. She isn't anywhere in sight, so he checks the adjacent bars and finds her again. They eventually go to a sleepover and slake their lust.

The next morning, Allison has to return to her ship. Sandor learns that her ship is heading to Pell Station in Alliance space and vows to meet her there. Despite being alone on a three jump route, the Lucy arrives only a couple of hours after the Dublin Again.

In this story, Sandor has his visage spread throughout Pell station. He has somehow become a popular hero. But someone makes a complaint about his past activities and the dockmaster calls him in for questioning. After discussing his reasons for coming to the station, Sandor applies for papers allowing him to trade within Alliance space.

Allison gets her ship council to agree to a deal with Sandor. They will pay loan him half a million for cargo and another hundred thousand for other expenses in return for a share of the profits. In return, Sandor will accept four crewpersons from the Dublin Again to help operate the Lucy. Naturally, Allison will be his second in command.

Sandor also has a talk with Captain Mallory -- commander of the AS Norway -- about the arrangement. She provides a briefing of the situation and replaces his intended cargo with military goods. Sandor is barely functional with Mallory, a former Mazianni captain. He keeps thinking of the Mazianni boarding party that had killed most of his family.

This tale is an early novel in the Alliance-Union series, depicting some consequences of the Company Wars. Captain Mallory from Downbelow Station has several cameo appearances in this novel, but it is by no means a sequel to the previous work. Still, this novel has much the same feel.

Highly recommended for Cherryh fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of deep space, military intrigue, and a touch of romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Apparently this is out of print? And four hundred fifty pages? The first is a shame and the second is definitely wrong, unless the print is gigantic, because my copy is only like three hundred. Doesn't really matter, because I actually wouldn't have minded if this was longer.

Cherryh is so good at writing aliens and their bizarre cultures that you forget her other big skill . . . detailing future human culture and the politics involved. Much of the Alliance-Union stories tend to get lumped in with the war fiction category or just ignored entirely because they aren't as flashy as the ones about the Chanur and so on, but taken as a piece they provide massively intriguing slices of what humanity might be like once we spread out to the stars and continue fighting and being petty there.

Everyone knows the big guns, your "Downbelow Station" and the later "Cyteen" and both of those are justly acknowledged classics that if you haven't read you should go do something about now. But the whole Alliance-Union setup gives Cherryh an excellent background to play out her struggles, without having to make each novel an epic affair. They're just stories about life in the future, with all that entails.

This one is a small novel about Sandor Kreja, who finds himself owning a starship after nearly his entire family is slaughtered by pirates. Some time later the other survivors are dead too and he's forced to run the starship either with single temporary crew members he doesn't trust or by himself, which isn't a great idea. Enter Allison Reilly, one of the members of the Reilly clan on the great ship Dublin Again. She's quite ambitious and doesn't feel like waiting until she's ninety years old to get an actual position of responsibility on her ship. Therefore when she runs into Sandor and they spend the night together, a futuristic lightbulb goes off in her brain and she decides to help him out. With an ulterior motive.

The neat trick that Cherryh pulls in this novel is making it a story about futuristic politics while wrapping it around a personal story of romance and learning to trust other people. Because she has the Alliance-Union setup already going full-tilt in the background, she doesn't have to explain a lot of the machinations of what everyone else is doing. It gives you a sense of a living and breathing scenario, as the stations and other ships are going about their business even as the characters go about theirs . . . and if we don't understand what's happening it's quite likely it's because the characters don't understand either. Sandor and Allison are caught up in the manipulations of the other captains, who have agendas and stories that extend beyond this book, which causes a weird perspective. For Allison and Sandor, Captain Mallory's plan more or less tries to ruin their day. For Mallory, this is just another day of attempting to achieve her own aims. But because we don't see the book from Mallory's perspective, it gives us the impression that there's a lot going on we're just not privy too. Which is both maddening and exciting, but definitely a hallmark of Cherryh's use of limited perspective.

But it's the details that make this story work, so that every gears meshes together perfectly, putting together a picture of the far future culture. The relationships between people on Dublin Again seem like logical extrapolations of what would happen if you had generations of the same family working on a giant ship. Sandor's merchanter travails and outlook, especially his fear of stations and need to fast-talk to survive, both come across as something a real person would do if put in that situation, even if that situation is nothing we're familiar with. What we see of how Pell Station works makes total sense. There's thought put into everything, even for the procedures that last only a scene. In this slim novel you get a feel for the tensions between Alliance and Union, the fallout of the events of "Downbelow Station", that a whole universe exists beyond these pages. That's talent.

And it helps that the characters are three-dimensional, a testament to Cherryh's writing. Her depiction of the deaths of Sandor's family, in limited flashback while Sandor sits alone on the ship, is both gripping and gut-wrenching, even though there's nothing you can do about it. Consequently his panic and pain, his caution and terror (and his efforts to hide that) make perfect sense. Allison's love of her family is balanced with her desire to be more than just twentieth in line for a position. The story could be just a typical romance, but winds up being a tale of how people trust each other. Even the incidental characters make an impression, from the various Reillys, to the barely glimpsed Krejas to Captain Mallory herself, fresh off "Downbelow Station" in a bit part she makes the most of. They react to this setting in ways that are realistic, and help ground the proceedings, even when you realize that's all starships and ray-guns. There's a grit to it that feels lived-in.

If there's any downside to the book, it's that it sometimes feels too slice of life, a small event happening in the background of larger ones. Cherryh's Alliance-Union setting often means that she barely bothers to use exposition to give you an idea of the background, meaning you have to work from context or just basically read everything (it helps to read "Downbelow Station" near this book, as it gives some insight to what happens here . . . I read that book when I was in college years ago and thus was rusty on some parts) and thus some of the political manuevering, or the impact of it, could be lost on you.

But those are minor complaints for a novel that manages to convey an entire science-fictional world like it could be happening now somewhere in space. This probably isn't the best place to start with the Alliance-Union stuff (that would probably be "Downbelow Station" followed by "Cyteen") but this should be very close to your next stop.

Who knows why one book strikes a chord with someone, but this one is my all time favorite and having a degree in English Lit, I read a lot. I have three copies of this book because if I look for it and can't find it within a day or two I panic and buy another copy. I love many books over many genres but my heart loves this one best.

You will enjoy this story more if you have read Downbelow Station at the very least. I will admit that the first time I read it, the end was a bit fuzzy but the more often I read it the clearer the situation becomes. The more you read in Ms. Cherryh's Union/Alliance universe the easier this book is to understand.

It's a space ship story built around family merchant ships travelling between star systems and it is certainly enjoyable from that aspect. What makes the story for me is the character of the protagonist, Sandor Kreja. He is the very last of his family, running a haunted (not literally) ship all alone. When he meets Allison Reilly from a large powerful ship, he begins to dream of having a family again. He is a total underdog but the Reillys find out that when push comes to shove, he has a core of steel and all the right answers.

I'll open by saying this is one of my all time favorites of Ms. Cherryh's. While it's pure Space Opera, it's done so well. The characters are 3-dimensional, the descriptions are alive, and the action is interesting. Ms. Cherryh does an excellent job following up The Downbelow Station. A pleasure to read!

If you enjoy Ms. Cherryh's works or enjoy fast action books dealing with people, I highly recommend this book!

C.J. Cherryh is one of the best sci-fi writers of the last twenty years. I won't say the best sci-fi writer ever because such extreme generalizations open one up to refutations on a not inconsiderable scale. Suffice it to say she never fails to impress. Her combination of strong, compassionate characterization and hard sci-fi marks her as one of the greats. Her well-imagined future is a remarkable achievement, being a grab-bag of military, political, sociological issues with some villains but mostly flawed individuals trying to survive in a grimy but not unhopeful universe.

On to the novel! Merchanter is a short read. In a way, it is more a novella than a novel. The characterizations are much sparser than in such novels as Cyteen and Invader. The plot is relatively simplistic, moves quickly and is elegantly constructed. Typical for C.J. Cherryh, the reader's interest is caught and held by the slow, manipulative maneuverings within a tight plot. Also typical for C.J. Cherryh, Merchanter ends abruptly, leaving the reader wanting more. Occasionally, such Cherryh endings are anti-climatic, but in this particular case, it is exactly right.

Recommendation: Buy it.

Think of Han Solo and the Millenium Falcon. Think of Malcolm Reynolds and Firefly. Now make them lonely and reckless and hopeless. Sandor Kreja is pretty much these guys, without the supportive crew/sidekick. All he's got left after the raid that killed his family is his ship, a battered version of the Falcon or Firefly. In the opening chapter, Sandor walks into a bar and falls in love at first sight with the raven-haired Allison Reilly, a Merchanter daughter on leave. A quick roll in the hay only throws fuel on his fire, and he vows to see her at her next port, which is (for his little ship) impossibly far away. For reasons he can't or won't examine, he actually follows through with this, and arrives after staying awake on drugs and nerve through three jumps, to find that he has made himself the center of a lot of unwelcome attention.

The rest of the novel is about the lingering echoes of Sandor's family catastrophe, about how something resembling post-traumatic stress disorder can screw with a man's head the rest of his life, and about how hard it is to look past all of these things to find love and trust. It's a book about desperate love. In a few of Cherryh's trademark clipped, condensed paragraphs in the first pages, she paints a picture of a young man on the edge of life, scarred by a horrific tragedy in his youth, eking out a living in the shadow of the big players of Downbelow Station. That novel made a big splash in the early 80s, and I read it, but this story is the one that stuck in my mind for thirty years. I come back to it over and over because of the tone Cherryh puts into it, because of the way she expertly balances the yearning in Sandor against his fear of betrayal, his pride, his survivor's guilt, the secrets and ghosts (metaphorical) that are all he has left. Sandor is a victim who doesn't realize he's a victim, so he behaves like a hero and then is surprised when people say nice things about him.

Cherryh's typically compact and evocative prose supports a story which is perhaps too long on Merchanter/Alliance/Union politics and too short on the romance that fuels the story. Even though I was familiar with the referents, I didn't care. They were only window dressing for the real story, the love story. Cherryh set up a good one and didn't quite pull it off; the romance is lower-key than it needs to be to hold up a whole novel. While the ending felt rushed, it still managed to leave me with a feeling that matters had been resolved -- patched together, leaking, limping -- but resolved. It's a very human, realistic ending, not the neat, happily-ever-after ending of the conventional romance.

The taut, allusory prose, the simple and straightforward story structure, and the outstanding delineation of a very sympathetic main character make this a standout book, one of Cherryh's best. In the grand tradition of space opera, it swept me off my feet and kept me enthralled over three decades.