Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh

Wow! What a book! Hugo-Award winning novel.

At first I thought that this was going to have some rather boring passages (all the stuff about the families, especially the Konstantins), but then at the end of the first part (the novel is split into five “books”), I was totally intrigued by the huge conflict that became apparent on the horizon when the negotiators from Earth reveal their secret plan. And from then on, I was hooked, I wanted so badly to know what would happen and this was really the point when all the other pieces fell in place for me and yeah, okay, you have to plough through 150 pages of exposition and wondering what the hell all that was supposed to mean, but that’s okay in a 500-plus pages novel.

All in all, this is cool book and one of the very few times that I actually found a scifi universe that was on par with the Dune universe, if not exactly in terms of overall impact on the genre as such than at least in terms of scale and grandeur, because the universe in Downbelow Station is HUGE, it’s the product of a vastly imaginative mind and I really felt like an explorer myself, trying to imagine where all these places would be located in relation to one another and drawing a map of this galaxy in my mind.

Just a note: this is a LARGE book, definitely not a quick read, 528 pages in a small font, it’s more than twice as long as 1984, the current book of the month.

Sounds cool. And the title reminds of me “down below” on Babylon 5. :slight_smile: But – “a scifi universe on par with DUNE”? High praise and makes it sound definitely worthwhile. Thanks for the recommendation.

As I said, not in terms of overall impact on the scifi genre. Dune is a classic masterpiece towering above most other scifi.
I saw a top-10 or top-100 list of scifi novels once where Dune was - of course - the top book in the “world builder” category (I think that is what it was called).
And that is definitely an aspect of Downbelow Station where it is indeed on par with Dune. Frank Herbert created this huge universe for Dune, with a quite unique history and it felt so real and believable and well thought through. And I got the same feeling from Downbelow Station, that this was a grander vision. I’m a historian and I think I have something of a gut instinct for when a fictional past feels organic and believable and when it just doesn’t - like the historical timeline for The Mote In God’s Eye clearly felt artificial and anything but … well, organic.
And I mean, there are a lot of really awesome scifi novels that take place in a “small” universe, Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream for example or even Starship Troopers, you get to see only a tiny portion of the universe it’s set in, which is okay because those books focus on character and small details. But in Downbelow Station, Cherryh created a huge universe that feels like one and stuffed it with an organic, believable history and this past is very much perceivable in the present time of the book. All that appealed very much to me, the mood of the book (feels a bit like Europe in 1914) is very different from Dune, but the universe it’s set in certainly has this grand quality to it that Dune had.

Yes, I understand your qualification, but even if the book has not had a chance to have the impact of Dune, it is precisely that organic quality you mention that makes it interesting. So I still think it is pretty high praise. Even if Dune had not been as influential as it has proven to be, it would still inherently have that “grand vision, detailed world” quality that is appealing. To borrow Tolkien’s terminology, Dune is about as fully realized a “subcreation” as you will find in science fiction.

Speaking of Dune, have y’all heard that there will be yet a third film adaptation? http://thevineofhob.newsvine.com/_news/2008/03/18/1374394-dune-remake-on-the-way-third-times-the-charm

Of course I’ll watch it, it’s Dune and I’m gonna be curious, but why don’t they just let it be? Some books are not made to be turned into movies.
A book like Dune is something that you hold in your hands, turn the pages, delve into, is a companion for days or even weeks, something you treasure, you close it, look at the cover every once in a while, the tactile sensation of the paper, something you take to bed with you … it’s above being condensed into a 2-hour abomination.

Has someone by any chance read Hellburner, the novel preceding Downbelow Station?

I’m happy to see Cherryh on here… I’ve read my way through a few different series and yeah, they’re all very well imagined universes. So much that I now have a hard time reading less well imagined stuff… I mean, look what she’s done with it all!

I have a recall on Hellburner from my public library… but I think the person who has it is just not returning it.

I’m a big fan of the Chanur books, the Faded Sun trilogy (in some ways very Dune like… geographically, I mean.) which is in the same universe as Downbelow Station just really really far away, and the Foreigner series, though it makes me think of Ender’s Game in that the first book of the series is really awesome and the rest of them are interesting but not kickass.

Downbelow Station was mentioned in an io9.com listof excellent hard sci-fi novels.

I wouldn’t have considered this to be hard scifi, but my boundaries for that kind of qualification are pretty narrow anyway and they did say that it also has a very distinct sociological component.

As I mentioned before, I love Cherryh. And (if no one else has noticed), we have yet to read anything by a woman in the book club, which is kind of amusing, considering that growing up I read almost exclusively women writers of science fiction and fantasy.

Frankenstein was close a couple times.

I’d love to read Downbelow, it’s one of those classics I haven’t read yet.

I’ve had this novel for years on my bookshelf and have yet to read it. Count me interested.

Yes, same here. I’ve never got around to reading it.

Bumping, as I’d still like to group read it :slight_smile:

Me too… as I remember, I wasn’t able to get past the first 100 pages… but after reading what GR about the story picking up after Part 1, I’m willing to give it another try.