Hugo Book Review: Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh

Downbelow Station by C J Cherryh is the type of book that I began to read the Hugos to find. An epic science fiction story which tells the story of Pell’s World which has fought itself caught between two empires.  This is the first world which was found to be habitable and while generally unimportant still serves as a jumping off point for other colonization.

At some point later faster than light travel has been created and the control earth has over the colonies is largely breaking down with only a fleet of fifty ships allowing them any real control, a control which is breaking down as those ships are defeated and largely unsupported in the war so that they are losing to a more advanced and growing fleet.

The story begins near the end of that war. One of the earth ships arrives at Pell filled with refugees that put a strain on the bases both because of the cost of resources and because they fear that there are spies among them. Much of the rest of the story deals with these people as well as the captain of the earth ship who is forced to defend them.

While I did enjoy Downbelow Station I never really felt as if there were a protagonist I could like. The ship captain begins the story by doing something more or less evil and it never really feels to me as if she cares about what she is doing. Earth isn’t particularly good as they are both out of touch and trying to hold back humanity, but the others are worse.  This is probably more realistic than those books that have a clear good and evil, but not as satisfying.

I can certainly understand why Downbelow Station won the Hugo Award. It is a very smart book with a lot going on and it takes risks that many science fiction books don’t. The aliens are both different from humans and yet not bizarre and the conflicts are smart. In the end though much of this felt as if it didn’t really need to be science fiction and the story became a bit slow at times. So I can recommend this book to those who have the patience to enjoy a book that is a bit slow, but not for everyone.

Hugo Review: Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke is one of the classic alien stories which is in large part defined by the fact that the aliens are never actually in the story directly. This makes it a disturbingly realistic feeling story. It does this in large part by never doing almost nothing that could not have been theoretically done at the time he wrote the story. There is no faster than light travel, no faster than light communication, no super weapons or anything else that isn’t potentially possible and some of the technology we have now has actually bypassed that of Rama. 

The basic story of Rendezvous with Rama is set in the reasonably near future. Humans are living on a few different worlds in the solar system. Due to a few asteroid crashes humans have mapped all the bodies in the solar system very carefully and so find the odd one from out of the solar system early. This is Rama and it is soon discovered to be artificially made.

The only ship in range is sent out as quickly as possible taking the fuel from several other ships in order to do so. They are able to dock with the ship and begin to explore it. The ship is dead, but still well worth exploring. As they explore the ship it nears the sun and begins to change. Lights come on, water melts and eventually considerably more happens.

There are a couple of weaknesses, for me, in this story. The first of these is that there really is not all that much plot. The problem is there is no antagonist. This is effectively a disaster story, but without the disaster. A few minor things go wrong, but one of those is really dangerous at all.  The other is that there is no real end to the story. This is a mystery without the solution given. This is, I assume because there are future books which explain much of this, but Clark is also not afraid to leave questions unanswered.

This is a very difficult book for me to rate because there is never a point in the story where I am bored, but on the other hand there are very few moments during the story when I feel much else either. Even the exhilaration of a new idea is uncommon because the ideas appear slowly and are often so based in reality, and have been used so often since that they do not feel new.

This is an extremely well written story with a brilliant idea at its core and while I might prefer a story with a bit more plot the exploration of a world has rarely if ever been done better. So if you want a story that explores what life in space might be like, how to travel between the stars and even how first contact with aliens is very likely to be then this is well worth reading.