Alliance Rising and expectations
Feb. 24th, 2020 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meteordustI love reading Cherryh, but she definitely has her idiosyncrasies. I was amused by these Goodreads reviews for Alliance Rising:
V Larkin Anderson was totally into what this book delivers:
Gimme every single detail of a character's decision making process. Make me understand in detail the political ramifications of every option that they consider. Make it take forever to get anywhere so I can just sort of wallow in C.J. Cherryh's lovely worldbuilding. I want all of that. It's my happy place.
Sara McBride had a belated realisation:
It took until the day after to realize I’d just read a sci fi book about the beginning of the end of break bulk shipping and the containerization of space commerce.
Christopher Telcontar had his heart set on a very different story:
I was hoping, I should say, we would get to the Holy Grail of her Company Wars era, and that is Conrad Mazian. I want a novel about him, about his origins and the early days of the war, and most of all, what became of him afterward, when he's just a hunted animal along with the ass end of his fleet, down to about seven ships, give or take one, I don't recall exactly. That was what I wanted, what would be acceptable as a plot in these latter days of the Pell universe. The entire MacGuffin of Rights of Man was painful to endure for 345 pages. If that ship's not gonna suddenly throw off her disguise of bungled project and blast everything in sight with missiles, then what is the damn point? None at all. (If it takes 20 years to build a warship, it ought to work, right?) I had high hopes that Hewitt or Cruz was actually Mazian and the ship's name was actually going to be revealed as... Europe.
Allegedly this is the start of a trilogy. I'll be an idiot and read the second installment, just in case Mazian might walk on stage, though I realize after Alliance Rising it's really a long shot. For all I know the entire content of book 2 will be the ship's manifest of Galway when she returns from Sol, since C. J. seems so determined to ram the romance of commerce down our throats.
Me, I am totally there for the romance of commerce. There's a whole big speech, when JR Neihart is trying to convince the merchanters to join the alliance, about the new technology of ring-docks on space stations. Ring-docking has advantages over mast-docking, because it allows for canisters to be loaded and unloaded from the cargo hold a lot faster, with the right equipment. Plus, with controlled-environment canisters, you can ship large quantities of perishable foodstuffs, which will revolutionise the luxury goods trade, and revitalise the economies of the dying stations...
No, seriously, I was riveted! I love the kind of science fiction where it feels like a real world that you get to touch for just a moment.
V Larkin Anderson was totally into what this book delivers:
Gimme every single detail of a character's decision making process. Make me understand in detail the political ramifications of every option that they consider. Make it take forever to get anywhere so I can just sort of wallow in C.J. Cherryh's lovely worldbuilding. I want all of that. It's my happy place.
Sara McBride had a belated realisation:
It took until the day after to realize I’d just read a sci fi book about the beginning of the end of break bulk shipping and the containerization of space commerce.
Christopher Telcontar had his heart set on a very different story:
I was hoping, I should say, we would get to the Holy Grail of her Company Wars era, and that is Conrad Mazian. I want a novel about him, about his origins and the early days of the war, and most of all, what became of him afterward, when he's just a hunted animal along with the ass end of his fleet, down to about seven ships, give or take one, I don't recall exactly. That was what I wanted, what would be acceptable as a plot in these latter days of the Pell universe. The entire MacGuffin of Rights of Man was painful to endure for 345 pages. If that ship's not gonna suddenly throw off her disguise of bungled project and blast everything in sight with missiles, then what is the damn point? None at all. (If it takes 20 years to build a warship, it ought to work, right?) I had high hopes that Hewitt or Cruz was actually Mazian and the ship's name was actually going to be revealed as... Europe.
Allegedly this is the start of a trilogy. I'll be an idiot and read the second installment, just in case Mazian might walk on stage, though I realize after Alliance Rising it's really a long shot. For all I know the entire content of book 2 will be the ship's manifest of Galway when she returns from Sol, since C. J. seems so determined to ram the romance of commerce down our throats.
Me, I am totally there for the romance of commerce. There's a whole big speech, when JR Neihart is trying to convince the merchanters to join the alliance, about the new technology of ring-docks on space stations. Ring-docking has advantages over mast-docking, because it allows for canisters to be loaded and unloaded from the cargo hold a lot faster, with the right equipment. Plus, with controlled-environment canisters, you can ship large quantities of perishable foodstuffs, which will revolutionise the luxury goods trade, and revitalise the economies of the dying stations...
No, seriously, I was riveted! I love the kind of science fiction where it feels like a real world that you get to touch for just a moment.
