Alliance Space is a re-printing of two of Cherry’s Alliance-Union Stories: Merchanter’s Luck and 40,000 from Gahenna. I’ve already read and reviewed 40,000 from Gahenna so I’m just going to be reviewing Merchanter’s Luck here.
I really enjoyed this book. It was a solid, interesting, space opera. Sandor is the Captian of a small merchanter ship called, at the moment, Lucy. Sandor has not had an easy life, his family killed by pirates while he watched, living on the edge of space since then, he’s known as a “marginer” because he works the margins of legal and illegal trade. Sandor gets himself in a whole universe of trouble by following the ship Dublin Again after a one night fling with Allison Reilly to Pell station - which is in Alliance Space, not Union - with a record three consecutive solo jumps. Allison, in a calculating move, convinces Dublin's Old Man to back her and four of her cousins to change ships and use Sandor as a way for the Dubliners to move into new trading space. This move also happens to save Sandor from a nasty investigation into why he is even in Alliance space.
This story is deftly woven and you are pulled along with Allison and her cousin’s desire to be at the helm of their own ship and Sandor’s downward sprial with long gone ghosts and the potential to loose Lucy. The edginess of Sandor and the ruthlessness of the Dubliner's is plausible and well written. I found this to be a very enjoyable read. I didn’t even mind the occasional odd sentence structure that characterizes Cherryh's books.
2 comments:
Coincidentally, I was looking at this on Saturday when I was at Borders. I decided not to buy it because I know I can get those works from the library. I will probably track one or both of them down at some point. The fact you liked them is encouraging, as I find Cherryh hit or miss.
Downbelow Station was the one I liked the least, and if I recall it was something to do with the sentence structure. Cyteen was amazing. The Chanur series was enjoyable, but I think her strength was in Merchanter's Luck, 40,000 and Cyteen.
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