Merchanters on the Rise
Review: Alliance Rising
Recently, C.J. Cherryh revealed that her partner, Jane S. Fancher, has played a heavy role in her success.
Alliance Rising is the first book with Fancher credited as co-author and the fact that it is vintage Cherryh does make me wonder...
The novel visits Alpha station, in the Hinder Stars, on the route to Sol...or it would be, because there's no good FTL route to Sol.
Furthermore, Earth is...well...Earth is overreaching, forcing the station to build a ship designed not for trade, but for enforcement...and impoverishing a station that used to rely on selling exotic biologicals from Earth and now has nothing.
Into this jumps Finity's End, with a proposal for the ships that trade between Alpha, Glory, and Venture (but never Beta).
And the coordinates for a possible safe jump route to Sol...
This is vintage, old style space opera, in which action entwines with very real human relationships. It leaves off in a place that made me want to immediately reach for the next book...
Review: Alliance Unbound
The second book in the series is...a bit heavier, although some of that might be that I got it in hardcover.
Ross, separated from his ship, is now serving on Finity's End as a trainee and navigating his relationship with his girlfriend, Jen.
But there's a lot going on in the universe. Galway, jumping to Sol at gun point. And Finity's End discovering Earth-origin biologicals (and other things) where they shouldn't be. This leads them to Olympus Station, which should be mothballed, and into conflict with Earth.
Who are the bad guys here? Cherryh twists things a little; in the past, Cyteen has been shown to be the bad guys and in Cyteen and Regenesis we see just how dystopian their society is.
But it appears that Earth is worse. And drama ensues involving multiple factions, a new FTL design that nobody thinks will work except the people trying it...
Unfortunately, it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and now I have to wait on book three, dangit.
But it's better than book one, which is rare and much appreciated.