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The Company Wars #7
Finity's End
Finity's End is the oldest Merchanter ship in the universe. In an era of spies, pirate traders, and uneasy alliances, the Company Wars are now over, the hunt for the fleet is winding down, and the ship is coming home to reclaim her trade routes. Having lost an entire generation, the youngest crew members, bred and trained for war, must face their most critical battle of all--survival in a time of lasting peace.
564 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
4 people are currently reading
948 people want to read
About the author
C.J. Cherryh
292 books3,546 followersCurrently resident in Spokane, Washington, C.J. Cherryh has won four Hugos and is one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed authors in the science fiction and fantasy field. She is the author of more than forty novels. Her hobbies include travel, photography, reef culture, Mariners baseball, and, a late passion, figure skating: she intends to compete in the adult USFSA track. She began with the modest ambition to learn to skate backwards and now is working on jumps. She sketches, occasionally, cooks fairly well, and hates house work; she loves the outdoors, animals wild and tame, is a hobbyist geologist, adores dinosaurs, and has academic specialties in Roman constitutional law and bronze age Greek ethnography. She has written science fiction since she was ten, spent ten years of her life teaching Latin and Ancient History on the high school level, before retiring to full time writing, and now does not have enough hours in the day to pursue all her interests. Her studies include planetary geology, weather systems, and natural and man-made catastrophes, civilizations, and cosmology…in fact, there's very little that doesn't interest her. A loom is gathering dust and needs rethreading, a wooden ship model awaits construction, and the cats demand their own time much more urgently. She works constantly, researches mostly on the internet, and has books stacked up and waiting to be written.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
January 11, 2023
Finity's End took a little to get into, but then rolls along at the typical almost frenetic pace Cherryh is known for, encompassing political intrigue, a coming of age story and perhaps most broadly, the meaning of belonging. This is set about 17 years after the events of Downbelow Station in her Company Wars universe. Downbelow Station (a classic!) focused on the tensions between Earth and the fleet it built to 'pacify' the space colonies (which went rogue), the 'Union', an 'Empire' of humanity that delved deep into genetics, breeding 'armies' of clones/slaves, and the Merchants whose ships ply the spacelanes for trade, and in effect, are the life blood of humanity's space colonies themselves. After a brutal war, a peace treaty was declared, leaving the merchant ships autonomous from either Earth or the Union with their own government (the 'alliance') centered on Pell station. Whew!
Our main protagonist here, Fletcher, is the son of a spacer from Finity's End born on Pell station shortly after the treaty mentioned above. His mother was heavily pregnant and had to be left of Pell when Finity's End made the long and dangerous trip back to Earth (long story). The plan was to pick her and her new son up in a year's time, but for a variety of reasons, it took 17 years. Fletcher's mother committed suicide after 5 years and Fletcher progressed through various foster homes, became known as a trouble maker, but found solace with the Hisa, the aliens who live on the planet Pell station orbits. The Hisa work on Pell station, doing largely menial tasks in the background, but Fletcher befriended a few of them and turned his life around, wanting nothing more than to work with them planetside.
So, the story (after a fairly tedious preamble) starts with Finity's End finally arriving to pick up Fletcher, who really does not want to join his biological family at all. He feels kidnapped for sure, and is out of place on the tight knit family group on the ship. The ship is one of the oldest, biggest, and most prestigious of the merchants, and spent the last 17 years fighting pirates who supply the remnants of the Fleet. Now, it has a new mission, namely to bring a lasting peace among the Union, Earth and the stations via reestablishing trade routes and further isolating the Fleet from human space...
So, Fletcher is the odd man out on a ship with a vital mission. He just wants to return to Pell, but he kinda burned his bridges there also. While the politics are intriguing, the highlight for me of this one was Fletcher's struggles to find his place. Cherryh has a knack for truly immersive world building and does so here with life on the ship. She also has a way with Aliens and again, does so here with the enigmatic Hisa. On the cover of the book is a guy holding a 'Hisa stick' which plays a key role in the story. In some ways, this is a parable of humanity's struggle with war versus peace to boot. Good stuff, and one of the better installments of my favorite series by Cherryh. 4 stars!!
Our main protagonist here, Fletcher, is the son of a spacer from Finity's End born on Pell station shortly after the treaty mentioned above. His mother was heavily pregnant and had to be left of Pell when Finity's End made the long and dangerous trip back to Earth (long story). The plan was to pick her and her new son up in a year's time, but for a variety of reasons, it took 17 years. Fletcher's mother committed suicide after 5 years and Fletcher progressed through various foster homes, became known as a trouble maker, but found solace with the Hisa, the aliens who live on the planet Pell station orbits. The Hisa work on Pell station, doing largely menial tasks in the background, but Fletcher befriended a few of them and turned his life around, wanting nothing more than to work with them planetside.
So, the story (after a fairly tedious preamble) starts with Finity's End finally arriving to pick up Fletcher, who really does not want to join his biological family at all. He feels kidnapped for sure, and is out of place on the tight knit family group on the ship. The ship is one of the oldest, biggest, and most prestigious of the merchants, and spent the last 17 years fighting pirates who supply the remnants of the Fleet. Now, it has a new mission, namely to bring a lasting peace among the Union, Earth and the stations via reestablishing trade routes and further isolating the Fleet from human space...
So, Fletcher is the odd man out on a ship with a vital mission. He just wants to return to Pell, but he kinda burned his bridges there also. While the politics are intriguing, the highlight for me of this one was Fletcher's struggles to find his place. Cherryh has a knack for truly immersive world building and does so here with life on the ship. She also has a way with Aliens and again, does so here with the enigmatic Hisa. On the cover of the book is a guy holding a 'Hisa stick' which plays a key role in the story. In some ways, this is a parable of humanity's struggle with war versus peace to boot. Good stuff, and one of the better installments of my favorite series by Cherryh. 4 stars!!
May 29, 2016
Some authors write books about adults that still feel like YA novels. Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels come to mind. Finity’s End begins with a boy running through trees playing with some furry aliens, yet it feels unquestionably like a novel written for adults. How do I explain this difference? There is no sense of condescension, for one thing, no patronizing simplicity, and no obvious lessons that need to be learned. There is no straining for effect. Rather, the narrative is smooth, honest, even wise. The opening of this novel is quite beautiful, actually, not an adjective I often associate with Cherryh. The boy is Fletcher, whose mother was left on an orbiting space station twelve years ago while pregnant, to keep her safe during war time. Her ship never picked her up. Six years later, Fletcher was orphaned by his mother’s suicide, and then passed from foster family to foster family, dragged through the courts, and befriended, meanwhile, by aliens from the planet below from whom, over the years, he has received solace. He grew to love the planet, and its people. He studied ecology. He intends to finish school, come down to the planet, and live there, on “Downbelow” as the stationers call it, for the rest of his life. His future finally feels hopeful. He knows where he belongs, and what he wants to do.
And then, suddenly, unfairly, the ship that abandoned his pregnant mother twelve years ago comes back to get him. The war is long over. They are his family. It’s where he belongs, they say. They also, incidentally, need him as part of an exchange, as a pawn in a massive political strategy with galactic repercussions, that, needless to say, has nothing to do with him. The courts hand him over. And so, ripped away from that planet and his furry friends, Fletcher finds himself locked in a ship flying off to the edges of known space on a political quest to bring peace to the galaxy, with a family he knows nothing about and for whom he feels nothing but disdain for tearing him away from the life he chose.
I have complained about aspects of Cherryh’s writing in my last few reviews of her work, so it brings me great pleasure to say, this novel was a delight from start to finish. You’ll have to read Downbelow Station first, which is no chore, but along with that one, and perhaps Cyteen, this is the most readable and engaging of the Alliance-Union novels I’ve encountered. It’s set at one of the grand-scale turning points of the Alliance universe, so there’s plenty of politics and game-changing, but it is at the same time an intimate coming-of-age story of a young man who needs to come to terms with who his family is, and here, both modes, the political and the personal, are integrated seamlessly into an extremely satisfying whole.
Cherryh’s depiction of shipboard politics and adolescent social interactions is so perceptive here, and so detailed and convincing, that one is reminded of Heinlein’s better juveniles, or Greg Bear’s Anvil of Stars, or Card’s Ender’s Game. Cherryh finds significance and drama in the question of whether a minor brought up on a space station rather than a ship ought to be able to drink alcohol, or whether Fletcher ought to go through the traditional adolescent hazing all the other kids go through at a certain age. The stakes in these conflicts seem high, and the reader is deeply engaged in these questions of norms and shipboard rules. Should Fletcher be an exception? Or should he be treated like everyone else, this newfound lost cousin that none of the other kids asked for?
Cherryh has made an apt decision in the creation of this cast of characters. Everyone is rational and, shocking for a Cherryh novel, completely un-neurotic. There is none of the hysteria and shrieking irrationality that hampered some of Cyteen and Tripoint. All the characters, including Fletcher and his new family, react sanely and believably; not unemotionally, mind you, not at all, but within the bounds of human behaviour we can understand and sympathize with. The Merchanters have a damn good reason to resent the kid. The kid has a damn good reason to resent the Merchanters. Both sides are sympathetic. The people are clear-headed. The conflict in the novel (and there is much of it) arises not from one side acting like a bunch of assholes to force the plot to go forward, but by everyone acting precisely as they would act in such a situation if they were utterly fair and reasonable people. It’s refreshing, and as an approach to storytelling, surprisingly gripping. I'm not saying there aren't occasional fist fights or trips to the infirmary here, because there are, but the actions and reactions of the characters are all completely natural and understandable.
On the political side, this book is about what to do when the war is over. It’s about reconciliation and peace, about learning how to get peace and what to do with it when you have it. There is a wonderful scene in which a Union warship hovers silently and mysteriously over Finity’s End, and all we know is what the Juniors know, which is nothing. Is the ship an enemy? Is it a chance meeting? Or has the Captain invited this enemy Union ship to meet them in secret at this location? The political situation which gradually reveals itself is fascinating, tense, and massively entertaining: Merchanter ships smuggling weapons for rebel Earth ships, while trying to sabotage a deal between other Merchanter ships and the Union - it’s head-spinning, but epic, and ultimately, very accessible and clear. The goal here is peace: peace among the Merchanter ships, peace between the Merchanter Alliance and the Union, peace between them and Earth. The Captain of Finity’s End, the man who started the Merchanter-Union war himself, is now doing everything he can to end the hostilities for good.
On the personal side, this novel is about family, about what happens AFTER Oliver Twist gets home. The universe doesn’t just let you “float free” - you are who you were BORN, your parents, your nationality, your birthright - these things MATTER and they define you, no matter how much you try to run. It’s about learning how to deal with that, how to be part of a family and make it work. It’s also about the importance of heritage, of ancestors, of great deeds done by great people with your name. Fletcher comes to learn that rather than being a prisoner on this ship, he is exactly where he belongs. And his character arc, his “coming of age,” is extremely well done. He changes and grows gradually, rationally, based precisely on his experiences step by step, until, by the end, the man he becomes is a far cry from the boy chasing aliens through the forest, but we never, not for a moment, disbelieve the change. It’s an extraordinary feat.
Given my recent criticisms of some of Cherryh’s novels, I was frankly flabbergasted by how accessible, how compelling, how thrilling this novel was. It’s got humour, something else Cherryh is not known for, it’s got heart, it’s got action, it’s got intrigue, it’s got beauty, it’s got great character work, and it’s got an excellent plot. It doesn't re-invent the wheel; it's an heir to Poul Anderson's trader politics and Robert Heinlein's coming-of-age-on-a-ship stories, but it works within those well-worn boundaries just about better than anything else I've seen. If you’re someone who liked Downbelow Station, and perhaps Cyteen, and you wish Cherryh would just slow down sometimes, and just make more sense, then this is definitely the novel for you. It’s a nice reminder of why C. J. Cherryh well-deserved the Damon Knight Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement she received this month. This is one of her best novels.
And then, suddenly, unfairly, the ship that abandoned his pregnant mother twelve years ago comes back to get him. The war is long over. They are his family. It’s where he belongs, they say. They also, incidentally, need him as part of an exchange, as a pawn in a massive political strategy with galactic repercussions, that, needless to say, has nothing to do with him. The courts hand him over. And so, ripped away from that planet and his furry friends, Fletcher finds himself locked in a ship flying off to the edges of known space on a political quest to bring peace to the galaxy, with a family he knows nothing about and for whom he feels nothing but disdain for tearing him away from the life he chose.
I have complained about aspects of Cherryh’s writing in my last few reviews of her work, so it brings me great pleasure to say, this novel was a delight from start to finish. You’ll have to read Downbelow Station first, which is no chore, but along with that one, and perhaps Cyteen, this is the most readable and engaging of the Alliance-Union novels I’ve encountered. It’s set at one of the grand-scale turning points of the Alliance universe, so there’s plenty of politics and game-changing, but it is at the same time an intimate coming-of-age story of a young man who needs to come to terms with who his family is, and here, both modes, the political and the personal, are integrated seamlessly into an extremely satisfying whole.
Cherryh’s depiction of shipboard politics and adolescent social interactions is so perceptive here, and so detailed and convincing, that one is reminded of Heinlein’s better juveniles, or Greg Bear’s Anvil of Stars, or Card’s Ender’s Game. Cherryh finds significance and drama in the question of whether a minor brought up on a space station rather than a ship ought to be able to drink alcohol, or whether Fletcher ought to go through the traditional adolescent hazing all the other kids go through at a certain age. The stakes in these conflicts seem high, and the reader is deeply engaged in these questions of norms and shipboard rules. Should Fletcher be an exception? Or should he be treated like everyone else, this newfound lost cousin that none of the other kids asked for?
Cherryh has made an apt decision in the creation of this cast of characters. Everyone is rational and, shocking for a Cherryh novel, completely un-neurotic. There is none of the hysteria and shrieking irrationality that hampered some of Cyteen and Tripoint. All the characters, including Fletcher and his new family, react sanely and believably; not unemotionally, mind you, not at all, but within the bounds of human behaviour we can understand and sympathize with. The Merchanters have a damn good reason to resent the kid. The kid has a damn good reason to resent the Merchanters. Both sides are sympathetic. The people are clear-headed. The conflict in the novel (and there is much of it) arises not from one side acting like a bunch of assholes to force the plot to go forward, but by everyone acting precisely as they would act in such a situation if they were utterly fair and reasonable people. It’s refreshing, and as an approach to storytelling, surprisingly gripping. I'm not saying there aren't occasional fist fights or trips to the infirmary here, because there are, but the actions and reactions of the characters are all completely natural and understandable.
On the political side, this book is about what to do when the war is over. It’s about reconciliation and peace, about learning how to get peace and what to do with it when you have it. There is a wonderful scene in which a Union warship hovers silently and mysteriously over Finity’s End, and all we know is what the Juniors know, which is nothing. Is the ship an enemy? Is it a chance meeting? Or has the Captain invited this enemy Union ship to meet them in secret at this location? The political situation which gradually reveals itself is fascinating, tense, and massively entertaining: Merchanter ships smuggling weapons for rebel Earth ships, while trying to sabotage a deal between other Merchanter ships and the Union - it’s head-spinning, but epic, and ultimately, very accessible and clear. The goal here is peace: peace among the Merchanter ships, peace between the Merchanter Alliance and the Union, peace between them and Earth. The Captain of Finity’s End, the man who started the Merchanter-Union war himself, is now doing everything he can to end the hostilities for good.
On the personal side, this novel is about family, about what happens AFTER Oliver Twist gets home. The universe doesn’t just let you “float free” - you are who you were BORN, your parents, your nationality, your birthright - these things MATTER and they define you, no matter how much you try to run. It’s about learning how to deal with that, how to be part of a family and make it work. It’s also about the importance of heritage, of ancestors, of great deeds done by great people with your name. Fletcher comes to learn that rather than being a prisoner on this ship, he is exactly where he belongs. And his character arc, his “coming of age,” is extremely well done. He changes and grows gradually, rationally, based precisely on his experiences step by step, until, by the end, the man he becomes is a far cry from the boy chasing aliens through the forest, but we never, not for a moment, disbelieve the change. It’s an extraordinary feat.
Given my recent criticisms of some of Cherryh’s novels, I was frankly flabbergasted by how accessible, how compelling, how thrilling this novel was. It’s got humour, something else Cherryh is not known for, it’s got heart, it’s got action, it’s got intrigue, it’s got beauty, it’s got great character work, and it’s got an excellent plot. It doesn't re-invent the wheel; it's an heir to Poul Anderson's trader politics and Robert Heinlein's coming-of-age-on-a-ship stories, but it works within those well-worn boundaries just about better than anything else I've seen. If you’re someone who liked Downbelow Station, and perhaps Cyteen, and you wish Cherryh would just slow down sometimes, and just make more sense, then this is definitely the novel for you. It’s a nice reminder of why C. J. Cherryh well-deserved the Damon Knight Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement she received this month. This is one of her best novels.
January 10, 2024
Hardly anyone can write a blue-collar space opera like C.J. Cherryh. On the surface, not a lot happens in this novel: The ship Finity's End goes from Pell Station to Esperance and welcomes a new reluctant crew member onboard. No space battles and no deaths. And yet, the tension between crew members, the politics of Alliance vs Union, of Mallory vs Mazian, of Fletcher vs. Chad...there are so many great places in the narrative where finesse and great writing keeps the story moving along and keeps the reader's engagement high. I love the completeness of her Alliance-Union universe and the subtle way that complex situations are created and resolved. I found this one as entertaining as Downbelow Station and Rimrunners which were my two previous favorites.
January 25, 2018
Superb writing, intensely real.
This book has two main threads, one following "Fletcher" who is returned to his family merchanted space ship after 17 years, and one thread following "JR" who is on a "command track" to be one of the Captains someday.
I very much enjoyed the Fletcher thread, and felt his wonder and joy with the Hisa semi-intelligent alien race on the planet Pell ("Downbelow Station") which I mentioned in the review of that book. He is effectively "legally kidnapped" by his space-faring family, whom he has never met. I really felt very angry at him being ripped from a life he loved, and a new first girlfriend, and into a life of a spacer with rules and behaviours totally unknown to him. This thread is amazingly emotional and wonderfully written.
The JR thread was amazingly technical and political, showing how the very capable JR grows into the role of command, and being also saddled with bringing Fletcher into the family, and into his new life. This thread is so clearly written that you do feel you are there, but the politics and activities of a warrior-merchant spaceship do ramble on and on too much, I felt.
Overall, I loved Cherryh's "Merchanter's Luck" best, with Rimrunners, Downbelow Station, Tripoint and Finity's End second place. Heavy Time and Hellburner were too bloated to fully enjoy, ... in my rarely humble opinion ...
For Cherryh, the Alliance-Union universe books are (mostly) fantastic -
* In order to read:
Downbelow Station (1981) - Superb!!
Merchanter's Luck (1982) - Perhaps her best ever!
Rimrunners (1989) – Very good!
Heavy Time (1991) - good, but long winded
Hellburner (1992) - good, but long winded
Tripoint (1994) - very good
Finity's End (1997) – Superb
Forty Thousand in Gehenna (1983) - good but uneven, important for Cyteen and Regenesis
Cyteen (1988) – Superb
Regenesis (2009) - Superb
This book has two main threads, one following "Fletcher" who is returned to his family merchanted space ship after 17 years, and one thread following "JR" who is on a "command track" to be one of the Captains someday.
I very much enjoyed the Fletcher thread, and felt his wonder and joy with the Hisa semi-intelligent alien race on the planet Pell ("Downbelow Station") which I mentioned in the review of that book. He is effectively "legally kidnapped" by his space-faring family, whom he has never met. I really felt very angry at him being ripped from a life he loved, and a new first girlfriend, and into a life of a spacer with rules and behaviours totally unknown to him. This thread is amazingly emotional and wonderfully written.
The JR thread was amazingly technical and political, showing how the very capable JR grows into the role of command, and being also saddled with bringing Fletcher into the family, and into his new life. This thread is so clearly written that you do feel you are there, but the politics and activities of a warrior-merchant spaceship do ramble on and on too much, I felt.
Overall, I loved Cherryh's "Merchanter's Luck" best, with Rimrunners, Downbelow Station, Tripoint and Finity's End second place. Heavy Time and Hellburner were too bloated to fully enjoy, ... in my rarely humble opinion ...
For Cherryh, the Alliance-Union universe books are (mostly) fantastic -
* In order to read:
Downbelow Station (1981) - Superb!!
Merchanter's Luck (1982) - Perhaps her best ever!
Rimrunners (1989) – Very good!
Heavy Time (1991) - good, but long winded
Hellburner (1992) - good, but long winded
Tripoint (1994) - very good
Finity's End (1997) – Superb
Forty Thousand in Gehenna (1983) - good but uneven, important for Cyteen and Regenesis
Cyteen (1988) – Superb
Regenesis (2009) - Superb
March 1, 2019
The story of one Fletcher Neihart (of, needless to say, the Finity's End Neiharts). But Fletcher hasn't grown up as part of the close-knit family on one of the most famous merchanters in all of space -- seventeen years ago, his then-pregnant mother had to leave the security of the ship for lodgings on Pell Station (the intention being for a short separation -- maybe a year before Finity's course brought her back), and so Fletcher was born station-side. And that year passed, and then another, and then a few more, and things were not going well for Fletcher and his mother and then, in time, for Fletcher and a series of foster families.
(And the ship has since made stationfall at Pell several times, but has never been able to extricate Fletcher from Pell's court system.)
And now, at age seventeen, he's finally started to get his life turned around -- he's been able to earn his way to Downbelow, the planet's surface, with goal of finding a way to work with the hisa, the intelligent alien natives.
At which point, of course, Finity's End returns and finally reaches a settlement with Pell that results in a very unwilling Fletcher being lifted off Pell's surface, rushed to Finity's docking tube, and sent on his merry way with a family for whom he harbors no affection whatsoever, and amongst whom he (station-born as opposed to ship-born) has almost nothing in common; not even his age. (Stationers live their lives in real time; spacers' bodies and minds can have very different ages thanks to relativistic time dilation and to the weird semi-passage of time during their hyperspace jumps.)
Also in the mix -- his cousin (because everybody on the ship is a cousin, or an aunt or uncle or grandparent to one degree or another) JR, himself on an eventual command track, and far from pleased that he has to try to wedge this station-shaped (and difficult even at the best of times) cousin into a starship-shaped crew that, for the most part, wants to welcome him (the War having cost them a quarter of their crew and, effectively, an entire generation of children) but has no idea how.
And in the background of all of this, Finity herself on what may be the most delicate and diplomatic mission she's ever had to undertake; and tensions between Union and the still-young Alliance, and Mazian still lurks somewhere out in the deep dark and someone is still feeding him supplies and intelligence ...
In some ways, this one almost felt to me like Cherryh's response to a Heinlein juvenile -- a young man on the cusp of adulthood having to navigate treacherous waters both personally and on a grander scale; and making mistakes but trying to do his best and gradually coming to a better understanding of himself and of the world in general; but with Cherryh's patented tight focus and tension.
(And the ship has since made stationfall at Pell several times, but has never been able to extricate Fletcher from Pell's court system.)
And now, at age seventeen, he's finally started to get his life turned around -- he's been able to earn his way to Downbelow, the planet's surface, with goal of finding a way to work with the hisa, the intelligent alien natives.
At which point, of course, Finity's End returns and finally reaches a settlement with Pell that results in a very unwilling Fletcher being lifted off Pell's surface, rushed to Finity's docking tube, and sent on his merry way with a family for whom he harbors no affection whatsoever, and amongst whom he (station-born as opposed to ship-born) has almost nothing in common; not even his age. (Stationers live their lives in real time; spacers' bodies and minds can have very different ages thanks to relativistic time dilation and to the weird semi-passage of time during their hyperspace jumps.)
Also in the mix -- his cousin (because everybody on the ship is a cousin, or an aunt or uncle or grandparent to one degree or another) JR, himself on an eventual command track, and far from pleased that he has to try to wedge this station-shaped (and difficult even at the best of times) cousin into a starship-shaped crew that, for the most part, wants to welcome him (the War having cost them a quarter of their crew and, effectively, an entire generation of children) but has no idea how.
And in the background of all of this, Finity herself on what may be the most delicate and diplomatic mission she's ever had to undertake; and tensions between Union and the still-young Alliance, and Mazian still lurks somewhere out in the deep dark and someone is still feeding him supplies and intelligence ...
In some ways, this one almost felt to me like Cherryh's response to a Heinlein juvenile -- a young man on the cusp of adulthood having to navigate treacherous waters both personally and on a grander scale; and making mistakes but trying to do his best and gradually coming to a better understanding of himself and of the world in general; but with Cherryh's patented tight focus and tension.
April 26, 2020
C.J. Cherryh writes great human drama. Yes, I know there are spaceships, there is interplanetary travel, there are alien species, but what draws the reader in is good old human interaction. She gives us a flawed main character, Fletcher, who technically belongs to a Merchanter family, but ended up stranded on a space station because of his mother's needs. Now, he is that mysterious creature, a stationer, and worse, he wants to live on a planet! Horrors!
So, some of this is about orphan children & the legal system, plus the law problems and foster family troubles that go with that state. On the plus side for Fletcher, he found a focus for himself and managed to navigate the educational system. Unfortunately, his focus on the Hisa on the surface of Pell doesn't jive with his spacer background.
Of course, he is reclaimed by his ship though he is highly unwilling. Cherryh takes us along as this young man tries to find where and how he fits into the universe. There's good tension produced by simple physiological differences—spacers age slowly, so Fletcher is ahead of his ship age mates in maturity, but so inexperienced in ship matters that he doesn't fit with the older cohort either. Neither fish nor fowl, with hostility on both sides, he must decide if he can carve a place for himself on Finitys End.
I couldn't read the last couple of chapters quickly enough!
Book number 363 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project
June 21, 2022
During the events of Downbelow Station, the merchanter Finity's End was forced to leave a pregnant crew member at Pell Station. The intention was for them to return within a few years, but the war against Mazian's Fleet has prevented that happening. Fletcher Neihart at 17 is the result, bounced through a series of foster families after his mother committed suicide, the only emotional connection he has been able to make has been with the downers, the native race of Pell. After a delinquent childhood Fletcher has straightened himself out with the intent of working on-planet with the Downers. But finally Finity's End has returned, and this time making a deal that solves the issues that prevented them from claiming him before.
JR Neihart is the Junior Captain on Finity's End, a ship that has just returned to the old rules when it wasn't fighting a war. On top of managing that disruption with his junior crew, he's now got to deal with a very unhappy Fletcher who is singularly failing to appreciate the honor that being a crew member aboardship actually is. All while trying to puzzle out what the senior crew are playing at with meeting the leadership of Station after Station while being on very friendly terms with Union ships.
This has long been a favorite of mine of Cherryh's books, and that's saying something as she's definitely one of my favorite writers. On one hand this is a relatively simple story, with a desperately alone boy finding himself among a family he never thought he'd have. On the other, it's a long and detailed look at the changing politics of a delicate peace and the pragmatics of what needs to be done and risked to create a lasting peace. And while both stories parallel each other, there's interwoven themes of loss, grief, hope and taking on responsibility.
It's just a wonderful book.
JR Neihart is the Junior Captain on Finity's End, a ship that has just returned to the old rules when it wasn't fighting a war. On top of managing that disruption with his junior crew, he's now got to deal with a very unhappy Fletcher who is singularly failing to appreciate the honor that being a crew member aboardship actually is. All while trying to puzzle out what the senior crew are playing at with meeting the leadership of Station after Station while being on very friendly terms with Union ships.
This has long been a favorite of mine of Cherryh's books, and that's saying something as she's definitely one of my favorite writers. On one hand this is a relatively simple story, with a desperately alone boy finding himself among a family he never thought he'd have. On the other, it's a long and detailed look at the changing politics of a delicate peace and the pragmatics of what needs to be done and risked to create a lasting peace. And while both stories parallel each other, there's interwoven themes of loss, grief, hope and taking on responsibility.
It's just a wonderful book.
December 19, 2023
I somehow missed reading this back in the day. I bought a copy recently, and thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the best in the Company Wars series. A 4+ star book, first published in 1997. A near-great coming-of-age story.
The best review I saw here is Lindsay's: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
That's the one to read first.
Back already? It's been years since I last read a Company Wars book, but I was immediately immersed in that universe again. Cherryh tries to make all of her books self-contained, but the series get better as you learn more of her setup. She's a great writer, but prolific: 80+ novels! You will like some better than others. She was one of the pioneers in immersive space-opera future histories.
If by chance you have never tried a Cherryh book, or you tried one and didn't care for it, I recommend my very favorite, Merchanter's Luck: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... 5-star book!
The best review I saw here is Lindsay's: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
That's the one to read first.
Back already? It's been years since I last read a Company Wars book, but I was immediately immersed in that universe again. Cherryh tries to make all of her books self-contained, but the series get better as you learn more of her setup. She's a great writer, but prolific: 80+ novels! You will like some better than others. She was one of the pioneers in immersive space-opera future histories.
If by chance you have never tried a Cherryh book, or you tried one and didn't care for it, I recommend my very favorite, Merchanter's Luck: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... 5-star book!
February 10, 2013
There's something about Cherryh's writing that I absolutely love. Her books aren't easy to get into - they invariably have internal monologues that go on for pages and strain my patience, and the politics is often arcane and confusing. But the characters are so interesting and so convincing that I am willing to keep going until the point where the book completely grips me. The main story in 'Finity's End' is that of Fletcher, who is a lost boy, a child of foster families and courts, his own worst enemy much of the time. It's a story that held me totally, right to the end and beyond, the story of a boy at last finding the place he belongs.
June 27, 2022
"I’m getting to be a real connoisseur of families. I’ve had a lot of them."
Another home run from my new favourite author.
Following the events of DOWNBELOW STATION by a couple of decades, the Merchanter ship Finity's End returns to Pell to collect their prodigal son who was abandoned to the station during the war. Flecher Neihart isn't happy with this, and doesn't want to leave everything he's ever known - but will find himself drawn into important events for the future of the universe, with the ship Finity's End at the center of it all.
Last year I read five Brandon Sanderson books, and by the end of the fifth one I was desperate to read anything else - FINITY'S END is my fifth Cherryh of the year, and I am desperate to read more.
I loved this - it is possibly the easiest-reading of Cherryh's books that I've read thus far, which isn't to say it's dumbed down. The focus on one location and two POVs - JR Neihart and Fletcher - made it far easier for my small brain to parse the information and events.
It almost reads like Cherryh trying her hand at a YA novel structure, but with her creative world-building flourish. Fletcher is a sympathetic character, and at first the ship that he is thrown onto seems utterly uncaring and arrogant, despite their constant support and assurances that he's family - but over the course of the book, of course, things change. I wish we had the next chapter in Fletcher's life on the ship.
The overarching politics were also interesting and easy to follow, but the focus is (rightly so) on the book's namesake. The nitty gritty is what really sold me on Finity's End (the ship) - I really like Cherryh's understated way of making things feel real.
An excellent book! I'm already itching for my next Cherryh fix.
July 25, 2018
Storyline: 3/5
Characters: 4/5
Writing Style: 3/5
World: 3/5
Well, Cherryh does all the wrong things right in this one. You can't read about Fletcher Neihart without thinking that Cherry does a fair job of capturing teenage angst. But we just covered that theme in the last volume, Tripoint. Similarly, Cherryh excels at showing you the tedium of ship-aboard space life. That, too, she has done before - for the last five books of the Company Wars. And she finally gives what appears to be a real sequel to Downbelow Station, but we get the behind-the-scenes machinations of the Company Wars, essentially a lot of "company" and little "war." The writing has vastly improved over the middle volumes; this one much more like the first in the series. Cherryh still has the habit of bludgeoning the reader with repeated confrontations of the same inner turmoils. She still hasn't learned to trust her readers to pick up on clues, so we get repeated, full doses of what should have been mere hints.
On the whole I found the Company Wars to be a disappointment. The series is worse than the individual books. And it isn't because Cherryh lacked the capabilities to make this a stunning space opera. It was because of what Cherryh decided to do with the series. Move the big events off-screen, follow minor characters in big dramas, discuss life and death scenarios by way of government policy. So, yeah, I get it; not everyone gets to see the big picture, participate in the defining battle, cast the decisive vote, or play the part of the hero. Most people will be doing desk or grunt work and the closest they'll get to high-stakes drama is to ride along with the other hangers-on. That could have been a thoughtful and worthwhile work of literature. It was a poor direction for a seven volume science fiction space opera.
Characters: 4/5
Writing Style: 3/5
World: 3/5
Well, Cherryh does all the wrong things right in this one. You can't read about Fletcher Neihart without thinking that Cherry does a fair job of capturing teenage angst. But we just covered that theme in the last volume, Tripoint. Similarly, Cherryh excels at showing you the tedium of ship-aboard space life. That, too, she has done before - for the last five books of the Company Wars. And she finally gives what appears to be a real sequel to Downbelow Station, but we get the behind-the-scenes machinations of the Company Wars, essentially a lot of "company" and little "war." The writing has vastly improved over the middle volumes; this one much more like the first in the series. Cherryh still has the habit of bludgeoning the reader with repeated confrontations of the same inner turmoils. She still hasn't learned to trust her readers to pick up on clues, so we get repeated, full doses of what should have been mere hints.
On the whole I found the Company Wars to be a disappointment. The series is worse than the individual books. And it isn't because Cherryh lacked the capabilities to make this a stunning space opera. It was because of what Cherryh decided to do with the series. Move the big events off-screen, follow minor characters in big dramas, discuss life and death scenarios by way of government policy. So, yeah, I get it; not everyone gets to see the big picture, participate in the defining battle, cast the decisive vote, or play the part of the hero. Most people will be doing desk or grunt work and the closest they'll get to high-stakes drama is to ride along with the other hangers-on. That could have been a thoughtful and worthwhile work of literature. It was a poor direction for a seven volume science fiction space opera.
March 12, 2018
For a lot of people discovering that entire branches of their family not only exist but have been actively trying to reunite with them would be cause for celebration, unless they're something unpalatable like a cult of serial killers or mimes who keep insisting its your turn to walk the invisible dog. Its not quite that bad for poor Fletcher Neihart. His mother was left behind on Pell Station during the war while pregnant and while her ship intended to come back for her soon they wound up getting sidetracked by a little thing called a war and it took longer than they expected. In the meantime she gave birth, got addicted to the drugs people take while in hyperspace and eventually overdosed. Fletcher essentially became adopted by the station and while bouncing around various foster families he did his best to get himself into a position to start a career studying the civilization of aliens that exists on the planet below the station.
In fact, while things aren't perfect, they are going pretty sweet. He's doing better in school, he's basically been adopted by a couple of the aliens and the cute rich girl he's had a crush on seems quite okay with holding his hand in public. All of that comes crashing down when his family's ship Finity's End pays a visit to Pell for some negotiations and in the process of hammering out an agreement they come to a settlement on what to do with him. For the ship, its easy. He's family and he belongs with them. For Fletcher, its not so easy.
A lot of Cherryh's Alliance-Union books work best as "fish out of water" scenarios, but in space . . . take an outsider and stick him in unfamiliar and then watch the hilarity as everyone has to adjust (or not adjust). For Fletcher, his phasers are instantly set to "not adjust" as he discovers what its like to join a family reunion where everyone but him has spent every day of the last twenty years hanging out, coming up their own rituals and traditions and in-jokes, none of which he understands. Even worse, since he's on a functioning spaceship he can't just sulk in his room like a proper teenager, he's assigned a job and has to work like everyone else. And some of his crewmates/cousins are already a little sick of his attitude.
Imagine a Thanksgiving dinner where the only topics allowed are religion and politics and you have some idea of the level of tension that Fletcher generates with every interaction. But if the book was only about a surly teenager constantly fighting with a family that barely understands him it'd be less a SF novel than excerpts from my memoirs. And as exciting as that sounds, Cherryh's version of teenage angst works better because she not only gets families, but it works when you merge family with the necessary duties of being on a ship considered the best of the best. Her skill at depicting the same reality filtered through two vastly different perceptions is at its peak here since we see how the ship is a defiantly alien place to Fletcher, full of customs and regulations that he barely understands, a place where thanks to time dilation even the kids in twelve year old bodies are far more adapted to this than he is.
But as typical with her she drills deeply into the characters and instead of keeping the focus on Fletcher pissing everyone off who is honestly trying to be his friend, she switches to the upper echelons of the ship's command, including the legendary captain's son JR who is assigned the task of integrating Fletcher before kills him. Its that bouncing between the two viewpoints that make the book work so well on a human level . . . you can understand the family loves their ship and takes such pride in what they do, but Fletcher's unhappiness isn't pulled out of thin air . . . subjected to a rough childhood with a dead mother and a parade of foster families he's managed to pull himself together practically on his own, something the ship with its deep communal ties and shared history can't understand. Having put himself into a position to follow his dream only to have the ship snatch him away due to bonds he barely feels, his discontent is intense and a late scene in the book where he reacts after some personal property is stolen makes that frustration palpable on both sides. Having lost nearly an entire generation in the war, they can't do this without him and he can't do it with them. Everyone understands why this has to work, at least for the short term until someone comes up with a better idea, but no one seems to have the faintest idea how to bridge the gap.
Fletcher's story alone would be sufficient meat for any story and at this point its clear to me that Cherryh's detailing the routine rhythms of spaceship life is like me discovering Raymond Chandler, its hits a sweet spot in me that I didn't know existed. But she's in an unusually expansive mood this time out and in addition to Fletcher's struggle to find something in common with people who are like "Oh boy! Space!" we have the parallel plot of Captain James Robert and the senior crew attempting to forge a workable peace in the wake of the Company Wars detailed in "Downbelow Station". Which means, yes, a lot of talk about trade negotiations, and while all those people who got fits reading the opening crawl to "The Phantom Menace" might get that same uneasy feeling here Cherryh's version of people in space discussing tariffs is much more interesting, at least for those who find the complex politics of her future fascinating.
And it is for me, but I can also understand why this may not be for the casual Cherryh fan. Beyond some fistfights in station corridors there's very little in the way of action and a lot of internal discussion/exposition about relations between Alliance and the mostly unseen Union, much of which requires you to have some general knowledge of events circa "Downbelow Station" and a lot of background context for who unseen presences like Mallory and Mazian are, considering how much influence they have on the plot. If I hadn't just read a bunch of Alliance-Union books to refresh myself recently and tried to come into this cold I would be hopelessly confused . . . in other books where the politics are more opaque and you're mostly seeing the effects on the people who rest on the bottom rung its intentional but with the shifting of the big picture more in view this time it helps to have some background for why any of these tricky chess games matter.
I think the cross-section of the personal and the political makes for one of her better Alliance-Union books because it ties together both the pull of the history you're around to see and the one you know you won't get to see . . . its one of those books without an outright villain, merely people who resist the idea that they're all going to have to give up something to make room for each other and the crux of the book is how long is takes for everyone involved to realize that. It sprawls more than her books usually do, taking us from station to station and the darkness in between, intersecting with the ships and crews they also flit in the void and everyone everywhere trying to discern what everyone else really wants . . . writing about war is tricky enough but life and death stakes are exciting material for any writing. Here she writes about the messy process of picking up the pieces and getting everyone to trust each other enough to make sure it doesn't happen again and while that may not be as sexy as spaceship battles it winds up being the more rewarding approach. Because while what gets discussed in the rooms with the backslapping and champagne might decide the course of the next hundred years, its the smaller places where the more important acts are done, where two boys in a small room crack up over private jokes, where a great-grandmother hugs her grandson for the first time and gets to act like something other than her job title, where a son realizes all the pillars of his life aren't going to be around forever and some day someone will look at him the same way. In the space between one page and the next, between the last page and the page that never comes she makes you want to know what's going to happen the next day, and in a century and somehow doesn't make you feel cheated when you realize what you have is all you're going to get.
In fact, while things aren't perfect, they are going pretty sweet. He's doing better in school, he's basically been adopted by a couple of the aliens and the cute rich girl he's had a crush on seems quite okay with holding his hand in public. All of that comes crashing down when his family's ship Finity's End pays a visit to Pell for some negotiations and in the process of hammering out an agreement they come to a settlement on what to do with him. For the ship, its easy. He's family and he belongs with them. For Fletcher, its not so easy.
A lot of Cherryh's Alliance-Union books work best as "fish out of water" scenarios, but in space . . . take an outsider and stick him in unfamiliar and then watch the hilarity as everyone has to adjust (or not adjust). For Fletcher, his phasers are instantly set to "not adjust" as he discovers what its like to join a family reunion where everyone but him has spent every day of the last twenty years hanging out, coming up their own rituals and traditions and in-jokes, none of which he understands. Even worse, since he's on a functioning spaceship he can't just sulk in his room like a proper teenager, he's assigned a job and has to work like everyone else. And some of his crewmates/cousins are already a little sick of his attitude.
Imagine a Thanksgiving dinner where the only topics allowed are religion and politics and you have some idea of the level of tension that Fletcher generates with every interaction. But if the book was only about a surly teenager constantly fighting with a family that barely understands him it'd be less a SF novel than excerpts from my memoirs. And as exciting as that sounds, Cherryh's version of teenage angst works better because she not only gets families, but it works when you merge family with the necessary duties of being on a ship considered the best of the best. Her skill at depicting the same reality filtered through two vastly different perceptions is at its peak here since we see how the ship is a defiantly alien place to Fletcher, full of customs and regulations that he barely understands, a place where thanks to time dilation even the kids in twelve year old bodies are far more adapted to this than he is.
But as typical with her she drills deeply into the characters and instead of keeping the focus on Fletcher pissing everyone off who is honestly trying to be his friend, she switches to the upper echelons of the ship's command, including the legendary captain's son JR who is assigned the task of integrating Fletcher before kills him. Its that bouncing between the two viewpoints that make the book work so well on a human level . . . you can understand the family loves their ship and takes such pride in what they do, but Fletcher's unhappiness isn't pulled out of thin air . . . subjected to a rough childhood with a dead mother and a parade of foster families he's managed to pull himself together practically on his own, something the ship with its deep communal ties and shared history can't understand. Having put himself into a position to follow his dream only to have the ship snatch him away due to bonds he barely feels, his discontent is intense and a late scene in the book where he reacts after some personal property is stolen makes that frustration palpable on both sides. Having lost nearly an entire generation in the war, they can't do this without him and he can't do it with them. Everyone understands why this has to work, at least for the short term until someone comes up with a better idea, but no one seems to have the faintest idea how to bridge the gap.
Fletcher's story alone would be sufficient meat for any story and at this point its clear to me that Cherryh's detailing the routine rhythms of spaceship life is like me discovering Raymond Chandler, its hits a sweet spot in me that I didn't know existed. But she's in an unusually expansive mood this time out and in addition to Fletcher's struggle to find something in common with people who are like "Oh boy! Space!" we have the parallel plot of Captain James Robert and the senior crew attempting to forge a workable peace in the wake of the Company Wars detailed in "Downbelow Station". Which means, yes, a lot of talk about trade negotiations, and while all those people who got fits reading the opening crawl to "The Phantom Menace" might get that same uneasy feeling here Cherryh's version of people in space discussing tariffs is much more interesting, at least for those who find the complex politics of her future fascinating.
And it is for me, but I can also understand why this may not be for the casual Cherryh fan. Beyond some fistfights in station corridors there's very little in the way of action and a lot of internal discussion/exposition about relations between Alliance and the mostly unseen Union, much of which requires you to have some general knowledge of events circa "Downbelow Station" and a lot of background context for who unseen presences like Mallory and Mazian are, considering how much influence they have on the plot. If I hadn't just read a bunch of Alliance-Union books to refresh myself recently and tried to come into this cold I would be hopelessly confused . . . in other books where the politics are more opaque and you're mostly seeing the effects on the people who rest on the bottom rung its intentional but with the shifting of the big picture more in view this time it helps to have some background for why any of these tricky chess games matter.
I think the cross-section of the personal and the political makes for one of her better Alliance-Union books because it ties together both the pull of the history you're around to see and the one you know you won't get to see . . . its one of those books without an outright villain, merely people who resist the idea that they're all going to have to give up something to make room for each other and the crux of the book is how long is takes for everyone involved to realize that. It sprawls more than her books usually do, taking us from station to station and the darkness in between, intersecting with the ships and crews they also flit in the void and everyone everywhere trying to discern what everyone else really wants . . . writing about war is tricky enough but life and death stakes are exciting material for any writing. Here she writes about the messy process of picking up the pieces and getting everyone to trust each other enough to make sure it doesn't happen again and while that may not be as sexy as spaceship battles it winds up being the more rewarding approach. Because while what gets discussed in the rooms with the backslapping and champagne might decide the course of the next hundred years, its the smaller places where the more important acts are done, where two boys in a small room crack up over private jokes, where a great-grandmother hugs her grandson for the first time and gets to act like something other than her job title, where a son realizes all the pillars of his life aren't going to be around forever and some day someone will look at him the same way. In the space between one page and the next, between the last page and the page that never comes she makes you want to know what's going to happen the next day, and in a century and somehow doesn't make you feel cheated when you realize what you have is all you're going to get.
June 19, 2017
More Cherryh merchanter novels! This one is about Fletcher Neihart, a 17-year-old boy who through a variety of misfortunes was orphaned & stranded on a space station -- volleyed between foster families and trapped in a never-ending court battle, he nevertheless pushes himself to succeed and works towards achieving his dream of studying Planetary Sciences.
-- at which point his long-estranged spacer family finally wins custody over him, and whisks him away to a ship-bound life where his skill and passion is utterly irrelevant.
It's another tale of lonely misfits finding a home, and a bitter Fletcher coming to grips with his completely up-ended life, and slowly, slowly learning to trust again, after so many years of never having a real home or real family. I absolutely loved his arc and all of the family (especially JR ♥), plus the larger ships politics unfolding in the background of Fletcher's readjustment issues.
I liked this one quite a lot -- Merchanter's Luck remains my favourite, but this one didn't have any of the horrific missteps of Tripoint and actually felt like a much better-executed version of Rimrunners, in that Fletcher keeps winding up in fights with a crew who may resent him, except that this time there was a real, purposeful arc; far more likeable characters; real insight into the captains' politicking and schemes; and the small interpersonal plot actually dovetailed with the big-picture business.
It was pretty slow-paced, though, and sometimes suffered from long rambling internal monologues as characters pondered their situation-- it's part of Cherryh's style but I had a bit less patience for it this time around, partially because in this book it relied so much on the nitpicky intricacies and logistics of trading in the Alliance-Union universe and the physical position of space stations, etc. (Finity's End is probably vaguely tied with Tripoint in my mind, because again, although a lot bothered me in Tripoint, it did a lot else right and successfully hammered on all my feelingssss.)
Regardless, though, I really liked this, because aghhhh family feelings and misfits and found family. <3
(Random sidenote: This was a massively-sized physical hardcover library loan, so I made a concerted effort to tear through this in two days so a) I could safely hand it back before vacation, but also b) so I wouldn't have to carry it on the subway. I probably shouldn't have pushed it with so much reading, though. My brain feels like it's leaking out through my ears.)
-- at which point his long-estranged spacer family finally wins custody over him, and whisks him away to a ship-bound life where his skill and passion is utterly irrelevant.
It's another tale of lonely misfits finding a home, and a bitter Fletcher coming to grips with his completely up-ended life, and slowly, slowly learning to trust again, after so many years of never having a real home or real family. I absolutely loved his arc and all of the family (especially JR ♥), plus the larger ships politics unfolding in the background of Fletcher's readjustment issues.
I liked this one quite a lot -- Merchanter's Luck remains my favourite, but this one didn't have any of the horrific missteps of Tripoint and actually felt like a much better-executed version of Rimrunners, in that Fletcher keeps winding up in fights with a crew who may resent him, except that this time there was a real, purposeful arc; far more likeable characters; real insight into the captains' politicking and schemes; and the small interpersonal plot actually dovetailed with the big-picture business.
It was pretty slow-paced, though, and sometimes suffered from long rambling internal monologues as characters pondered their situation-- it's part of Cherryh's style but I had a bit less patience for it this time around, partially because in this book it relied so much on the nitpicky intricacies and logistics of trading in the Alliance-Union universe and the physical position of space stations, etc. (Finity's End is probably vaguely tied with Tripoint in my mind, because again, although a lot bothered me in Tripoint, it did a lot else right and successfully hammered on all my feelingssss.)
Regardless, though, I really liked this, because aghhhh family feelings and misfits and found family. <3
(Random sidenote: This was a massively-sized physical hardcover library loan, so I made a concerted effort to tear through this in two days so a) I could safely hand it back before vacation, but also b) so I wouldn't have to carry it on the subway. I probably shouldn't have pushed it with so much reading, though. My brain feels like it's leaking out through my ears.)
May 22, 2019
On Pell Station, Fletcher Neihart is no one. Born stationside after his mother’s ship (Finity’s End) was forced to leave her behind during the War, he’s never experienced merchanter life, but lacks station citizenship. In the last seventeen years, he’s lived with six different foster families, but only connected with the Hisa workers. Now, just as he’s starting to make something of his life, Finity’s End has come to reclaim him.
The B-plot is the sequel to Downbelow Station. The age of war and fighting is over, and now it’s time for the merchanter families to turn their ships to peaceful trade again. Senior Captain James Robert Neihart hopes to forge a new station/merchanter treaty before he retires, but with a succeeding generation that has never known peace, that may be easier said than done. Meanwhile, the young JR Neihart is studying to take command.
On the one hand, this is yet again a novel about an outsider resisting integration into a new social group, with interpersonal conflicts and history that spin up into a quick rush of action and a happy-for-now ending. There are actually two earlier books in this series with similar scenarios: Rimrunners and Tripoint (The latter even has family complications). On the other hand… I think this time Cherryh got it right. *
Fletcher is surprisingly stable for a Cherryh protagonist. That’s not to say he’s devoid of hangups—his experiences in foster care after his mother’s death have left him distrustful of humans and resentful toward his unknown relatives—but his reactions are within expectations. At first, he doesn’t want anything to do with his spacefaring family, dreaming instead of working with the Hisa of Downbelow. As time goes on, however, he forges a strong bond with his roommate Jeremy, and reevaluates his understanding of the Hisa.
The story finds a strong balance between Fletcher’s troubled integration with his family-crew and the command & political decisions to which JR is party. Although JR has a command position over Fletcher, they don’t have much direct contact. This back-and-forth between daily life and history-making is one of the strongest parts of the book, keeping the tone from falling too far to one side or the other. I’ve noted Cherryh’s pacing problems in the past, but they’re nearly absent here. Even the final action and resolution come together neatly and organically, rather than in a chaotic race to the end.
It’s not perfect: I don’t particularly care for the Hisa’s presentation, and I never have, but in my opinion, this is the strongest of the Company Wars novels. Like almost all the Alliance/Union Books, it can technically be read standalone, but I think readers with at least a passing understanding of the events of Downbelow Station will enjoy it more.
---
*Footnote: Do not, if you can help it, read Rimrunners > Tripoint > Finity's End one right after another. They differ in the details, but the basic setup is similar.
The B-plot is the sequel to Downbelow Station. The age of war and fighting is over, and now it’s time for the merchanter families to turn their ships to peaceful trade again. Senior Captain James Robert Neihart hopes to forge a new station/merchanter treaty before he retires, but with a succeeding generation that has never known peace, that may be easier said than done. Meanwhile, the young JR Neihart is studying to take command.
On the one hand, this is yet again a novel about an outsider resisting integration into a new social group, with interpersonal conflicts and history that spin up into a quick rush of action and a happy-for-now ending. There are actually two earlier books in this series with similar scenarios: Rimrunners and Tripoint (The latter even has family complications). On the other hand… I think this time Cherryh got it right. *
Fletcher is surprisingly stable for a Cherryh protagonist. That’s not to say he’s devoid of hangups—his experiences in foster care after his mother’s death have left him distrustful of humans and resentful toward his unknown relatives—but his reactions are within expectations. At first, he doesn’t want anything to do with his spacefaring family, dreaming instead of working with the Hisa of Downbelow. As time goes on, however, he forges a strong bond with his roommate Jeremy, and reevaluates his understanding of the Hisa.
The story finds a strong balance between Fletcher’s troubled integration with his family-crew and the command & political decisions to which JR is party. Although JR has a command position over Fletcher, they don’t have much direct contact. This back-and-forth between daily life and history-making is one of the strongest parts of the book, keeping the tone from falling too far to one side or the other. I’ve noted Cherryh’s pacing problems in the past, but they’re nearly absent here. Even the final action and resolution come together neatly and organically, rather than in a chaotic race to the end.
It’s not perfect: I don’t particularly care for the Hisa’s presentation, and I never have, but in my opinion, this is the strongest of the Company Wars novels. Like almost all the Alliance/Union Books, it can technically be read standalone, but I think readers with at least a passing understanding of the events of Downbelow Station will enjoy it more.
---
*Footnote: Do not, if you can help it, read Rimrunners > Tripoint > Finity's End one right after another. They differ in the details, but the basic setup is similar.
September 27, 2018
This is one of Cherryh’s older space operas, and I enjoyed it. I’m slowly working through all her Alliance-Union novels.
Seventeen years ago, Fletcher Neihart’s pregnant mother was left behind on Pell Station during the war, necessarily separated from her family’s Merchanter ship. Now the ship has returned, and Fletcher is abruptly yanked away from the life and career he had chosen, working with Pell’s Downbelow natives.
Most of the book focuses on Fletcher’s experiences when he reluctantly joins the ship and meets his hugely extended family - not all of whom are happy to receive him. I enjoyed very much the description of life on the ship, and how Fletcher forges a place for himself.
We also get a narrative from one of the ship’s junior officers who is training to be a captain. He follows the political part of the plot: the search for a way to make a lasting peace between Alliance and Union and the Merchanters. It has been a long time since I read Downbelow Station, and I was less interested in this part of the story.
Seventeen years ago, Fletcher Neihart’s pregnant mother was left behind on Pell Station during the war, necessarily separated from her family’s Merchanter ship. Now the ship has returned, and Fletcher is abruptly yanked away from the life and career he had chosen, working with Pell’s Downbelow natives.
Most of the book focuses on Fletcher’s experiences when he reluctantly joins the ship and meets his hugely extended family - not all of whom are happy to receive him. I enjoyed very much the description of life on the ship, and how Fletcher forges a place for himself.
We also get a narrative from one of the ship’s junior officers who is training to be a captain. He follows the political part of the plot: the search for a way to make a lasting peace between Alliance and Union and the Merchanters. It has been a long time since I read Downbelow Station, and I was less interested in this part of the story.
January 17, 2021
This is my second reading of Finity's End. My first reading was back in the 1990's, so this time around it was almost like reading it new. Contrasted against a backdrop of KIndle Unlimited and self-published books from Amazon, this excellent book by a master writer stands out like a shining star.
Well written, with excellent prose flow it tracks the struggles of a youth who has been dragged through a war-torn space station's foster system and ripped out of the career he thought he had carved for himself.
Central to the story is a Downer artifact. Fans might recall Downers from Down Below Station, also set in the Alliance-Union space. Well seeded with early clues, the story builds naturally to its surprise ending.
Well written, with excellent prose flow it tracks the struggles of a youth who has been dragged through a war-torn space station's foster system and ripped out of the career he thought he had carved for himself.
Central to the story is a Downer artifact. Fans might recall Downers from Down Below Station, also set in the Alliance-Union space. Well seeded with early clues, the story builds naturally to its surprise ending.
January 31, 2024
Fletcher, un jeune homme à l’enfance troublé par la mort de sa mère, travaille sur Downbelow, la planète sous la station Pell avec l’espèce native. Un jour, il est récupéré par le vaisseau Finity’s End, le plus vieux vaisseau marchand, faisant partie de la famille. Arraché à tout ce qu’il a jamais aimé, il doit se faire une raison et s’adapter à son nouveau monde.
Je ne suis d’habitude pas une fane des coming of age stories, mais qu’est ce que j’ai aimé ce livre ! L’intrigue politique en filigrane est très prenante, j’adore les différences entre la vie de stationner et celle de merchanter exposées par Fletcher, l’idée des vaisseaux familiaux - je me suis vraiment attachée à cet univers et ces personnages !
Je ne suis d’habitude pas une fane des coming of age stories, mais qu’est ce que j’ai aimé ce livre ! L’intrigue politique en filigrane est très prenante, j’adore les différences entre la vie de stationner et celle de merchanter exposées par Fletcher, l’idée des vaisseaux familiaux - je me suis vraiment attachée à cet univers et ces personnages !
February 17, 2011
This author's Cyteen is one of my very favoritest books. This book is set in the same universe, but it takes place in the other political faction's territory. The protagonist is compelled to give up his old life and become a crewman on a merchant vessel. The book is about that transition, but also about political dealings between the two factions, and within the merchant-spacer faction. I couldn't help noticing certain characterization elements that appeared in Cyteen, and sometimes when certain phrases or ideas are repeated, it's hard to tell if it's recycling or because the books are from the same cultural background. Or if somewhat similar environments have produced similar ways of thinking. Or a bit of all three.
Honestly, I can't help finding the Union side of things more interesting, I think, since Union is where they're doing all the interesting psychological and genetic experiments. Alliance is where they're distinctly spooked by all that. If the people who are the subjects of that experimentation ever showed up it would create some interesting tension, but it seems like that doesn't happen much in the Alliance novels.
Minor quibble: it seemed like the guy let go of his old life too easily. Even with the hyperspace thing. (This will make sense if you read/have read the book.)
If you want to read this, I'd recommend reading Downbelow Station first. You can get by without it, but it's useful context.
Added 13 Nov 2008: It's interesting that Elene Quen and Ari Emory (from Cyteen) are both interested in keeping humanity culturally cohesive. I missed that on my first reading of this.
Honestly, I can't help finding the Union side of things more interesting, I think, since Union is where they're doing all the interesting psychological and genetic experiments. Alliance is where they're distinctly spooked by all that. If the people who are the subjects of that experimentation ever showed up it would create some interesting tension, but it seems like that doesn't happen much in the Alliance novels.
Minor quibble: it seemed like the guy let go of his old life too easily. Even with the hyperspace thing. (This will make sense if you read/have read the book.)
If you want to read this, I'd recommend reading Downbelow Station first. You can get by without it, but it's useful context.
Added 13 Nov 2008: It's interesting that Elene Quen and Ari Emory (from Cyteen) are both interested in keeping humanity culturally cohesive. I missed that on my first reading of this.
January 19, 2014
After reading all the other Alliance books, I didn't think Finity's End truly made a substantial impact. It felt too similar to Tripoint, the same sort of loner kid learning to fit in with the other kids that don't play so nice.
I liked that Fletcher was a bit toned down compared to some previous main characters. There are many psychologically unstable and messed up people in this universe. I think for good reason, although it's somewhat hard to root for someone who is constantly punching people in the face over any argument.
There's not so much action in this installment. Even light for the rest of the books, which don't have much either.
Finity's End is focused on Fletcher's transition from an orphan to a family unit. He is raised by two Downers, Melody and Patch, but not like a feral creature on Downbelow - they're all on Pell station. Fletcher runs into the tunnels away from his foster families to spend time with them, and they form a close attachment.
He is taken aboard Finity's End, quite against his will. His mother, who overdosed years ago, was left on Pell Station, and the ship had intended to pick her up, but things became delayed. Fletcher is a citizen of the ship, whether he wants to be or not, and the skilled lawyers make him leave the Downers he loved.
What I liked the most is that Fletcher truly grows up during the book. There's a big change from him from beginning to end, and he makes a lot of very mature realizations about his life and the people in it.
I may be in the minority, but I like the hisa (Downers) and their return to the story. Their presence serves as a means for humanity to question their violence and war.
I liked that Fletcher was a bit toned down compared to some previous main characters. There are many psychologically unstable and messed up people in this universe. I think for good reason, although it's somewhat hard to root for someone who is constantly punching people in the face over any argument.
There's not so much action in this installment. Even light for the rest of the books, which don't have much either.
Finity's End is focused on Fletcher's transition from an orphan to a family unit. He is raised by two Downers, Melody and Patch, but not like a feral creature on Downbelow - they're all on Pell station. Fletcher runs into the tunnels away from his foster families to spend time with them, and they form a close attachment.
He is taken aboard Finity's End, quite against his will. His mother, who overdosed years ago, was left on Pell Station, and the ship had intended to pick her up, but things became delayed. Fletcher is a citizen of the ship, whether he wants to be or not, and the skilled lawyers make him leave the Downers he loved.
What I liked the most is that Fletcher truly grows up during the book. There's a big change from him from beginning to end, and he makes a lot of very mature realizations about his life and the people in it.
I may be in the minority, but I like the hisa (Downers) and their return to the story. Their presence serves as a means for humanity to question their violence and war.
August 26, 2017
"Finity's End" is either the final story in the Pell trilogy ("Downbelow Station", "Merchanter's Luck") or the sequel to "Downbelow Station". It is like "Merchanter's Luck" in it is a very focused story but like "Downbelow Station" it encompasses the larger themes of Alliance space. Cherryh writes tight psychological stories not space operas so you have realistic and dramatic action stories not space fantasies. Like all good material from this author culture clashes are the central driving force for the narrative. Just like an episode of "La Femme Nikita" the action is just the background for the real story.
Those interested in the hisa of Pell will be delighted to be exposed to more of the unique alienness of this species. Cherryh utilizes jumptime flashbacks to provide insight into the mysticism of the Downers and their relationship with humanity. The book also explores the culture of the merchanters as informed by relativistic time constraints, their familial relationships in a "merchant marine" profession, and their symbiotic condition with the stationers. Space commerce is far more developed in this work than her previous novels and many anachronisms have been avoided unlike earlier books.
This work has all the dynamic tension one expects in a Cherryh novel and she maintains it for almost five hundred straight pages - no mean feat. So grab it and hold like a merchanter bracing for acceleration!
Those interested in the hisa of Pell will be delighted to be exposed to more of the unique alienness of this species. Cherryh utilizes jumptime flashbacks to provide insight into the mysticism of the Downers and their relationship with humanity. The book also explores the culture of the merchanters as informed by relativistic time constraints, their familial relationships in a "merchant marine" profession, and their symbiotic condition with the stationers. Space commerce is far more developed in this work than her previous novels and many anachronisms have been avoided unlike earlier books.
This work has all the dynamic tension one expects in a Cherryh novel and she maintains it for almost five hundred straight pages - no mean feat. So grab it and hold like a merchanter bracing for acceleration!
August 3, 2009
A really good story about Fletcher Neihart and how his place is not where he starts out.
His mother was left on Pell by Finity's End when they had to leave in a hurry. She was pregnant and would not be able to cope with the warlike conditions on board during pregnancy.
When she suicided, Fletcher was 4 or 5, and got caught up in the system. He got passed from one foster family to another and another and then the legal system tried to involve Finity's End.
By the time he's 17 and the book starts, he's been rejected by everyone except the Downers, who are the only people he cares for or or who care for him.
Good book. Also has some background and not so back ground in relation to union/alliance/earth relations. And the next book is Cyteen, set on the Union home planet.
His mother was left on Pell by Finity's End when they had to leave in a hurry. She was pregnant and would not be able to cope with the warlike conditions on board during pregnancy.
When she suicided, Fletcher was 4 or 5, and got caught up in the system. He got passed from one foster family to another and another and then the legal system tried to involve Finity's End.
By the time he's 17 and the book starts, he's been rejected by everyone except the Downers, who are the only people he cares for or or who care for him.
Good book. Also has some background and not so back ground in relation to union/alliance/earth relations. And the next book is Cyteen, set on the Union home planet.
March 26, 2022
Very serviceable genre fiction, verging a bit toward YA. Lacks some of the grit of earlier books, and the aging thing never felt quite right. Felt like things wrapped up a little too neatly and all at once. Tended to drag after page 150, only to speed up over the last 30 or so pages. Still a good overall book.
March 21, 2023
Reread for the 3rd time. I really feel for Fletcher, former foster kid now back with his merchanter family whom he never knew... lost on a huge ship with a lot of unspoken rules he doesn't know.
December 19, 2021
Somehow, I got out of sequence and read this book before the earlier Tripoint. C.J. Cherryh says that the Union-Alliance books can be read in just about any order. Nonetheless, Finity's End constitutes the closest thing I've yet read to a sequel to Downbelow Station, so I would at least recommend reading that classic novel before this one.
Set approximately 18 years after the events of Downbelow Station, this novel begins on Pell Station, with the crew of the titular ship negotiating for the return of one of their own. Stranded on Pell because his mother gave birth during the war, Fletcher Neihart is a Merchanter by birthright. But the management of Pell feels that Finity's End owes them something for feeding, housing, and educating Fletcher over a couple of decades. A deal is finally struck, and the teenage Fletcher becomes a member of the Finity's crew. Except that he doesn't want to go, and hides out on the planet below. Fletcher has become friends with the native Hisa and wants to become a scientist to further study their culture. He holds out for a time, but is eventually remanded to custody on the ship.
From there, the novel becomes a fish-out-of-water tale. Despite his biological age, Fletcher finds himself well behind the younger crewmembers in knowledge and experience. He doesn't understand his role on the ship, nor its functions and SOP. He certainly doesn't understand the social hierarchies associated with a closed community where nearly everyone is related to the others in some fashion, nor the complexities of age when time dilation is a factor. Due to his inexperience, he must take on the most unskilled tasks (e.g. laundry, kitchen, etc.) while others his age are learning to be pilots and communications officers. Meanwhile, some of the members of the "junior" crew dislike the special treatment Fletcher receives, and make his life difficult with hazing rituals and other distractions. For his part, Fletcher schemes to find a way to (legally) return to Pell Station, on the next circuit of the ship, approximately one year in the future - less, accounting for the time dilation of interstellar travel.
Cherryh has said that this book should not be considered a YA novel, and there's certainly no reason to limit it in that way. Still, this reminded me an awful lot of Heinlein's "juvenile" books, with an emotionally difficult, but ultimately resourceful and admirable protagonist. Fletcher means well, but is a young man caught up in circumstances well beyond his control. His relationship with his cousins and crewmates feels complex and realistic, and the ways in which the two sides win each other over plays out in psychologically authentic and satisfying ways. Throw in a subplot involving a smuggling ring, and an big brother-little brother relationship with a junior crew member named Jeremy, and you have all the elements of a solid sci-fi action tale, not to mention a traditional coming-of-age story.
Cherryh juggles all of these elements with seeming ease, making this perhaps the most enjoyable and satisfying novel in the series to date. If you found Rimrunners to dark, or Heavy Time to obscure, this one might refresh your palette. I recommend it.
Set approximately 18 years after the events of Downbelow Station, this novel begins on Pell Station, with the crew of the titular ship negotiating for the return of one of their own. Stranded on Pell because his mother gave birth during the war, Fletcher Neihart is a Merchanter by birthright. But the management of Pell feels that Finity's End owes them something for feeding, housing, and educating Fletcher over a couple of decades. A deal is finally struck, and the teenage Fletcher becomes a member of the Finity's crew. Except that he doesn't want to go, and hides out on the planet below. Fletcher has become friends with the native Hisa and wants to become a scientist to further study their culture. He holds out for a time, but is eventually remanded to custody on the ship.
From there, the novel becomes a fish-out-of-water tale. Despite his biological age, Fletcher finds himself well behind the younger crewmembers in knowledge and experience. He doesn't understand his role on the ship, nor its functions and SOP. He certainly doesn't understand the social hierarchies associated with a closed community where nearly everyone is related to the others in some fashion, nor the complexities of age when time dilation is a factor. Due to his inexperience, he must take on the most unskilled tasks (e.g. laundry, kitchen, etc.) while others his age are learning to be pilots and communications officers. Meanwhile, some of the members of the "junior" crew dislike the special treatment Fletcher receives, and make his life difficult with hazing rituals and other distractions. For his part, Fletcher schemes to find a way to (legally) return to Pell Station, on the next circuit of the ship, approximately one year in the future - less, accounting for the time dilation of interstellar travel.
Cherryh has said that this book should not be considered a YA novel, and there's certainly no reason to limit it in that way. Still, this reminded me an awful lot of Heinlein's "juvenile" books, with an emotionally difficult, but ultimately resourceful and admirable protagonist. Fletcher means well, but is a young man caught up in circumstances well beyond his control. His relationship with his cousins and crewmates feels complex and realistic, and the ways in which the two sides win each other over plays out in psychologically authentic and satisfying ways. Throw in a subplot involving a smuggling ring, and an big brother-little brother relationship with a junior crew member named Jeremy, and you have all the elements of a solid sci-fi action tale, not to mention a traditional coming-of-age story.
Cherryh juggles all of these elements with seeming ease, making this perhaps the most enjoyable and satisfying novel in the series to date. If you found Rimrunners to dark, or Heavy Time to obscure, this one might refresh your palette. I recommend it.
July 28, 2023
A coming of age story in space. Fletcher is an orphan, his mother was a spacer but he was born on a station, and all he wants is work planetside. His mother's family shows up and he gets shanghaied onto their ship. He is basically sold by the station as a diplomatic bargaining chip to further a plan that could end a twenty year old war. Fletcher is not much pleased. He has never been on any ship, has never met any of the people who claim to be his relatives, has a lifelong distrust of authority, and has just had his life's goal taken from him, along with his girlfriend. And the ship people act like he should be thrilled that they came back for him 17 years later. He's not.
There are two threads to this book. One is the story of Fletcher and his reaction to having his life upended for reasons he knows nothing about. He's a foster kid with a police record and getting drafted onto a quasi-military ship goes about as well as could be expected, which is not well at all. He does some fighting and learning and fighting and growing and fighting, while the ship people try to convince him with deserts and YouTube that shiplife is super cool, as long as you like working the laundry or being a galley scut. Basically, they took him off a planet that he loved doing skilled labor that he loved and put him in an 8 x 10 prison cell, with a roommate, set him up as a cafeteria worker, and expected him to thank them for it. It takes a while for him to adjust.
The second thread is a complex diplomatic negotiation being run by the captain of the ship. They travel from base to base, have many meetings with various peoples, and try to work out a system that will end a twenty year long three sided war. If you find diplomacy interesting (I do) then it's pretty good and quite complex. If diplomacy isn't your thing then half the book is going to be a bore.
The writing follows what has become a predictable pattern. Something happens for a few pages, then somebody spends the next 10 pages thinking about it. Rinse and repeat. Despite this, and the fact that I didn't particularly like Fletcher or any of the characters and the outcome was not the way I would have gone, it was still a good read.
There are two threads to this book. One is the story of Fletcher and his reaction to having his life upended for reasons he knows nothing about. He's a foster kid with a police record and getting drafted onto a quasi-military ship goes about as well as could be expected, which is not well at all. He does some fighting and learning and fighting and growing and fighting, while the ship people try to convince him with deserts and YouTube that shiplife is super cool, as long as you like working the laundry or being a galley scut. Basically, they took him off a planet that he loved doing skilled labor that he loved and put him in an 8 x 10 prison cell, with a roommate, set him up as a cafeteria worker, and expected him to thank them for it. It takes a while for him to adjust.
The second thread is a complex diplomatic negotiation being run by the captain of the ship. They travel from base to base, have many meetings with various peoples, and try to work out a system that will end a twenty year long three sided war. If you find diplomacy interesting (I do) then it's pretty good and quite complex. If diplomacy isn't your thing then half the book is going to be a bore.
The writing follows what has become a predictable pattern. Something happens for a few pages, then somebody spends the next 10 pages thinking about it. Rinse and repeat. Despite this, and the fact that I didn't particularly like Fletcher or any of the characters and the outcome was not the way I would have gone, it was still a good read.
January 14, 2019
Great read. Another link in the Merchanter/Alliance series--Cherryh does something very engaging for this reader with her fictional universe. Some Characters appear in many of the books, not usually in a central role in more than one book, but the perspective on each of them is slightly different viewed from the perspective of other books' own central character(s). Great chase scene in station tunnels!
The characters in this book, 17 years after events at Downbelow Station, are grappling with the transition from a long, bloody, essentially guerilla war, that raged through the events of many of the other books in the series, to a real peace. The oldest character, the "Old Man" of "Finity's End" is trying to return the youngest generation in this Family ship (who have lived their entire lives in conflict) to a peace that none of them is old enough to remember. The book examines the effect of war on all the characters, human and non-human, and the attempt of the Old Man to bring the youngest members of his crew through to living peacetime lives without nerves at combat ready.
This necessitates focus on some of those younger family members, as well as senior crew--Fletcher, raised on Pell in the aftermath of the fighting there-representing the stationer view--contrasted with the spacers of Finity's End--senior and junior, who have fought and lost almost half of the ship's crew--and resent the idea of abandoning fighting for another, more subtle kind of battle.
Really nice contrast of station life vs. shipboard life--painted through the experiences of Fletcher and the reaction to him when he joins the crew-neither Fletcher, nor his age-mates on the ship have any desire to know, or understand each other--but in the end, Fletcher comes to understand both the value of where he left, and the ship whose mission he has come to believe in.
The characters in this book, 17 years after events at Downbelow Station, are grappling with the transition from a long, bloody, essentially guerilla war, that raged through the events of many of the other books in the series, to a real peace. The oldest character, the "Old Man" of "Finity's End" is trying to return the youngest generation in this Family ship (who have lived their entire lives in conflict) to a peace that none of them is old enough to remember. The book examines the effect of war on all the characters, human and non-human, and the attempt of the Old Man to bring the youngest members of his crew through to living peacetime lives without nerves at combat ready.
This necessitates focus on some of those younger family members, as well as senior crew--Fletcher, raised on Pell in the aftermath of the fighting there-representing the stationer view--contrasted with the spacers of Finity's End--senior and junior, who have fought and lost almost half of the ship's crew--and resent the idea of abandoning fighting for another, more subtle kind of battle.
Really nice contrast of station life vs. shipboard life--painted through the experiences of Fletcher and the reaction to him when he joins the crew-neither Fletcher, nor his age-mates on the ship have any desire to know, or understand each other--but in the end, Fletcher comes to understand both the value of where he left, and the ship whose mission he has come to believe in.
January 5, 2024
A stranded war orphan is taken in on his family ship just as it's organizing a major political agreement. A lot of the later Alliance-Union books have the same premise: outsider joins a new crew under strained or entirely nonconsenting circumstances; makes a life for themself there anyway. But the books themselves don't feel the least repetitive; each is a different breed of ship, a different adopted society. This one focuses on the children of a family ship and has two plotlines: the A-plot is the newest recruit's difficult induction into his peers, and the highest stakes are a stolen personal possession; the B-plot is Alliance-wide politics and the entire future of family ships. That dual structure solves the issues that many of these ship-based books have, where the bulk of the text is slow relationship and character development and the action is backloaded and largely disconnected from the character journey. It's better balanced throughout and the climax/resolution stays within the local, interpersonal realm because the larger politics are structurally disconnected.
This also offers some meaty worldbuilding around family ship structure, particularly the social effects of aging during jump. Sometimes Cherryh will intimate that the human cultures have become fundamentally alien from one another, see: the Company books positing a fundamental terrian/spacer divide that never feels entirely convincing because both PoVs are too similar and too comprehensible. But this - this is convincing: the fundamental level on which jump effects aging, and how attenuated aging impacts maturation, and how it differs from real-time aging, is substantiated in the whole dang plot, and it's chewy and emotionally satisfying.
This also offers some meaty worldbuilding around family ship structure, particularly the social effects of aging during jump. Sometimes Cherryh will intimate that the human cultures have become fundamentally alien from one another, see: the Company books positing a fundamental terrian/spacer divide that never feels entirely convincing because both PoVs are too similar and too comprehensible. But this - this is convincing: the fundamental level on which jump effects aging, and how attenuated aging impacts maturation, and how it differs from real-time aging, is substantiated in the whole dang plot, and it's chewy and emotionally satisfying.
December 3, 2024
Finity's End is the second book of the Alliance-Union series (aka Company Wars) featuring the legendary starship, literally the space's white knight; the other book is the recent (2024) prequel "Alliance Unbound", which also sees Finity at the centre stage.
If Alliance Unbound proposes a tour of the abandoned Hinder Star Stations (Thule, Galileo, Olympus - real space ghosts), here we are taken around the "Rim Stations", those critical stations on the frontier between the Alliance territory and the Union's: Mariner, Voyager and Esperance, constantly hanging in the balance between the two forces.
Many are the common elements between the two novels: we find here not only the sae legendary captain (James Rober Neihart) but also the key character (Fletcher) is named after the man who, several decades earlier in the prequel, involuntarily triggered the series of events which led to the start of the war.
Here like in the prequel, Finity is the active instigator of complex political and diplomatic plots aimed at ending the war of which they were the unwilling originators; what we have as a bonus in this book is the indepth psychological analysis of the effects of grafting a foreign body onto a very culturally uniform, conformative and closed organization.
The "foreign body" here being the above said Fletcher Neihart, boarded on the starship after spending all of his his life on spacestation Pell, which makes him a "stationer", i.e. totally unfit for the culture of a very tight family ship of "spacers". The unraveling of an explosive situation that risks to break the ship unity takes a good half of the story and it is a pretty insightful glance into the workings of such a complex organization like a mega starship.
All in all, one of the best reads of the series.
If Alliance Unbound proposes a tour of the abandoned Hinder Star Stations (Thule, Galileo, Olympus - real space ghosts), here we are taken around the "Rim Stations", those critical stations on the frontier between the Alliance territory and the Union's: Mariner, Voyager and Esperance, constantly hanging in the balance between the two forces.
Many are the common elements between the two novels: we find here not only the sae legendary captain (James Rober Neihart) but also the key character (Fletcher) is named after the man who, several decades earlier in the prequel, involuntarily triggered the series of events which led to the start of the war.
Here like in the prequel, Finity is the active instigator of complex political and diplomatic plots aimed at ending the war of which they were the unwilling originators; what we have as a bonus in this book is the indepth psychological analysis of the effects of grafting a foreign body onto a very culturally uniform, conformative and closed organization.
The "foreign body" here being the above said Fletcher Neihart, boarded on the starship after spending all of his his life on spacestation Pell, which makes him a "stationer", i.e. totally unfit for the culture of a very tight family ship of "spacers". The unraveling of an explosive situation that risks to break the ship unity takes a good half of the story and it is a pretty insightful glance into the workings of such a complex organization like a mega starship.
All in all, one of the best reads of the series.
June 8, 2022
This was very nearly another 5.
During this re-read of the Company Wars, it has struck me that the books have always had strong elements of political economy, imaginative world building and a sense of historical scope. This one has all those elements, but is at heart a simple coming of age story. Not just of a person, but of a society.
On its outer shell this is told from the perspective of a 17 year old who was left behind by his ship in the womb (during the events told in Downbelow Station). Now the ship is back for him, again, and this time things are changing.
This is also a book about how you stop prosecuting a war when said war has no defined end, there is no dictator dead in his bunker or anything like that. It's just a war that is dragging on in the shadows mostly because no one quite knows how to stop. A bit on point for the modern experience of war. This story is about how one set of people have a vision and the will to have a go at stopping it. It's gripping stuff in my opinion
The reason I can't quite get to a 5 star review (and it was very close) is I had a sense that the book didn't really come to life until the protagonist went into space. Or, in story terms, the opening act maybe dragged a little? It is, as I say, a minor quibble.
This book is the end of the Company Wars sequence but I still have 2 more (maybe 3, I am never sure of 40,000 in Gehenna) to go in this dive back into Cherryh's worlds. Those books cover roughly the same timeframe in the story's timeline but from a vastly different viewpoint.
Of course this is recommended.
During this re-read of the Company Wars, it has struck me that the books have always had strong elements of political economy, imaginative world building and a sense of historical scope. This one has all those elements, but is at heart a simple coming of age story. Not just of a person, but of a society.
On its outer shell this is told from the perspective of a 17 year old who was left behind by his ship in the womb (during the events told in Downbelow Station). Now the ship is back for him, again, and this time things are changing.
This is also a book about how you stop prosecuting a war when said war has no defined end, there is no dictator dead in his bunker or anything like that. It's just a war that is dragging on in the shadows mostly because no one quite knows how to stop. A bit on point for the modern experience of war. This story is about how one set of people have a vision and the will to have a go at stopping it. It's gripping stuff in my opinion
The reason I can't quite get to a 5 star review (and it was very close) is I had a sense that the book didn't really come to life until the protagonist went into space. Or, in story terms, the opening act maybe dragged a little? It is, as I say, a minor quibble.
This book is the end of the Company Wars sequence but I still have 2 more (maybe 3, I am never sure of 40,000 in Gehenna) to go in this dive back into Cherryh's worlds. Those books cover roughly the same timeframe in the story's timeline but from a vastly different viewpoint.
Of course this is recommended.
February 28, 2024
The starship Finity’s End has returned to Pell Station orbiting above Downbelow Station, where the native downers, or hisa, live a seemingly bucolic life. The renowned Captain James Robert Neihart commands it and, weary after twenty years of war, he is looking to extend the current ceasefire by uniting the Alliance and Union merchanters into a power bloc to thwart pirates under Mazian. But first he has some unfinished business with an adolescent orphan left on Pell, a relative, Fletcher Neihart. Fletcher has become embittered through failures of adoption and some of his own pigheadedness and is plucked from a job he loves among the hisa and transferred to the Finity’s End. Part political maneuvering and part genuine wish to assimilate a ‘cousin’, the transition does not go easily or well for young Fletcher, who must adjust to what he thinks is yet another temporary arrangement. This powerful coming-of-age story has it all. The reader genuinely feels for Fletcher while acknowledging his many mistakes, and his efforts to get along are thwarted by age-peers who don’t want him there. As the ship heads off on its brokering mission to a succesion of stations a number of emergencies give Fletcher and the crew opportunities for personal growth and redemption. (I really really wanted that missing hisa artifact found!) You get invested with C. J. Cherryh’s characters and, despite being part of an ongoing series, it stands alone. Recommended.
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