Port Eternity

Age of Exploration #1

by C.J. Cherryh

Their names were Lancelot, Elaine, Percivale, Gawain, Modred, Lynette and Vivien, but they were not characters from legend. They were made people, clone servants designed to suit the fancy of their opulent owner, the Lady Dela Kirn. And they worked aboard the Maid, an anachronistic fantasy of a spaceship, decorated with swords, heraldic banners, old-looking beams masking the structural joints, and lamps that mimicked live flame. They lived in a kind of dream, and had no idea of their origins, their prototypes in those old, old story tapes of romance, chivalry, heroism and betrayal. Until a wandering instability, a knot in time, a ripple in the between sucked them into a spatial no-man's-land from which there seemed to be no escape. And they were left alone, with the borrowed personas of their ancient namesakes, to face a crisis those venerable spirits were never designed to master.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Arthurian, Science Fiction Fantasy, Collections, Space

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1982

About the author

Currently 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.

Reviews

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Lady Dela Kirn is a fabulously wealthy citizen within the future world where humans have spread to the stars using FTL drives. She owns a magnificent star ship, the Maid of Astolat beautiful and anachronistic. Because the lady Delas liked ancient fiction, and the terrific, sad romances of the Kind Arthur type were her favourites. The Main of Astolat is decked out in swords and banners and has a feast hall.

Lady Dela went further than naming just the ship; most of her servants, pilots and waiting staff are not 'born men' they are manufactured and Lady Dela has given them names from the romances she loves. Thus we have our narrator Elaine, who is Lady Dela's maid, we have Lancelot and Vivian, Modred and Percival all of them conditioned to know only what they needed to serve Dela. None of them knowing anything about the source of their names, except Elaine who has a habit of sneaking total immersion tapes from the library and knows the Arthurian tales.

Now, Dela has taken a new lover, Griffin, and they are off for a star cruise, but a wandering instability sucks them through, they are trapped unable to return to their own space, forced to rest against a wreckage of earlier ships sucked through, and something is trying to get in...

In this tense scenario, the tape that Elaine knows and which led to a massive crisis of identity for her, is accidentally used by all the other 'made-men' on board. Will they stay true to their programmed natures or will they lapse into the roles that their namesakes in the old drama played out?

This classic science fiction by an author I always loved was one of the most beloved of my sci-fi books as a teenager. Sadly, which the characters and the cover art were embedded in my mind, I could never remember the title, so it has taken me many long years to find it again.

I love it as much on re-reading, decades later, as I did as an 11 year old.

PS. I know many people would argue this is not science fiction, that it is 'space-opera'. I do not disagree with them, they are probably quite correct, there is not a lot of hard science, it is mostly character based fiction and social commentary. Still. I am option out of the salami slicing that is the sci-fi VS space-opera VS Fiction debate. I am done, I just don't care. If it was published as sci-fi (back in 1982) and I rist read it as sci-fi (around the same time it was published) then I am calling it sci-fi because going back and rewriting history is just too tedious for me. End rant.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very early novel by Cherryh, first published in 1982, but already demonstrates her trademark prose and style and is set (loosely) in her Alliance–Union universe. Our narrator and main protagonist, Elaine, is a gene-spliced clone who was brought up on 'tape' and then sold to Lady Dela. Dela, immensely wealthy, likes her fantasies, and designed and built her luxury spaceship along the lines of the King Arthur mythos; hence, all the crew (also gene-spliced clones) are named after characters in the mythos, as her her personal attendants like Elaine.

The story starts with Lady Dela, with her latest lover, embarking upon a leisurely space cruise when something goes wrong; for some reason, the ship was pulled out of normal space and locked into 'subspace'. In this universe, ships 'dip into' subspace during FTL travel, a harrowing processes that humans need drugs to keep their sanity, but it is unprecedented to be stuck in subspace. It seems the ship is, however, marooned there and becomes attached to a massive, bizarre torus littered with other, alien spacecraft. Worse, there are obviously aliens alive on the torus and they seem to want in the ship...

Port Eternity felt a bit more philosophical than Cherryh's usual work and explored what it means to be human from the standpoint of the clones. Clones are conditioned and then bought/sold like chattel slaves, except they are sterile. Once they turn 40 or so, it is off to the recycling farm. Are clones really people with free will, or are they simply organic, programed robots? What happens when several of them, along with 'born-men', are trapped in a hopeless situation and threatened by the unknown? These questions are at the heart of this tale. All in all, a good read and Cherryh is one of my favorite authors. Nonetheless, it feels more like an exploratory work and lacks the nuance found in her later works. 3.5 stars!!

[Samantha (AK) · Rating 4 out of 5]

At an indeterminate point on the Alliance-Union timeline, the Lady Dela, her lover Griffin, and her Azi servants (Elaine, Lance, Lynnette, Percival, Vivian, Modred, and Gawain) are preparing to voyage aboard Dela's luxury ship The Maid of Astolat when they are pulled in by a wandering instability in space-time. Trapped in the folds between time and space, the crew confronts the possibility of eternity separate from everything they have known.

This is Cherryh's self-indugence: a mock-Arthurian romantic space thriller, with each chapter headed by a quote from Tennyson's Idylls of the King. While the chattel-status of Elaine and her fellow Azi is a chilling undercurrent, the mood avoids the oppressive claustrophobia that Cherryh is known for. Instead, there's a softness about it all, like a dream gone slightly sideways.

And there are dreams. It's clear early on that the Lady Dela has cultivated a careful fantasy for her household, and the unreality of their present circumstance makes the trappings of that fantasy increasingly real, the crew of The Maid latching on to what stability they can, because outside something is lurking...

Read if you like Alliance-Union, but want something a bit less oppressive than the norm for that 'verse.

[Pete Storm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is right on the edge of greatness.

At it's heart, it's a bunch of partial characters - a rich woman with an overwrought fantasy life, her clone servants and their programmed personalities, and the enigmatic new lover - trapped in a maddening pocket dimension. There are parts where the characters start to break apart, slowly going insane, and you realize they weren't whole to begin with, and maybe the narrator is unreliable. Those parts are cool. Parts of it, where it's a simple retelling of Arthurian myths in space, are less compelling. Unfortunately, it ends on the latter note.

It very much feels like a missed opportunity.

[Lucian Bogdan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nu mi-a plăcut.

O femeie bogată și iubitul ei călătoresc la bordul unui iaht spațial alături de servitorii lor - clone ce imită personaje din legendele arturiene. În timpul unui zbor, nava rămâne captivă în continuumul spațiotemporal și ajunge într-o dimensiune paralelă, unde întâlnește alte nave ce au avut parte de accidente similare. Creaturile de pe una dintre aceste nave încearcă să urce la bordul iahtului.

Îmi pare rău, dar am fost incompatibil cu această carte. Teoretic, cred că ar fi un fel de romantic thriller. Întreaga acțiune se concentrează doar pe relațiile dintre personaje, pe filozofii peste filozofii, în timp ce, undeva, planează spectrul terorii că niște ființe încearcă să forțeze intrarea în navă. Personal, partea de teroare nu mi s-a părut că e construită astfel încât să inducă o tensiune reală, să mă facă să dau paginile cu nerăbdare, tot mai temător la ce s-ar putea întâmpla. Probabil că asta a fost și din cauză că preocuparea principală a autoarei a constituit-o redarea relațiilor dintre ocupanții navei. Ceva extrem de plicticos pentru mine. Din cauza asta, nici măcar referințele la legendele arturiene (un element care, de obicei, mă atage) nu mi-au stârnit vreo reacție. O carte la fel de plicticoasă ca orice volum mainstream, unde nu se întâmplă nimic deosebit de viața de zi cu zi (drame personale, diverse trăiri, emoții, filozofeli de nemurirea sufletului bla-bla-bla).

[Nicole Luiken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm all out of recent Cherryh's so decided to try a backlist one. Wow, books were so much shorter back then! The book is a whopping 190 pages. Despite its age, the story holds up well. An accident in space but the old plot is made fresh by being told from the POV of an azi (not the word used, but basically the same as from the Cyteen novels). The azi are so vulnerable to "born-men" that they make for gripping reading; the layering of Arthurian myth and how this screws with the azi psyche just makes it even better.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

All my existence was pretense, the pretense of the tapes which fed into my skull what my makers and my owner wanted me to know and believe; and until I was sold to Dela and until I saw Dela's secret fancies, I thought that the difference between us and born-men was that born-men lead real lives, and see what really is, and that this was the power born-men have over the likes of us. But all Dela wanted with all her power was to unmake what was, and to shape what the story tapes told her until she lived and moved in it. So then I was no longer sure what was true and what was false, or what was best in living, to be me, or to be Dela Kirn.

C.J. Cherryh's Port Eternity is an early novel which explores her concept of azi, slaves biologically engineered to pre-selected criteria. Cherryh's "azi" do not, in any sense of the word, have "free will" or "independent thought." Their thoughts and skills can be erased and replaced. In Port Eternity, an azi, Elaine, tells the tragic story of how her Lady's ship, the Maid of Astolat, is lost in a strange netherworld between normal space and hyperspace. Circumstances change, and two "born-men" (the Lady Dela and her devoted mate Griffin) and a crew of azi must adapt to survive.

Odd as it sounds, Lady Dela is a fan of King Arthur legends, and so she has used her wealth to re-create a Camelot on her spaceship peopled with Arthurian characters: Lancelot, Gawain, Elain, Modred, etc. When these characters discover the "source tape" outlining "who they are," the tension is ratcheted up. I'll won't provide spoilers, but it is interesting.

While the novel has pacing issues, the characters and the conflict kept me engaged. This is an early Cherryh novel wherein she still hasn't coined the term "azi" for these servants, but her exploration of their unique perspectives and how they adapt to change is a fascinating read.

Highly recommended.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this in 2013 but I still think of it from time to time, enough so that when I listened to High Noon Over Camelot by The Mechanisms it occurred to me in 2021 to worry how a High King Arthur cowboy would take it floating in cyro only to healed and awoken in time (lol on Avalon?) meeting clones of his family and friends who might have been themselves clones.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminds me a lot of Cordwainer Smith. Psychologically indoctrinated staff of the marooned spaceship resemble his underpeople. It does seem to end in medias res, though.

[Cecilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short read jam-packed with human-interest themes - What is a life's purpose? How do people work and live together when they are so completely different? Can kindness and forgiveness see us through difficult times? What would your happy, eternal "place" look like?

The imagery was also so efficiently written that there was very little wasted where words and time were concerned.

I would have really loved to see this as a short film.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this is the first of Cherryh's Age of Exploration series, and features a whole new dimension of space, the real exploration is self-exploration as a group of characters come to terms with their own identities. A slow burn, but a very interesting one.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Port Eternity is a stand-a-lone novel taking place in the Alliance-Union universe. It is about the relationships among a super-wealthy born-women (Dela) and her born-man lover with her several owned Azi servants who have been exposed to tapes meant for born-men only. It explores the in depth interaction between two races: Human and Azi as only Cherryh can accomplish.

The prohibited tape concerns the Arthuran legend. Each of the Azi was named by Dela after an Arthurian character. The effect of learning what their names really mean by experiencing the legends has a profound effect on the Azi.

The story is told while the ship is lost in "trans-space", a type of subspace which is chaotic and like being lost in the mists wherein is Avalon. Her description of the effects on the senses of the humans and Azi is told in a way that become horror. It is really scary. A reader who identifies will be profoundly scared by the space-time and it's description. It's one of the most 'literary' moments I remember from Cherryh.

A familiarity with Cherryh's universe will help understand this novel. Cherryh does not overtly tell us it's the same universe of the Alliance and Union. She does not even call the servants Azi. If you are familiar with these things, it is obvious.

[Arthurianmaiden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book with a frown and zero expectations because I picked it in an arthurian mood (and in the blurb it's clear that the characters are not really the arthurian ones) and I've never liked sci fi.
I ended up loving it.
I loved the way Cherryh writes her characters, how everything is told so neatly from one point of view, from the reactions to other characters to feelings and interpretations. It's such a layered novels that I feel like I should reread it, one day.
Even if it's not really an arthurian novel, I still liked how the characters were arthurian and how the author interwined arthuriana with them, especially Percival and Lancelot. I won't write more because there would be a lot of spoilers.
The only reason this novel doesn't have five stars is because I was felt a bit let down by the ending, not as dramatical as I expected.

[Matt Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much better than I'd feared, this is a quietly absorbing little read. The quasi-Arthurian conceits dwelt upon by the Lady in charge and that frame the entire story are awkward, but maybe they serve better that way. The narrative voice made it for me, and it suited the material especially well since both that voice and the underlying theme within the narrative resemble those in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Leaving spoilers aside, there are implicit questions on the value of a life and the existence of the soul. As Elaine wonders at one point*,

How do you make sense of a whole life in a why?


[* p. 141, in my edition]

[Sacha Blu · Rating 3 out of 5]

My understanding is this is one of Cherryh's earlier novels. I loved Downbelow Station for its fast paced adventure, relatable protagonists and political intrigue. This is not that.

This is a very slow paced story taking place inside a spaceship after it had an accident during an FTL jump and wound up permanently trapped in a discontinuity.

Despite being under 200 pp. it took me a wk to read because every reading session resulted in my falling asleep after 10 -20 min. I kid you not. This has never happened to me before.

I have not read Cyteen (long on my list) or any book with Azi but Ive read enough reviews and book covers to know that the protagonist and her fellow staff and crew are Azi's - some type of cloned human with artificially programmed intellectual, emotional and instinctual parameters. Azi are chattel slaves that can be bought or killed.

Their owner Lady is a interstellar business magnate with a soft spot for Arthurian legends. She has named all her Azi after characters from the legend and decorates her comfort ship, The Maid of Astolat, like a medieval fantasy. She has a new human boyfriend aboard.
Only Elaine, her personal maid- the youngest azi and the protagonist- is familiar with the tales of King Arthur from the entertainment "tapes" in the library which are for born-men but she has always liked.
When the ship is caught in a discontinuity, nobody knows what to do. Not only does it affect the balance of power and affection among the humans and azi, but it also leads to an existential and identity crises among the azi -- especially once they mistakenly turn on the Arthurian tape and confuse their originally programmed psych-sets with their Arthurian roles...

There is some character development but nothing- or rather very little- actually occurs in most this book exvept subtle interpersonal observations by Elaine. And what does occur is repetitive- ie pages will be spent about empyting a wing of the ship, taking everything out, what Elaine carries out, what she thinks about this, what she thinks about every other person and azi and how she interprets their behavior, etc. Than less than 100 pgs later, having never had any consequence, pgs are spent moving the stuff back. Alot of the "stage managing" makes no logical sense. Even the parts that were more plotty, like what Modred was trying to accomplish on the bridge, made no sense and nothing or very little came of it.
I did like the end , though i know others didnt. Id prefer if it had started in that new environment with alien beings.

Despite this criticism , i didn't totally dislike the book. It was just a bit like the literary fiction debut of a writer under 35yo.
And there is a bit of going in labrythine stories that occurs in medieval romances say of Chretien de Troyes, which Cherryh may have been attempting to recreate that sort of thing on purpose but Im not sure it worked.

This wouldve made a great short story or even novlette, perhaps even novella. But like 100 pgs could be cut easily.

What worked. Well, being a fan of Arthurian legends really helps, but the azi shouldve watched the tape sooner and had more clear fallout from it, more explicit effect on actions.

I like that Elaine does not describe herself or the azi characters by their looks very much. Even tje humsns are mostly desribed as blond- Lady Dela a platinum blonde and Griffin more golden. By the end I know Elaine is youngest, Lancelot is large/buff, Modred is dark haired and close-clipped, Vivien a petite brunette and Lynette has freckles. Other than that, their characters and physical descriptions are distinguished more by How they move and behave etc - and their characters are very clear from one another, without being too stereotyped or 2D. I think that took talent and skill on part of an author , especially when they ARE explicitly based on archetypes. Also Elaine is a likable protagonist, incredibly aware of her and the other azi's vulnerability to born-men, but also curious, generous and brave.

Overall, if youre a raging fan of Cherryh or arthurian legends, youll probably find something to like, but Im not sure about your average space opera afficianado or general scifi reader. It is only 191pp but you have to be committed and diligent (or a speed reader) to not get bored/doze off.
I dont regret reading it, because I feel tjerd is something there, some kernel of truth or importance, but it and the story wouldve been better served being much shorter and focused.

I do regret how much time and reading sessions were wasted in the attempt.

[William Leight · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fairly weird book. The presence of azi -- humans who were manufactured, not born -- suggest that it's set in the Alliance-Union universe, although Cherryh doesn't (as far as I can remember) use that term, so maybe she was hedging her bets. They are the crew of the pleasure spacecraft Maid of Astolat, and all have names taken from Arthurian legend, in particular from "The Idylls of the King": a whim of their owner, the extremely rich born-human Dela, who, along with her born-human lover Griffin, are the ship's other passengers. When a jump -- the book's form of FTL travel -- goes wrong, the ship is pulled permanently into jumpspace, something that was not thought possible, and ends up attached, along with many other ships, to what seems to be a station. Even worse, some of the inhabitants of the station may be hostile, though communication with the alien is extremely difficult. The idea is that, in the crisis, the azi start to revert to the personalities of their namesakes, helped along by the fact that they get hold of a tape of "The Idylls of the King" (or possibly some other version of the legend) which shows them how they are, in some sense, supposed to act. As clones defined not by personalities but rather by programmed psych-sets that have no instructions on what to do in a situation like this, the pull of the personalities offered by the story turns out to be difficult to resist. It's an interesting idea but I'm not sure if Cherryh is entirely successful in pulling it off. Part of the point of the book is that the context is so different from that of Arthurian legend, but that's also the issue: the context is just so different that it's hard to see how the actions of, for instance, Modred in "The Idylls of the King" could be relevant. Mordred betrays his father in an attempt to usurp his throne: he has no such motivation here. For one thing, there's no Arthur, and for that matter no Guinevere either: Griffin and Dela sort of occupy those roles, but as they are born-humans they can't inhabit them in the same way azi could, so their relationships with the azi are bound to be different from the parallel relationships in the legend. So it's not surprising that, with the possible exception of Elaine and Lancelot, who have a similar sort of love triangle with Dela as their namesakes do with Guinevere, the azi mostly don't come all that close to occupying the roles their names suggest to them. Cherryh handles the outer suspense, as the crew of the ship tries to figure out whether they are facing attacks by hostiles or attempts to communicate by friendlies, very well, so the book remains readable, but I'm not sure I would recommend it to anyone unfamiliar with Cherryh.

[j · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first Cherryh, simply because I came across an old paperback super cheap (I'd typically start with a more noteworthy text, when it comes to an acclaimed author). The opening is quite gripping -- with Cherryh writing in a prose style that funnily enough reminded me of my own. It's a sort of vaguely metrical kind of poetic prose that contains enough rhyming that it cannot be thought to be purely coincidental, but which is nonetheless colloquial, akin to a sort of "literary speak", with commas serving as pauses more than for simple grammatical convention. Once the expositional section is done and the plot gets underway the prose becomes more meat and potatoes. You see this sort of thing in so many novels.

The more this book progresses the more it comes across as a novelette trapped inside a novel. Not that this is a long novel by any means, but it still feels padded. I was convinced that I knew what third act complication Cherryh was preparing to introduce, but the stretched middle section plods on so long and the page count dwindles, and then the ship opens and there's nothing interesting in there after all that.

There are plenty of interesting questions about the formation of identity and the way it relates to class and the mythologizing that precedes our birth, the roles we are expected to fill, the duties and codes we are to be bound by. Cherryh executes the world-building elements really organically.

I'm certainly interested enough to read more of her work, particularly assuming her award winning classics have earned their reputation.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting premise, but the execution was long and boring (which says something about how little happens in this story since it only clocks in at 190 pages). It really comes off more as a thriller more than a science fiction book. It has a science fiction setting, but it's really a sort of "bottle episode" book, where the main characters deal with a stressful situation and anticipation and fear drive most of the narrative.

It apparently takes place in the Alliance-Union Universe, which really only adds to the oppressive and claustrophobic feeling of the novel, since the perspective character is one of the slave-clones that played such a prominent role in Cyteen . I think stories of directly-felt oppression like this are fine and can be very powerful, but this one just didn't work for me. It wasn't even depressing like Cyteen so much as just unpleasant.

2 of 5 stars

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

The crew of the spaceship The Maid are made-people, tank-grown humans who have been programmed to serve, in this case the wealthy age-modified born-person Dela and the latest in her procession of younger lovers, Griffin. Unbeknownst to the crew and servants they have been programmed based on a whim of Dela's to have personalities modeled on Arthurian legend and so they have names like Lancelot, Gawain, Elaine, Perceval, Modred etc. Just prior to transition into translight their engine suffers a catastrophe malfunction stranding them in subspace where, through boredom and a desire to avoid panic, the made-people discover an immersion tape of the very myth from which they are designed. The revelation that they are constrained to follow certain personality paths disorients their programming and they must confront a strange reality with an unreality. C. J. Cherryh has fashioned a thoughtful look at what it means to be human amidst a becalmed ship - until something comes knocking at its door while in the blank of no-space..

[Caleb Best · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite characters - Elaine, Percy, Lance
Favorite Moments - Mordred's betrayal, Lance and Griffon Wrestling, The Last Chapter

I am just astounded by how good C.J. Cherryh is. This - like all her work - is a beautiful example of how to take a plot that could be complicated, and focus it so you want help but be enthralled by the characters. Every single character in this book is multidimensional. Their relationships to each other and themselves evolve throughout the book, and you can't help but be on the edge of your seat. I don't get how Cherryh writes such engaging dialogue and characters. Elaine, being the Narrator, really made this book. I think Cherryh could have styled it differently, but I do not think you would feel as close to our characters if you weren't in the mind of a character like Elaine, who knows and loves them all.

[Jacob Kays · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first time reading any science fiction, and what I thought was going to be a super fantasy alien story turned out to be more of a suspense mystery novel than anything. While I would have liked more backstory on the station and the aliens that inhabit it the ending was satisfying enough. The main problem I had with the book that stopped it from being excellent was the redundancy of the middle chapters. At times the repetition of investigate the noise, build new defenses, panic, gets old. The pacing may have been a little off but the characters are interesting and overall it’s a compelling story. I feel that if I read through this book again, not bogged down in my expectations that I would enjoy it vastly more. A strange/cool story, varied/interesting characters, 3.75/5

[Kelly Simpson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
This was my first C.J. Cherryh book and it wasn't was I was expecting. Yes, this book is a sci-fi but there aren't many "sci-fi moments" throughout. Instead, this book focuses a lot on the characters; it's an interesting exploration of humanity, individually, and social programming.
I found the last 50 pages of the book to be most exciting and filled with sci-fi intrigue. Arthurian references are on almost every page and despite not being too knowledgeable of the lore I felt like I was able to follow along.
Overall I'd recommend this book to someone who likes sci-fi but also has an appreciation for literary fiction.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a kid I checked this book out of the library many times, each time vaguely hoping it would be a fantasy Arthurian book. But no, it stayed stubbornly a book about space travel and clones, albeit clones named after Arthurian characters. Reading it as an adult, I appreciated it a lot more on its own merits, which is as an atmospheric tale exploring--in part--how the extremely wealthy become less human than the people who are required to work for them. It ends more hopefully than one might think, given that premise.

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

"In my late teens I encountered the space opera of C. J. Cherryh through the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Downbelow Station (1981).* I was hooked. Her paranoia-drenched spacescapes, interstellar freighters, the awe-inspiring cumulative world-building effect [...]"

[Jason Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author published this book in 1982. I have read many books from that era. I was alive in that era. This book reads, and for my original hard cover version looks, as though it was much older.

Yet, or maybe because of that, it is interesting and relatively short. It’s a mix of Bladerunner, Solaris, and Silent Runnings; with just a touch of Event Horizon.

[Isblue · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world building is not as strong as it is in some of her universes, but the key thing about her world building is it is so much better than most, that it remains extremely well done. I enjoyed this book very much.

[Aamundson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kindof an interesting idea. I was compelled to keep reading it to about halfway through because I was stuck in a waiting room with nothing else to do. After this I just couldn't get back into the plot. Eventually skimmed a bit to finish out the story.

[Penny · Rating 2 out of 5]

bizarre and sad.

[Robynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never been fond of King Arthur et al, but I loved this version of the legend.

[Sue Chant · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 out of 5 stars. A bit confused and chaotic.