Maybe not one of Cherryh's very best, but still a gripping encounter between Merchanter famiies in the Alliance/Union unverse.

Marie Hawkings off Sprite was looking for her first dockside experience and ended up with the Auston Bowe off the hire-on ship Corinthian. The encounter ended in a dockside brawel, expulsion from Pell and 9 month's later Tom Bowe-Hawkings.

Tom with the off Family name, never really fitted into Sprite's atmosphere, and being raised by the slightly crazy Marie certainly didn't help - she is still fixated on revenge on Austin. But the ships schedules carefuly don't overlap until well after the War, some 40 dockyears on, and Tom is in his 20s. Marie sees her chance - Corinthian has been skirting the edges of the law and she thinks she can get him caught. Instead Tom ends up shanghaied onto the one ship he's never want to see the insides of.

The discipline and life in a hire-on ship is so vastly different from that he knows in the regimated and ordered life as a Family ship. With a Fleet navigator and dockside toughs as unloaders Corinthian is an odd ship anyway, Austin, now captain, has an unpredictable temper and his son - Tom's half brother Christian isn't much better. But Tom survives, and as Sprite tracks them across to Pell again, he begins to realise that different isn't necessarily bad, and that there are many shades of grey in the meaning of honesty.

The worst part about this book are the changing POVs sometimes without much warning, and it isn't always obvious which character is on - the choices jump between: Tom, Marie, Christian, and Austin. A slow start gradually builds in pace and tension. There is one unusal concept, that of darkwalker - that doesn't appear in any other books except the very much later Compact - is intrueging as is the reference right at the very end of the book.

Fun and more details on the Alliance universe. Well worth reading, but it is worth reading DownBelow Station first as it explains a lot of the background. ( )

I had mixed feelings about this book.

Cherryh certainly knows how to put together a taut story. This is a thriller in space that keeps you turning page after page as the storyline builds towards an exciting climax.

The setting is strong. Cherryh’s Alliance-Union universe is a compelling place, featuring intriguing and believable politics, economics, social and military conflicts. And, much more than in most space opera, there is something realistic about how people live and work in this universe – industrial specialization, drudgery, occasional danger, a ship’s internal culture and economy.

Having said that, this book doesn’t really explore the implications of this compelling universe in any meaningful ways. The characterization didn’t particularly work for me. The Hawkins-Bowe family is seriously messed up, and I had a hard time believing the sudden swings into and out of functionality in how they interacted with each other. Some of the supporting cast worked better. The weird sexual dream state that accompanied jump felt awfully contrived and not even remotely needed.

All in all, not as good as the first two books I had read from this author, but I’ll definitely plan to read more. ( )

The Alliance-Union novels can be read in any order, since very few of them are actually tied together. If you want to read the stories in the order in which they occur, this one is sometime after Downbelow Station and before Finity's End.

I particularly liked this one because it mitigated some of the portrayal of the Fleet in Downbelow Station, giving us a more balanced perspective on both sides of the various conflicts. ( )

Tom is the result of a not to happy encounter between one Marie Hawkins and a Austin Bowe - both young at that time.

20 years later, at his mother's ship, the family merchanter Sprite, he is pariah; no one wants him, no one trusts him - he is a Bowe, they are known scoundrels, possibly smugglers dealing in people's lives - and he reminds them of an event everyone want to forget.

By unlucky circumstances (his mother is stalking Bowe, and he is trying to win her favour) he one day wakes up in the brig aboard Corinthian, the Bowe ship, where he among other things find out he has a younger and rather jealous brother... And it is very clear that he is not wanted on this ship either.

A disturbing tale, evoking a sense of danger on almost every page, in every line, in every breath.
Every time I've finished a Cherryh novel I find myself wanting more. This book is no different.
A very good read. ( )

Another great book in the Alliance-Union series. This book focuses on a couple of Merchanter ships: Corinthian, a small ship that has a reputation as a smuggler, and the other, Sprite, a family ship (though not a Name).

The story is about a sexual encounter on the docks that went wrong, between main people on each of the ships. The repercussions, along with a child have dogged both ships for over 20 years. While in this instance it was sex, it could be any important, emotional interaction that goes wrong and the harm done to the parties, and those who are family and supporters.

The story has Tom, the child of the union end up on the wrong ship, where because his mother has been stalking and taunting them, he is not welcome. He also finds another women has also produced a son for his father. So there is a rivalry just waiting with plots and anger. The story is very engrossing, and sucks you in. How it is very easy to fight with those closest to you because they know what buttons to push, how it is hard to find your way when those who should care and guide you won't.

Tom has to decide where he belongs, and if he is going to be his own person, or his mother's instrument of vengeance. All the characters are great. The setting is very interesting, and it seems with each of these novels, new information about jump, and downbelow, and the war and the factions after it are developed. This book introduces the concept of a nightwalker- someone who can stay awake and sane through jump. Navigators who can smell and hear points and objects in jumpspace.

I really wish she would write more in this series. I think that when all this does exist, it will be very similar to what she has written - in terms of ships and stations, and the feeling of actually being there. ( )