Frank Burns reviewed Heavy Time by C.J. Cherryh
Review of 'Heavy Time' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
So, doing a bit of a Cherryh retrospective given conversations around Political Economoy when I read Alliance Rising. This, in publishing terms, is near the end of her Company Wars output but chronologically is at the start.
I have an odd history with this book. Read it once back in the mid 1990's and its more a reflection of the me then that I didn't really rate it. Was not enough 'space opera' in it for then me, also a lot of it is from the perspective of someone who is having a trauma induced breakdown.
In this re-read I find the me of the mid 1990's was a bit of a putz (no surprises there to anyone who knows me).
This is a taut exploration of hardscrabble economics on the raggedy frontier of space exploration in an inward looking Solar System whose colonies have just told it to do …
So, doing a bit of a Cherryh retrospective given conversations around Political Economoy when I read Alliance Rising. This, in publishing terms, is near the end of her Company Wars output but chronologically is at the start.
I have an odd history with this book. Read it once back in the mid 1990's and its more a reflection of the me then that I didn't really rate it. Was not enough 'space opera' in it for then me, also a lot of it is from the perspective of someone who is having a trauma induced breakdown.
In this re-read I find the me of the mid 1990's was a bit of a putz (no surprises there to anyone who knows me).
This is a taut exploration of hardscrabble economics on the raggedy frontier of space exploration in an inward looking Solar System whose colonies have just told it to do one.
For a book of the 1990's it has a lot of eerily prescient parallels to economics today. The characters are basically gig economy workers. Asteroid miners, to be fair but still. Thus, how things shake out will come as little surprise.
There is a tight little story here, delivered in the author's trademark machine gun dialogue. Oddly foreshortened sentences with broken structures and vocabulary stolen from all over the shop.
I can definitely give this a recommend. Past me was wrong.