In the sequel to 'Heavy Time' and prequel to the Hugo award-winning 'Downbelow Station', Paul Dekker is a skilled pilot with the Earth Company Fleet - a new militia being under construction and tasked with suppressing the colony uprising on the planet Cyteen. Dekker is a part of the Hellburner program, a high-speed piloted weapons platform designed to protect its home carrier and deliver ordnance. A joint program between the Fleet and Earth's United Defense Command it's a political hot-potato and accusations of wrong-doing toward Dekker by his late partner's mother, an influential MarsCorp executive, are causing headaches for all involved including Lt j.g. Jurgen Graff, Dekker's superior. After an attempt on Dekker's life, UDC Lt. Ben Pollard, Dekker's associate from Refinery 2 and one of his original rescuers from an accident in the Belt, is brought in for support along with his girls Friday, Meg Kady and Sal Aboujib. Meanwhile Graff, a Fleet loyalist, is butting heads with Col. Tanzer, the program's UDC R&D director over whether the Hellburner platform should even be piloted.The second prequel to 'Downbelow Station', 'Hellburner' sets up several of the players who will appear in the series' first published novel including Graff, who becomes Signy Mallory's XO, and Edmund Porey, the captain of the Earth Company Ship Africa. The story is political power play and CJ Cherryh's writing is so crisp that courtroom hearings over munitions requests become engrossing. Like all the 'Company Wars' novels before, there are very few 'good guys' and 'bad guys' - only loyalties and history. While the Fleet in earlier novels is portrayed as a glorified pirate force, at this stage of history they're the line between the vat-grown Cyteen rebel forces and Earth.If you've read 'Heavy Time' I highly recommend the sequel.
A great sequel to Heavy Time! I would highly recommend reading Heavy Time before Hellburner to get introduced to the characters.I thought the buildup to the end was done well. The intensity was great and, as always, I like that Cherryh doesn't explain everything to dumb the story down.Sometimes it is hard to understand the world Cherryh has created. There's a lot of lingo and references to things that are barely explained. Although I think the world would be richer if she had went into more detail, I like that her focus is on the characters completely.Although Ben can be annoying, I didn't dislike him in Hellburner. I liked him more than Heavy Time, which surprised me, because at first I wasn't so enthralled with him narrating much of the storyline in the beginning. I think I was able to understand his pov better. He had his reasons for wanting to avoid Dekker. Not everyone can be a saint.Dekker seemed toned down since the last novel. Sal and Meg were the same, although they get a bit more character development in Hellburner.I liked how the characters are kept within their bounds of knowledge and experiences. No one is making incredible leaps of logic, but instead, they struggle with their questions, while trying to not crumble under pressure.
Do You like book Hellburner (1993)?
Cherryh's books can be hard to rate. This one for example. It's tech-heavy, frequently hard to understand, full of internalised angst and labyrinthine politics. Plus which I hadn't read the book before this one, which meant I was playing catch-up a lot of the time.But ... the human stories inside all that stuff are gripping. That's why I keep reading her, even when it means not knowing what's going on half the time. She does space opera like no one else, with all the complex humanity and bitter divisions that dog our species no matter where we go.In this particular novel, the story of the pilot who has lost touch with reality, and the friends who have been brought in to haul him back, while inter-planetary politics implode and the test program of a new ship unwinds around them, is deeply satisfying.
—Lian Tanner
This is science fiction at its best. It contains lots of futuristic technologies and uses scientific terms without losing you. Cherryh has a masterful way of weaving together social commentry and attacks on corruption into her stories. This book, its direct predecessor Heavy Time, and the next chronologically - Downbelow Station all are set against the earth clinging to its old ideas as being the centre of the universe and how more advanced colonies are throwing off this yoke. While all this is going on private companies and power mad individuals are still playing their own provate power games thinking no further than the end of their nose. Sound familiar?The main character of this book is Paul Dekker who has suffered traumas in the previous book, and has again suffered trauma while as a test pilot for the top secret hellburner. His associates and friends from the previous book are brought in to help him get over the trauma. One of the members of this group, Ben Pollard, does not really like Paul and sees him as a threat to his plans. This antoganism between the two characters is interesting and adds a dimension to the story as there is not only conflict against hidden antagonists.Power games, and political abuse always gets me wound. It shows how good at weaving this type of story Cherryh is as it got me as wound up as it does when I see politicians abusing their power and misusing public funds for their own good. I don't think this is as good as Downbelow Station which at this time I think is her finest work, but is definitely excellent and worth reading.
—James
