One of the things that hooks me about this book is that it is about so much more than just far future space stuff. I can see why this book won the Hugo.
The crews of Merchanteers are typically families, from what I know so far. So, you're cooped up in this metal boat, and everyone is your cousin. When you hit the dock, there's that human need to fill. Sex. Intimacy. So, you hit the station bar and jump on the first person willing.
From our typical prudish viewpoint today, we frown upon that. We'd call them whores. Or, we'd liken it to sailors hitting port--any hole in a storm. Dogs let loose to sniff each other.
Cherryh does an amazing job of shedding that real-world prejudice and seeing it from the eyes of the characters in the story--from their perspective inside their universe.
The Merchanteers are against in-breeding. So, what can they do? It makes sense, from that POV.
And, if a child is born, the entire ship raises it--not just the mother and father (as the mother or father is probably not on the ship).
The Merchanteer ships are more than just trader vessels with a crew. They are traveling homesteads carrying the flag of proud people--proud families.
The discussion that Damon and Elene have about leaving the station or the ship when they met--when they married. Damon didn't think he could have done it. Elene did do it, but she thought that she could always go home.
It reminds me of a moment I had with a long term girlfriend back in the day. She wanted to go off the pill. Selfish me, I wanted her to stay on the thing. She suggested that I take the male's version of the pill. And, all of a sudden, I saw the argument in a completely new way. I wasn't sure I wanted to take some pill that would screw with my hormones and what-not.
"Exactly," said that girlfriend.
This intersection between the sexes, Cherryh has touched on brilliantly. Whether we're talking about something intimate like what I just revealed about my own past (I never did take that pill, and she stayed on it.), or if we're talking about something more common, as when a husband and wife argue over the wife giving up her career so that the family can move and allow the husband to have his.
Remembering this kind of stuff in our lives is interesting (at least, I think so), especially when strained through a science fiction filter.
Cherryh's work is quite remarkable.
