Having loved Gate of Ivrel, I eagerly snatched up several more CJ Cherryh books from eBay. One of them was Heavy Time, part of her Company Wars sub-series in the greater Alliance-Union Universe. The third book in this sub-series, Downbelow Station won Cherryh her first Hugo, so I was excited for this.
That excitement didn’t last long. 220 pages into this 350 page science fiction-flavored xanax, even sunk cost fallacy couldn’t carry me through to the end. I rarely DNF a book, often forcing myself to keep reading even if I’m not enjoying it. Not this time. What went wrong?
I can’t relate to this at all. Unless I have to read a book (for class, say, or for work), if the book isn’t working for me by page 50, into the DNF pile it goes and I seek something else. (Movies have 20 minutes. TV series have 3 or 4 episodes. But everything has a time limit in which they have to grab me or get disposed of.)
I have no idea, for example, outside of cultural osmosis, what happened in any Harry Potter book because I got 50 pages into the first one and just went “ugh” and tossed the book into the giveaway pile.
To go more specifically with your actual point, now, C.J. Cherryh’s oeuvre is kind of a mixed bag for me. Like you I loved the Morgaine novels. I also loved the Chanur novels I’ve read. But the “Company Wars” books are more miss than hit for me.