2020 reread. Holds up very well for an early work. The storytelling never falters, and the ideas and execution are really, really good. Strong 4 stars

Here's the author's essay on writing, editing, and proofing the book:
http://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2011...
That's what you should read first. No spoilers to speak of. Possibly TMI.
Excerpt:
"Possibly there was just a little too much going on in that book. You have space adventure, caper stories, espionage, rivalry between clans, economic theory, and a first-contact story with aliens. All with a couple juvenile protagonists who have lots of sex (particularly once they hit port), and play lots of music, and thereÂ’s all sorts of drugs lying around. Plus UbuÂ’s a four-armed synaesthesiac with weird memory problems, MariaÂ’s a subatomic witch, and theyÂ’re both haunted by the ghost of their father, whoÂ’s insinuated himself into the shipÂ’s computer.

Also there were a few serious ideas floating around. I wanted to work with the idea of frontiers. On the American frontier, first contact between nations wasnÂ’t between Colonel Launcelot of the U.S. Cavalry and Big Chief Thundercloud, it was always between guys nobody ever heard of, between Little Big Fart and Hans Dypschytt, and both of them so terrified they were pissing their drawers and liable to make crucial mistakes. Contact was between people on the margins of their own worlds, people who were on the frontier because they were despised or down on their luck or had nothing to lose."at-slo-paso-bg-pa high-priority reread-list ...more14 s Kristin1,127 31

July 2012 bookgroup selection.

I initially read this about 1990, while I was in college, probably suffering though some math or calculus class. I remembered enjoying it. Fast forward 23 years, add in the world of social networking, and it came to my attention that this might be worth a second read. I have to say it was, and I know I got more out of the universe portrayed in the book now than when I first read it. A little life experience can do that.

We have the economics of space life, where itÂ’s every trader for himself and family. Where one bad run can end oneÂ’s livelihood and indenture that spacer and spacers family to planet life or indentured to one of the big Companies.

We have first contact. Not between governments, but between the little guys. Both sides want to make a buck and keep doing what they want to be doing.

We have cool aliens. I a book with interesting aliens.
We have rivalry between the traders themselves as they fight tooth and nail to keep doing what they are doing. And what happens when one trader ultimately succeeds in doing what the rest have been striving for.

We have some good science fiction with the singularity jumps and the shooters who navigate space. We have an electronic witch, able to manipulate electrons, but not always good enough to stay out of trouble.

So, ultimately, I thought this was a pretty darn good read the second time round.
science-fiction scifi-bkgrp-selection11 s Thomas2,195

Williams, Walter Jon. Angel Station. Tor, 1989.
Angel Station is, perhaps, the most original of all Walter Jon Williams’ novels, and rereading it after many years impressed me anew. Evidently, Williams himself had a similar experience. When he first published it, he thought it was a mess, but he says that reformatting it for ebook publication, he was surprised at how well it worked. It is a far-future first-contact story with all the pop and sizzle the best cyberpunk. Its main characters, Ubu Roy and Beautiful Maria are sibling “shooters,” who have the gene- and drug-enhanced reflexes to navigate their FTL ships through artificially generated singularities. But, they are young, down on their luck, and haunted by the holographic ghost of Pasco, their dead father. He created them through gene-splicing. Ubu Roy, the ambitious “bossrider” of their ship, has four arms and cat reflexes. Beautiful Maria, his sister and sexual partner, is a “subatomic witch” who, with the proper drugs, can perceive and manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum at a quantum level. Their lives become more complicated when they meet a hive-mind alien with problems of its own. The alien is itself a well-developed character, and there is some surprising thematic complexity incorporated in the novel’s structure. If you missed this one, I would put it on your list.
4 s StarMan659 17

IN SHORT: Sex, Drugs, Rock n Roll. Oh, and spaceships and aliens, too.

An imaginative, cyberpunkish,and sometimes mildly psychedelic or cartoonish sci-fi story. Setting alternates between planetside and space/spaceships.

Stars two capable young people who don't clothing, get freaky a lot, snort uppers & downers (completely legal and sometimes necessary), and have run after run of increasingly bad luck -- some of it self-inflicted.

Then they accidentally encounter something extraordinary, possibly quite dangerous, and certainly life-changing. Now if only they can figure out how to profit from it, and clear their names...

VERDICT: 3.33 low-grav boinks. Different, mostly entertaining, memorable. Not high on realism, loveable characters, or characters with common sense or good interpersonal communication skills. But overall, good escapist fare with some mild humor (but no laugh-out-louds for me).

TRUTH IN COVER ART? LOW TO NOPE, except that Beautiful Maria does have long dark hair. Some of the alternate covers are worse, though.

SIMILAR-ish TO THIS YA BOOK:

ENTANGLED by Amy Rose Capetta: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...aliens artificial-intelligence nekkid-people ...more4 s Baron Greystone137 1 follower

I just finished re-reading this book for the umpteenth time. Fortunately it had been long enough that it almost read a new book.

The setting is well-developed. No super surprises, but very vivid images. Nothing too far-fetched, and interesting perspectives. Taking the givens and running with them, the plot moves along in a very satisfying fashion.

I've read several of William's books, and really enjoyed them all. Especially the three in Ten Points for Style.

For some reason, I had it in my head that the author was deceased. But I just ran across a novel published in 2008, so I googled and am now overjoyed to find that I was mistaken! Yay for me, now I have more reading to look forward to.3 s Laz the Sailor1,577 83

Ah yes, a classic scifi tale from the 90s. Put together a little augmentation, some high quality drugs, some loose morals, and some damned-if-you-do options, and you've got a space-opera romp. Despite(?) that, this was a very well put together book, with some surprises and double-crosses to keep it interesting.

This author, along with early Stephensen and a few others, really led the way into cyber-psychedelic stories before VR and the Cloud ever existed.scifi3 s N54

I loved loved loved this book when i read it in 1990. Certain elements of it stuck with me for a long time after i'd forgotten its title and author. It was those unique things that i remembered that helped me find it again just recently. Angel Station is just as good now as i remembered it being. all-time-favourites cyberpunk scifi2 s Mason3

Great space opera. I especially love how important music is to the characters.2 s Jo WaltonAuthor 79 books2,926 Read

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/08/the-...2 s Kat Hooper1,584 402

will review at www.fantasyliterature.comaudiobook2 s Phil1,919 180

Good space opera by Williams! Beautiful Maria and Ubu were created by a 'shooter' (e.g., a FTL pilot) named Pasco. As humanity consolidates among the stars, the 'free traders' are getting pinched by the corporations, being pushed into the very fringes of space. Maria and Ubu are barely getting by on their ship, but when a contract falls through, they are stranded at Angel Station and their ship seized for landing fees, etc.. Against the odds, they seek one more score...

Williams builds an intriguing universe with Angel Station that reminded me a bit of Firefly with the free trades/smugglers barely making a living on the outskirts of space. Throw in lots of drugs and sex, along with some rock and roll, something akin to Mick Farren's work, and we have a story of survival and the (modified) human condition. The two main characters, Maria and Ubu, were not really developed much and the supporting cast is wooden to say the least. Nonetheless, events pull the story along some surprisingly twisty paths to reach a grand ending. As far a 80s scifi goes, this is a winner. 3.5 stars.cyberpunk science-fiction1 Thomas Merrick63 1 follower

Great story.

This story is great sci-fi with a setting fully realized. I enjoyed all the slang and the interesting characters. If you enjoy great story telling you'll enjoy this book.1 Steven Latta75 1 follower

Dear lord what a slog.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who really d this book. However, I wasn't one of them. Shallow. That's the one word that comes to mind thinking back on it. The story was shallow. The characters where shallow. There wasn't a likable character to be found in the whole book. For a book that covers multiple star systems and months, if not years of time, the whole thing is held together by coincidence after coincidence.

A pair of down on their luck freight haulers set out to a random star system hoping for a one-in-a-million score. An alien ship arrives in the exact same system while they are there, and guess what, they're down on their luck looking for a big score too! Not only can they communicate, they will happily take the crappy computers off the humans hands. And oh, no problem, they can make tons of legal, but valuable, drugs in return. Throw in a double cross from a character the reader knows is going to do it from their first scene, a few more scenes to make the already unlikable cast even more unlikable and it finally, thankfully, all ties up in a neat bow at the end.

The whole thing reads marginally better than fan fiction, but not by much. And hell, this is the first novel I've ever bought that had an errata page stuck in it due to printing/editing errors. I've got two more of this author's books on the shelf. It took me a year to get through this one. I don't see myself starting another one any time soon. Eventually, but not soon. Dan128 5

A strange novel with strange (too strange?) protagonists, crammed with ideas (too crammed?) and tangents, but nonetheless hit the spot - I was looking for "hard sci-fi" that was still fun, a crew of a ship getting tangled up in intrigue on some sort of space station. Angel Station is that and much more, and then when Ubu and Beautiful Maria accidentally make first contact with some hive-mind aliens... things get really strange. I Walter Jon Williams - his Dagmar trilogy was great present-day near-speculative fiction. This was fun in a different way, complete with unexpected ending. Scooby Doo755

Better than a novel I previously read by this author called "Hardwired", the characters in this novel are much more believable. Some interesting science fiction and the plot relies on more than simple action as in "Hardwired". I would have enjoyed hearing more details about how the protagonists plan to save the shooters worked out in the end. Maurynne Maxwell697 24

Reading Willams' older work after finally reading the Praxis, dragged an advance copy around for years but glad I could read the first three wham bam. These older ones are giving me a picture of the early 80s scifi I missed while in the commune...and I'm understanding a lot more of what's going on now from these past future-thought experiments. Lara145

Stranger than expected

A full departure from anything in typical sci-fi, which is actually good. The characters are far from perfect people and they had complex and interesting lives. The story was solid and full of surprises. Recommend! Bria853 70

3.5. Too much time spent on human filler, not nearly enough on the main characters, the aliens. Rare that you see first contact treated so casually, though, , it's barely a big deal to anyone except how can it make them money?? Maybe that's sorta the point...This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full review David H.2,173 25

Williams plays with a lot of ideas that are fascinating here, and I love it for that, but it was hard to love the story that's at the center of this book, which is all about some increasingly marginalized independent freighters trying to make ends meet, and due to a first-contact situation, end of scoring hugely and being transformed in turn by circumstances. There's also some pseudo-incest here that's just not pleasant at all to read, even if it's sort-of-not-really-but-it-is. The larger issues of space economies really are quite striking, and the final chapters show an amazing amount of escalation.science-fiction Ladd2 1 follower

I was a great book but it lost at the end. Not every book needs a fairytale ending. Tressa3,736 9

I lost interest in Angel Station and did not finish listening to the audiobook.audiobook did-not-finish science-fiction Curt268 6

I'm stubborn so I finished this. A weak 3 at best. There was not one likable character. Maybe if I had read it closer to when it was written? Holly Mcentee487 1 follower

Too bad the cover art is so damn cheesy - almost put me off the book entirely. Lindley Karstens2

Fun stand alone. Kind of fell flat at the end. It felt there wasn't a clear vision for the plot so it was all character driven and they weren't well enough defined to carry the book. Patrick30 1 follower

dnfscience-fiction Joshua Sorkin26

As always, Williams has built a fully functional universe with grand scope, and given a lot of thought to how the characters react to the toys that he has built for them to play with.

This may be an odd criticism, but I felt it difficult to engage with the characters because I felt that they didn't care about me. I guess what I mean by that is that they are all deeply self-interested people. To be sure, there's the ongoing theme of the Shooters' loyalty to their whole culture of spacefarers and their disdain for casual consumers and exploiters of that culture, but in a way, I feel they are just too cliquey for me to feel comfortable letting them get too deep into my thoughts. I get the feeling that they are all vaguely impatient with one another. Which may be intentional on Williams' part: the point is that these people have all been rapidly matured by growth hormones, so I suppose what I'm seeing is a bunch of people who've grown into adult bodies without having enough time to come to terms with what adulthood means. Ayelmar2

Just re-read this for the first time in ~20 years...amazing how much perspective can change in that time!
A very compelling universe that I'd to see more fully explored, and I love the use of music and its importance in the development of characters.
The biggest flaw is that the ending is very rushed and abrupt -- too much time and story glossed over in just a few paragraphs, with no indication of how much time had passed until after several more paragraphs of exposition, making the start of that last chapter unnecessarily jarring, IMHO.
Still, a great read, much more depth than I recalled from my first read as a callow youth, just settling in to college. Samuel Lubell1,219 6

I really need to read more of Walter Jon Williams. This book was a fantastic space adventure with a very interesting first contact situation. Ubu Roy and his sister Beautiful Maria are left a spaceship when their father days. They barely make a living as traders due to their special powers. Then when their ship is about to be confiscated, Maria tricks a would-be boyfriend (from a more powerful trading clan) into help them escape. They run into a new alien hive-insect race with biological but not mechanical abilities. But the trader family Maria tricked want the location of the alien and are willing to trick Roy and Maria back. And the book has great characterization.sf Steve6

Believe or not, Ive read this book many times: it's a 1990s science fiction classic: the rugged individualism of the main characters, Ubu and his sister Maria, versus the powers hegemonic corporations in space . Williams explores the meaning of community as the Ubu and Maria witness the disappearance of their way of life in freelance space transport and find hope in the depths of space. I will not spoil it for anyone here who has not read the book. Suffice to say, it has some interesting science fiction ideas, but more interesting characters which its strong point. Eero377 4

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