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The idea of this thread has been brought up several times in other threads, so here it is. 77185_Cherryh is the asteroid named after her, just for interest. For fans, she has a blog She also has a site Closed Circle for her e-books, while she also makes them available on Amazon, she and the other authors on the site get 100% of the purchase price if you buy them there. She has also posted some interesting advice to writers on her main site: Cherryh's Law: No rule should be followed off a cliff. Cherryh's books don't tend to be light reading, not because they are poorly written, but because they are often so dense with information. For me, at least, this just vastly increases the re-read value, and I now get all her books in hardcover to support this re-reading habit. I think the thing I like best about her sci-fi is that I find her aliens are really alien. That might sound like an odd thing to say, but I've read so many books where the aliens were just thinly-disguised humans. There have been moments in some of her books (Cuckoo's Egg comes to mind) where I'm going along enjoying the story and suddenly reality gets flipped on its head and I realize that I'm dealing with... aliens. It seems that the Alliance/Union set of books is by far the most-recommended. Definitely, I loved Cyteen, and Regenesis wasn't half bad either, although I couldn't help but feel as though the end was a setup for one more story. Alliance/Union is fairly complex. Someone in another thread pointed me to a timeline of events that occur in that universe. While I enjoy the Foreigner series very much, I know some here hate it. There's plenty of books to discuss, that's for certain! Zola fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Dec 12, 2012 |
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Aug 28, 2012 18:28
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Cyteen. Oh, man, Cyteen. I haven't worked up the nerve to check out the sequel yet.
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Aug 28, 2012 18:56
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Cyteen is my favorite Cherryh novel and in my top 5 SF novel list. It's anything but light reading, but that's not true of all of Cherryh's books. It's been many years, but I remember Merchanter's Luck and Tripoint being light, adventurous space opera. I'm not sure Cherryh's harder work is information-dense so much as the "action" is mostly internal to the characters rather than happening out in the world. That's true of Cyteen and while I've only read the first few Foreigner books and again it was a while ago, I remember them being similar. To enjoy these books you have to be willing to read pages of dithering, nervous speculation, and anxious worrying from the viewpoint characters. Personally I felt Cyteen rewarded that effort handsomely, but I was less impressed by the first few Foreigner books.
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Aug 29, 2012 00:40
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CJ Cherryh would probably be my most-bought/least-read author. In the last few years, since getting into sci-fi and hearing her recommended a lot, I've bought maybe 9 or 10 of her books but haven't read any yet. I got kind of addicted to shopping for books online and building up a science fiction library, and my reading speed is just so slow in comparison to how often I add books to it. So they're all sitting there and I really would like to get to her one day soon. I'm wondering what to start with... a Chanur book, Downbelow Station, Foreigner, a collection of novellas of hers (called "Alternate Realities"), etc. They all look interesting in their own ways.
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Sep 3, 2012 05:47
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Hedrigall posted:CJ Cherryh would probably be my most-bought/least-read author. In the last few years, since getting into sci-fi and hearing her recommended a lot, I've bought maybe 9 or 10 of her books but haven't read any yet. I got kind of addicted to shopping for books online and building up a science fiction library, and my reading speed is just so slow in comparison to how often I add books to it. So they're all sitting there and I really would like to get to her one day soon. I like pretty much everything she's ever come out with, but Downbelow Station seems to be one of her more popular works.
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Sep 3, 2012 14:19
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Finally a thread for my favorite author  It is fated to be a thread of incredible quality that no one ever reads or comments on. Hedrigall posted:CJ Cherryh would probably be my most-bought/least-read author. In the last few years, since getting into sci-fi and hearing her recommended a lot, I've bought maybe 9 or 10 of her books but haven't read any yet. I got kind of addicted to shopping for books online and building up a science fiction library, and my reading speed is just so slow in comparison to how often I add books to it. So they're all sitting there and I really would like to get to her one day soon. You should break out The Pride of Chanur and start there IMO; it's just great straight-up space opera that's quite accessible and even one of the author's favorites. Downbelow Station is also fantastic and is the "real" introduction to the Alliance/Union universe, but it's a lot slower in pacing. Or, if you're a hard SF guy you could start with Heavy Time, which is Cherryh at her most gritty and is just about the beginning of her universe's timeline. Foreigner is a great series (at least for the first 9 books), but it's much drier and also set in a completely different universe due to publishing rights issues so it won't really introduce you to her main body of work. Bass Concert Hall fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Sep 4, 2012 |
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Sep 4, 2012 17:45
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Bass Concert Hall posted:You should break out The Pride of Chanur and start there IMO; it's just great straight-up space opera that's quite accessible and even one of the author's favorites. Downbelow Station is also fantastic and is the "real" introduction to the Alliance/Union universe, but it's a lot slower in pacing. Neither of these are on the Kindle store nor apparently in any decent digital version anywhere. Weird that a pretty well respected writer like Cherryh wouldn't have an accessible back catalog digitally outside of the Foreigner series. I guess you can probably find paperbacks for $.50 or something though.
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Sep 4, 2012 21:12
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etcetera08 posted:Neither of these are on the Kindle store nor apparently in any decent digital version anywhere. Weird that a pretty well respected writer like Cherryh wouldn't have an accessible back catalog digitally outside of the Foreigner series. I added a link to the OP earlier--as Cherryh gets her hands on the rights to her earlier works, she's putting them up on Closed Circle.
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Sep 4, 2012 22:11
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I completely lost interest in the Foreigner series at about book three, and the only new Cherryh I've read in years has been the Cyteen sequel 
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Sep 5, 2012 01:24
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fritz posted:I completely lost interest in the Foreigner series at about book three, and the only new Cherryh I've read in years has been the Cyteen sequel Out of curiosity, since you aren't the only one who feels that way, why did you dislike it? I personally liked the politicking and the intrigue in the atevi culture
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Sep 9, 2012 19:43
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I enjoy the Foreigner but Bren is a bit of a Mary Sue in the later books. The part I enjoyed most in them was the fact that he was operating at the edge of comprehension, now too astute in dealing with the atevi.
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Sep 10, 2012 02:03
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I pretty much wore out my Chanur books, but never read any of her other stuff. I don't normally do hard scifi/space opera type things, so the fact that I loved the Chanur series is odd for me. Would it be worth it for me to look into the Foreigner or Cyteen series? What are they about?
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Sep 11, 2012 20:19
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fritz posted:I completely lost interest in the Foreigner series at about book three, and the only new Cherryh I've read in years has been the Cyteen sequel I heard great things about her, read the foreigner series (at least two books of it?), lost interest due to boredom and am wary of spending time on any more of her books.
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Sep 12, 2012 04:40
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Zola posted:Out of curiosity, since you aren't the only one who feels that way, why did you dislike it? I thought the Atevi were boring and tiresome, mostly.
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Sep 12, 2012 05:13
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redreader posted:I heard great things about her, read the foreigner series (at least two books of it?), lost interest due to boredom and am wary of spending time on any more of her books. Try Downbelow Station or Cyteen, and if those aren't doing it for you go ahead and quit. I remember reading one or two of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Russian_Stories_(C._J._Cherryh) and being confused as gently caress.
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Sep 12, 2012 05:14
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fritz posted:Try Downbelow Station or Cyteen, and if those aren't doing it for you go ahead and quit. Oh... I also read about two books of the stories in which there's a wizard called piotr or something. One of the books was called rusalka and the other one was ... chernebog or something? Those were pretty cool but moved too slowly for me. Since it was all about 16ish years ago, maybe I'll give her another go now.
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Sep 12, 2012 05:24
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Nice timing; just got done reading another Cherryh yesterday: Rider at the Gate. Pretty interesting; although it's technically scifi and no doubt set in the same universe as much of her other books, it's basically a Western. With telepathic horses. Something like Pern meets True Grit? Picking up the second book soon. I find her writing really unique in how she manages a sustained mood of despair and tension, at the same time. I think the first books of hers I read were the Morgaine Cycle and the Faded Sun trilogy. I enjoyed them, but they're so dark it's hard to reread them very often. Also I never realized til looking at the Wikipedia page just now that the Morgaine books are set in the Alliance-Union universe  As far as her fantasy stuff, I liked the Ealdwood Stories. The Fortress Series, though, never really paid off for me. There's a neat setting and really interesting ideas, but not much seems to actually happen, and it takes forever to do so.
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Sep 12, 2012 07:10
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Kellanved posted:I enjoy the Foreigner but Bren is a bit of a Mary Sue in the later books. The part I enjoyed most in them was the fact that he was operating at the edge of comprehension, now too astute in dealing with the atevi. I dunno, he still seems out of his depth, to me (as of Betrayer) - it's just that what he can't figure out is different. Maybe it's the difference between seeing someone struggle with pre-algebra and seeing someone struggle with differential calculus?  My favorite of her books is still Cuckoo's Egg; it has a lot of elements of both the Chanur series and the Foreigner series, but it's very much its own thing. (It was published in the middle of the Chanur series and nine years before Foreigner.)
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Sep 12, 2012 19:57
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The Faded Sun trilogy is amazing as well, although there are some weird inconsistencies and style quirks now and then (that I personally didn't notice until reread four or five). It's what I got started with and as a result I've read pretty much everything she's ever published. Regul psychology 4 lyfe.
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Sep 13, 2012 00:52
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I like the faded sun trilogy also it has such depth of how lovely things can get.
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Sep 18, 2012 17:49
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This thread reminded me that I should get reading Cherryh. I intended to after enjoying her 10 or so shorter stories in the Thieves' World series (which otherwise fell to crap really quick), but I have so much else to read that I keep postponing things. Starting with the Downbelow Station (Company Wars?) series as recommended above, I guess.
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Sep 18, 2012 21:33
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According to Cherryh's site, an "audio drama maven" is going to be producing a six-hour audio drama version of the first three Foreigner books. For those who've read all of the books so far and don't remember where those books stop: Foreigner: Bren goes to Malguri, meets Ilisidi (and Cenedi), gets interrogated, discovers the ship has returned to the station, and flees Malguri with Banichi and Jago and Ilisidi et al. Invader: Jase and Yolanda arrive on the planet from the ship. Bren can't get the replacement paidhi out of his apartment. Eventually someone shoots the replacement when she tries to bring more humans onto the mainland. Inheritor: The atevi finish their first space shuttle. Bren thinks he's going to inspect the shuttle but Tabini tricks him into visiting the station with Ilisidi.
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Sep 20, 2012 16:26
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zonohedron posted:According to Cherryh's site, an "audio drama maven" is going to be producing a six-hour audio drama version of the first three Foreigner books. For those who've read all of the books so far and don't remember where those books stop: Can't help but wonder how they're going to translate a book that's half internal monologue into a radio play, much less condense three full-length novels into 6 hours. But if Cherryh is offering input herself, it should be at least good. Also per her website, she is soon to publish a novella from Ilisidi's POV. I am really excited about this and may even buy it through Closed Circle if she insists on doing the self-publishing thing.
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Sep 20, 2012 19:32
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Bass Concert Hall posted:Can't help but wonder how they're going to translate a book that's half internal monologue into a radio play, much less condense three full-length novels into 6 hours. But if Cherryh is offering input herself, it should be at least good. That's kind of what I was wondering - how do you convey Bren being out of his depth if you can't directly show his thoughts? Still, if you can manage doing it, that cuts a lot out of those books - there isn't a tremendous amount of action, unless there's a lot I missed from my summaries, and some of it, like Jase confusing words, could probably be demonstrated more quickly than described. Though on the other hand, how do you make it comprehensible to someone who isn't familiar with the series without obnoxious, "As you know, Bob-nadi, our people and yours were at war because my people can't do math and your people have assassins instead of lawyers."?
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Sep 20, 2012 22:19
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Bass Concert Hall posted:Can't help but wonder how they're going to translate a book that's half internal monologue into a radio play, much less condense three full-length novels into 6 hours. But if Cherryh is offering input herself, it should be at least good.
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Sep 21, 2012 01:10
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Cherryh has long been one of my go-to writers when it comes to science fiction. Especially Cyteen and the sequel, for the sheer level of complexity they include. She's one of the few authors who's ever managed to write a brilliant character that is relatable, yet still so obviously intelligent that I as a reader occasionally have to stop for a moment and puzzle out her thought processes. If you can find a copy, she also once wrote a pretty good low fantasy epic called The Paladin, with the wonderful twist of being set in a Chinese-style Empire, in the late 1980's when European settings were the standard for fantasy.
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Sep 22, 2012 03:36
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Liquid Communism posted:If you can find a copy, she also once wrote a pretty good low fantasy epic called The Paladin, with the wonderful twist of being set in a Chinese-style Empire, in the late 1980's when European settings were the standard for fantasy. Ooo yeah I forgot about that. Really drat good. If you liked Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven, read this book. Or if you like Cherryh in general. Or books.
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Sep 22, 2012 07:15
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There was some talk about CJ Cherryh's Alliance/Union universe, there's a complete list of books at this page. I'm also going to edit the OP shortly with links to the massive timeline of events in that universe.
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Nov 11, 2012 01:29
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Finished Hammerfall a few days ago, halfway through the sequel, Forge of Heaven, now. They're SF set in a non-Alliance/Union universe. First one was interesting just to see how Cherryh handles a setting similar to Dune. Interesting characters, setting, societies, but drat some of it annoyed me. The main character has the equivalent of Ocarina of Time's Navi going LISTEN! LISTEN! on what felt like every other page. Pacing in the second half really seemed to drag, as well. Sequel's been sweet as hell so far, though. I'm really glad I didn't put down Hammerfall, just to set up this book. Not that I would've, really; even the slow sections had some interesting stuff go on here and there. At any rate, I hope Forge doesn't disappoint; it's building up so great 
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Nov 21, 2012 11:05
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Blog Free or Die posted:Finished Hammerfall a few days ago, halfway through the sequel, Forge of Heaven, now. They're SF set in a non-Alliance/Union universe. Wow, I didn't realize there was even a sequel, I thought Hammerfall was standalone. Already have it on the way.
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Nov 21, 2012 14:30
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Oh hey, we have a Cherryh thread.  I'm packing up for a move right now and have discovered that I have no less than three copies of The Pride of Chanur (and two of the Faded Sun trilogy). I keep reading them nearly to death and then picking up replacements at book sales. Those books were my introduction to sci-fi, and a better introduction I couldn't have asked for. (Ok, strictly speaking Asimov's Lucky Starr series was my intro to sci-fi, but Chanur was the first SF I read aimed at adults.) Zola posted:Wow, I didn't realize there was even a sequel, I thought Hammerfall was standalone. Already have it on the way. Neither did I! I thought Hammerfall was one of her weaker books, but still liked it enough that I'll check out the sequel.
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Nov 21, 2012 22:36
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Trip Report: Forge of Heaven rules so hard. At least to me. It's like Downbelow Station. That is all.
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Nov 21, 2012 23:49
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So I just finished Hestia, which for the longest time I'd ignored, having heard that it was one of her weaker novels. Bullshit. Hestia was fantastic. It's very short, to be sure, but the novel starts off looking as though as it's going to be the same 'westerner immigrates to the frontier, fights noble savages, meets native woman and learns to appreciate her society and plight' plot we've all seen before, and then goes into much more ambiguous and interesting psychological territory, as only CJC can do. I would say Hestia is the closest thing to a book that could potentially be made into a movie that Cherryh has written, except that it would still be smeared as a ripoff of Avatar. Highly recommended to anyone who can find this, though it's sadly out of print. I do have one question though, about how Hestia fits into the larger scheme of things: so Hestia seems to definitely be in the Alliance-Union universe, what with Merritt coming from 'Pele station' and the Adam Jones having that classic merchanter culture. But at the end of the book he tells his friends that the spacers who've come down on the shuttle are nothing like the spacers who originally dropped him off a couple of years earlier. What's up with that? Is this right when the war started, or when jumpships were first invented? And if so, why do we never hear about Hestia in the other books?
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Nov 25, 2012 05:33
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Cherryh is awesome. She's definitely one of my favorites. I've now owned two copies of her Faded Sun trilogy. They were read until the books fell apart. I need to buy this in digital format so that I can read them again. I also absolutely love Serpents Reach, 40K in Gehenna and her Cyteen trilogy. Her world building amazes me. It's completely obvious that the woman has years of experience and education in anthropology.
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Nov 28, 2012 01:33
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Haji posted:Her world building amazes me. It's completely obvious that the woman has years of experience and education in anthropology. I think that's what makes her stories so compelling--her societies and cultures are internally consistent which makes them very believable, no matter how different the structure might be from the cultures we're familiar with. Even though the Foreigner series isn't everyone's cup of tea, the politics and the resistance to "humanization" is part of what makes the series so endlessly fascinating to me.
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Nov 28, 2012 02:13
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Haji posted:Her world building amazes me. It's completely obvious that the woman has years of experience and education in anthropology. Cherryh mentioned at a convention panel sometime back in my youth that one of the things she pays attention to when coming up with an alien culture is their living space, because that is a main avenue of investigation in human anthropology. A lot of insight into culture's definition of 'home' and 'territory' and 'personal vs public space' can be gleaned from how they organize their sleeping, eating, and private areas. You can see this concept played upon throughout her fiction - the Atevi and their heavily barricaded apartments and borderless nation-states, the Hani and their ancestral manors and territories surrounded by lawless male countrysides, etcetera. Also I unironically believe Foreigner through Explorer should be used as course material for undergrad classes in intercultural/international relations. Bren Cameron at the top of his game has political nuance like a goddamned textbook. Bass Concert Hall fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Nov 28, 2012 |
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Nov 28, 2012 03:04
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My major was anthropology, but I found Cherryh's books on my own and I am so glad that I did. It doesn't surprise me at all that some professors would use her books as required reading material. Cherryh amazes me with her consistency. Even her earlier stories are amazingly consistent, so I can't even chalk it up to experience. The woman is just GOOD at what she does and always has been.
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Nov 28, 2012 17:21
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Bass Concert Hall posted:So I just finished Hestia, which for the longest time I'd ignored, having heard that it was one of her weaker novels. Isn't Hestia way out on the other side of Alliance space? That'd explain why we never hear of them, most of the other books are focused at either Pell or Cyteen, way out in Union. It may just be that the spacers who showed up at the end were a Union crew.
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Nov 28, 2012 17:26
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Bass Concert Hall posted:So I just finished Hestia, which for the longest time I'd ignored, having heard that it was one of her weaker novels. Just finished Hestia as well and while it was good, I didn't at all have the same reaction to it you did. Possibly because "westerner immigrates to the frontier, fights noble savages, meets native woman and learns to appreciate her society and plight" isn't a plot I've encountered since I was 10, so any contrasts with it are...less than striking. quote:I do have one question though, about how Hestia fits into the larger scheme of things: so Hestia seems to definitely be in the Alliance-Union universe, what with Merritt coming from 'Pele station' and the Adam Jones having that classic merchanter culture. But at the end of the book he tells his friends that the spacers who've come down on the shuttle are nothing like the spacers who originally dropped him off a couple of years earlier. What's up with that? Is this right when the war started, or when jumpships were first invented? And if so, why do we never hear about Hestia in the other books? CJC doesn't seem to categorize Hestia as one of the Alliance-Union books, and I can't find it in any of the A-U star charts (although I don't think we're ever told the name of its star). If Hestia is in A-U, here are my best thoughts: - It's after the invention of the jump drive. Otherwise there's no way the Adam Jones would have a seven year Earth<->Hestia transit time. - Hestia is talked about as the first human dirtside colony, which would mean it predates the settlement of Pell's Star and Cyteen, but that's inconsistent with #1. Alternately, it's the first colony on a world that can support human life without assistance (i.e. has a breathable atmosphere, can support crops or animals that humans can eat, etc), which would put it after Pell's Star and Cyteen but likely before contact with the Regul or Majat. It might be after the settling of Gehenna, which I seem to recall being a fairly secretive affair. - The Adam Jones is a classic merchanter ship. Liquid Communism is probably right that the ship at the end is a Union ship. Things are clearly orderly enough that both the Union and the Alliance operate trade ships to the same worlds, and respect one another's beacons - so I'd guess this is some time after the Treaty of Pell. - They'd probably have a lot more practice - and actual policies - for first contact if this postdated contact with the Compact, but I forget when that happened. So, Hestia is probably a remote world on the Alliance-Union border, visited by both Alliance ships doing a loop that includes Earth, and Union ships, after the Treaty of Pell but before contact with the Compact..
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Nov 30, 2012 01:38
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I was only able to find Downbelow Station from my library and I'm picking it up this week because of the buzz here recently, but it sounds like if I like it sufficiently I'm going to be buying a lot of books. And it's going to be all your fault. Just putting that out there.
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Dec 3, 2012 15:52
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