James Nicoll Reviews

1979’s Kutath is the third and final volume in C. J. Cherryh’s Faded Sun trilogy.

The mri are humanoid alien mercenaries who were, until recently, in the employ of the alien regul. Following the end of the war with humans, the regul decided to exterminate the mri to prevent them from working for the humans. This almost succeeded.

The last two mri on Kesrith (priest Melein and warrior Niun) fled in the company of human soldier Sten Duncan. Pursued by a regul and human fleet, the trio traced a chain of dead planets leading back to the true mri home world, Kutath.

Why did the mercenary mri leave a wake of dead worlds? And is Kutath about to join them?

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1976’s Brothers of Earth is the first novel in C. J. Cherryh’s Hanan Rebellion¹ series. Let’s call it a planetary romance.

Endymion pursued and overtook fleeing Hanan starships, obliterating the enemy Although unable to escape the loathsome Alliance craft, the Hanan starfarers in turn obliterated Endymion.

The sole survivor? Endymion​’s communications officer, Kurt Morgan.

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1978’s Well of Shiuan is the second volume in C. J. Cherryh’s Morgaine series.

Jherun faces two pressing challenges. Her immediate concern is that she does not want to be married off. In her culture, marriage is a test to see how much work a woman can do before dying of childbirth. Her longer-term concern is rising sea levels. For reasons that are poorly understood, the oceans are inexorably rising. One day, not so long from now, all terrestrial life on her planet will drown.

She is out barrow-robbing when she encounters a stranger. Not someone from another domain or another continent; he’s from another world.

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1977’s stand-alone space opera Hunter of Worlds is the second of Cherryh’s two Hanan Rebellion books. It is set in the same continuity as Cherryh’s Alliance/Union works, but takes place long after the main A/U sequence. 

Thousands of years ago, the iduve bestowed interstellar civilization on the amaut, the kallia, and no doubt others as well. Five centuries ago, the iduve vanished from the civilized worlds. Why they left is unknown, but few were sad to see them go. Now the iduve are back. 

Kallia Aiela Lyailleue is unfortunate enough to be useful to the iduve. Chimele, Orithain of the vast starship Ashanome, demands his service. From the perspective of his relatives, this is effectively a death sentence. From Aiela’s point of view, it is a life sentence. 

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C. J. Cherryh’s 1979 Hestia is a standalone science fiction novel. 

The colonists who settled Hestia were warned that the valley on which they had set their hopes was not suitable. The settlers ignored the warnings and founded a community in the valley. In the century since settlement, the community has endured disaster after disaster. Each year the community is worse off. 

The colonists now believe that they have a solution: a dam to control the river. Only problem: they lack dam-building know-how. That’s where Sam Merritt, our protagonist, enters the narrative. 

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1978’s Shon’jir is the middle volume in SF Grandmaster C. J. Cherryh’s Faded Sun trilogy.

The Regul attempted to exterminate the mri, in order to prevent the alien mercenaries from selling their services to the human Alliance. Perhaps a prudent action, but ultimately unsuccessful. Two mri survive, prisoners of the Alliance forces occupying Kesrith. Only two, but Niun and Melein alone are sufficient to threaten the delicate peace between Regul and the humans. 

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Grandmaster C. J. Cherryh’s 1988 Cyteen is arguably the magnum opus of her Alliance-Union novels. Together with its 2009 sequel Regenesis, Cyteen gives fans their most detailed look at Union, the first system-spanning nation independent of Earth. 

Ariane Emory is a Special, one of a handful of geniuses who stand out even in a polity established by the brightest of Earth’s star-faring bright. She is one of the people who have made Union what it is: a dystopic state run by interlocking self-selected oligarchies to whom the phrase ​“checks and balances” is a joke. It is a galactic power utterly dependent on mass-produced, mind-controlled slaves. For Emory, secure in her power as head of the research facility Reseune, life is sweet. 

As her frozen corpse proves, even a sweet life can come to an unexpected, abrupt end. 

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C. J. Cherryh’s 1978 The Faded Sun: Kesrith was her fourth novel and the first in her Faded Sun trilogy. It would have been a fine choice for my Because My Tears Are Delicious to You series … save for the trifling fact that I managed to overlook it until the 1980s, after I had stopped being a teenager. 

The alien Regul are fighting a losing war with the human Federation. That is, mri mercenaries are doing so, on behalf of their Regul clients. The mri are in many ways difficult: aloof, easily affronted, and inflexible — but they are extremely effective warriors. The Regul have nobody but themselves to blame for their losses. The Regul are bad bosses, the sort who insist on taking a hand in matters they do not understand, then blaming and punishing subordinates for the ensuing setbacks.

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C. J. Cherryh’s 1976 novel Gate of Ivrel wasn’t the first Cherryh novel that I read, but it was the first one I read that I liked. 

Exiled for killing one brother and maiming the other, Vanye can expect a short and brutal life as an outcast. What he does not expect is that he will inadvertently free Morgaine Frosthair from the mysterious qujalin mound known to the backward locals as Morgaine’s Tomb. This was no tomb, but temporal trap. The artifact has held Morgaine suspended in time for an entire century, ever since her last grand adventure ended in disaster and rout. 

Vanye’s reward is obligatory servitude to Morgaine. Decades may have passed since Morgaine last walked this world. but her task is not yet done. 

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Although Cherryh was active in the 1970s, I think her 1981 Downbelow Station was my first exposure to her work in general and to her Alliance-Union setting in specific. Not that this is strictly speaking an Alliance-Union novel … at least not until towards the end.

I remember finding it a bit of a slog at the time. Clearly other readers disagreed with me, because it not only won the 1982 Hugo Award for Best Novel, but was named by Locus as one of the top fifty SF novels of all time.

The good news for humanity is that by the 24^th century, humans have spread far beyond the confines of the solar system, first at sub-light speeds and later with FTL. The bad news is that the human worlds outside the solar system are caught in a vast interstellar war, with the predatory Earth Company on one side, the authoritarian slave-drivers of the Union on the other, and a handful of neutrals, mainly merchants and a few stations, caught in the middle.

The war between Company and Union has dragged on and on, far beyond the point the balance sheets would justify. Earth Company is ready to beg Union for peace. The problem is, the Earth Company’s Fleet is not ready to stand down, and it answers not to the Company now, but to Commander Conrad Mazian. 

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