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Cherryh does have a... what I call a "thick" fashion of prose. Perhaps "dry" is a better term. While her descriptions can get evocative, hers is not exactly light, fluffy reading. I think this is in part due to the very tight perspective in the narrative.
She does, but for me, that makes her books more emotionally affecting, not less. It's like in Downton Abbey or other period pieces where the stiff-upper-lip patriarch of the family actually breaks down and shows emotion. We were watching Downton Abbey and that happened, and I was sitting there with tears streaming down my face, and my boyfriend was like, "Why are you crying?" and I was all "BECAUSE BRITISH PEOPLE ARE SHOWING EMOTION!" I think you could completely incapacitate me by filming a Downtown Abbey scene where both Lord Grantham and the butler slowly break down and actually shed a single tear each. :-)
So, you know, Cherryh's restraint gets me too. Morgaine admitting she cares about Vanye, Arafel acknowledging her love for her forest... I fold like a cheap card table.
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I can honestly say that my first experience with CJ Cherryh was horrible and since then I have avoided her books like the plague. She and Janet Morris got into a short story pissing contest that basically ruined the Thieves World collective series. It was like watching two grade school children fighting...
JM: My character is the best!
CJC: My character is better.
JM: No way. Mine is better.
CJC: Mine is better by far.
ect. (repeated over many novels)
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Cherryh does have a... what I call a "thick" fashion of prose. Perhaps "dry" is a better term. While her descriptions can get evocative, hers is not exactly light, fluffy reading. I think this is in part due to the very tight perspective in the narrative.She does, but for me, that makes her books more emotionally affecting, not less. It's like in Downton Abbey or other period pieces where the stiff-upper-lip patriarch of the family actually breaks down and shows emotion. We were watching Downton Abbey and that happened, and I was sitting there with tears streaming down my face, and my boyfriend was like, "Why are you crying?" and I was all "BECAUSE BRITISH PEOPLE ARE SHOWING EMOTION!" I think you could completely incapacitate me by filming a Downtown Abbey scene where both Lord Grantham and the butler slowly break down and actually shed a single tear each. :-)
So, you know, Cherryh's restraint gets me too. Morgaine admitting she cares about Vanye, Arafel acknowledging her love for her forest... I fold like a cheap card table.
Same here; In fact, I seek out dry and thick writing rather than light and fluffy prose.
What's nice about the density of Cherryh's writing (at least the Alliance-Union stuff) is how the various books relate to each other. If you read them out of order that can work against you. I read Rimrunners before Downbelow Station, and just didn't get the thing with Bet Yeager being "off Africa"; it wasn't until I read DbS that I said, "Oh. hey Africa, that's one of the... ZOMG SPACE MARINES ARE AWESOME! MALLORY RULEZ!!!111!!!"
One word of warning to all the little nerds out there though: Do not do what I have done. If you read A Wave Without a Shore and 40,000 in Gehenna at the age of 11, it will break your brain.
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I've recently read the initial Chanur trilogy and Hunter of Worlds, on the recommendation of a friend. I liked both. Her aliens aren't just people in funny suits and I like that. I will give more of her stuff a chance in the future.
M
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Yeah, CJC is very "anthropological" and "xenolinguistic."
I love how some of the tea drinking scenes in the Foreigner series are as tense and exciting as 99% of other authors' combats.
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Yeah, CJC is very "anthropological" and "xenolinguistic."
I love how some of the tea drinking scenes in the Foreigner series are as tense and exciting as 99% of other authors' combats.
THIS! I love her so. :-)
In the Chanur books you get deeply enough into the mindset of the Hani, that when humans show up, they seem weird and alien. That's hard to pull off. And she has at least 4 distinct psychologically different races, plus a couple who are even more alien, that no one comprehends.I've recently read the initial Chanur trilogy and Hunter of Worlds, on the recommendation of a friend. I liked both. Her aliens aren't just people in funny suits and I like that. I will give more of her stuff a chance in the future.
M
The ones nobody understands are easy to pull off...it's the ones where you live in their minds (like the Hani) and the ones you come to know externally (Mahendo, Stsho, And especially the Kif) that I find amazing. She did a really great job of getting you to (sort of) understanding where those folks are coming from...but, in many cases, only about as well as an 18th century Englishman understood the Japanese or Chinese. ;)
M
In the Chanur books you get deeply enough into the mindset of the Hani, that when humans show up, they seem weird and alien. That's hard to pull off. And she has at least 4 distinct psychologically different races, plus a couple who are even more alien, that no one comprehends.I've recently read the initial Chanur trilogy and Hunter of Worlds, on the recommendation of a friend. I liked both. Her aliens aren't just people in funny suits and I like that. I will give more of her stuff a chance in the future.
MThe ones nobody understands are easy to pull off...it's the ones where you live in their minds (like the Hani) and the ones you come to know externally (Mahendo, Stsho, And especially the Kif) that I find amazing. She did a really great job of getting you to (sort of) understanding where those folks are coming from...but, in many cases, only about as well as an 18th century Englishman understood the Japanese or Chinese. ;)
M
Cuckoo's Egg and the Faded Sun Trilogy are both good for that. I think both are currently in print, even.
I think Faded Sun got omnibussed.
She does the alien psychology very well.
Here's the thing, Lazar:
1) It's Houstonderek, who is known for speaking with reserve and temperance.
2) If someone isn't open-minded enough to read a book because the author's name rubs them the wrong way, you're just not going to convince them.
3) Don't read Voyager in Night at a young age either; it, too, will break your brain.
I can honestly say that my first experience with CJ Cherryh was horrible and since then I have avoided her books like the plague. She and Janet Morris got into a short story pissing contest that basically ruined the Thieves World collective series. It was like watching two grade school children fighting...
JM: My character is the best!
CJC: My character is better.
JM: No way. Mine is better.
CJC: Mine is better by far.
ect. (repeated over many novels)
I loved the collaborative nature of that Thieves World series, but it did get out of control with the escalation between those authors, I agree.
Still I have found that her books, at least those I have read, are very good, better than the short stories in that series.
Dag-gum, I love me some Cherryh.
Dreaming Tree.
Faded Sun.
Most of the Foreigner books.
Recently read Brothers of Earth. Very interesting, and you can totally see a burgeoning tone in them, though ultimately they're a little... I don't know... "fluffy?"... for her style.
Speaking of Foreigner, Bren is actually really awesome, even though occasionally he "feels" like a female in the way he thinks and acts sometimes, a bit more so in the later books. I can't really explain it, except to say, "that's like something my mother would say or think." It's never my father. I suppose that makes sense, considering Cherryh's a woman, but it's juuuuuuuust a little odd when every once in a while, I think (about the male protagonist), "Hey, my mom would say that."
I still love it and her style.
I wish I'd read everything by her, but I've just never had enough time.
Other female fantasy writers:
LeGuin is pretty much mandatory reading for fantasy fans, whether you end up enjoying it or not. I did, but she's like a defining fantasy author.
I love Friedman, though her work is always kind of dark and gothic. (And, though I hate to, I actually recommend against The Wilding, as it creates a potent tonal-dissonance to the first work, In Conquest Born, and fails to really capture, instead just coming off as cheap and gimmicky. Sad, really.) Also, expect vampires. Weak ones, sure, but vampires. Also magic. 'Cause there's totally almost always vampires and/or magic (or psionics/psychic powers) regardless of how "sci-fi" the topic (which it always is at least kind of sci-fi).
Norten's pretty good, from what I've read, but I'm not a super-fan (just a decent fan).
I enjoyed the first two books of Barbara Hambly's Winterlands series a great deal, although I haven't finished it (I got stalled out in acquiring and reading Knight of the Demon Queen, and have never gotten past that.) I really need to read it. I also enjoyed her Star Wars stuff.
While that's all I can think of now, I might add more later to female authors.
But it's very worth checking out Cherryh, at least once. And Foreigner is like the Duck Tales theme: itwillneverleaveitwillneverleave! (Or end, for that matter. And I'm fine with that. :D)
Bren is just capable of seeing so many different points of views.
Have you guys read the Riders/Nighthorse series? Pure awesome. :)
Yeah, it is so evocative of the cold, your core body temperature will drop 10 degrees.
I love the idea of an entire ecosystem that is psychic, especially the arms race between predators hiding their signature or trying to seem meeker, and prey trying to emit as if elsewhere or more numerous, etc. etc. Also, all the psychic wildlife still have animal-level intellect, just 6 or more senses....
Bren is just capable of seeing so many different points of views.
Very true. I love how vulnerable he is as a protagonist when literally even the small children can kill him... accidentally.
The difference is it's in those vulnerable moments when it's just him being him. And also that it tends to happen a bit more as time goes on. It's not bad, and I generally just mentally justify it by explaining that his thought process is slowly getting a little more alien as he ages, but personally think it's probably because Cherryh is writing hints of her own conceptions... which, really, is all an author can do. It doesn't really break anything, it's just an occasional minor hiccup in the series.
Anyway. If I could, I'd force every person in existence to read the series just so I have someone to talk about why it takes so blasted long until the next one comes out. Oh, and also because it's fascinatingly good. :)
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At least writes a lot faster than GRRM!
And she's super productive. 60+ novels! :-O
At least writes a lot faster than GRRM!
And she's super productive. 60+ novels! :-O
Hahah! That's true!
I am a massive fan of CJ Cherryh, have been for ages. I would add the "Fortress of Owls" and succeeding Fortress of books to the favourites listed.
And I grew up reading Ursula Le Guin. And she wrote SF too.
Is she still writing? The new works seem to have stopped, or is it just i am not seeing them?
Gate/Chronicles of Morgaine series is my favorite sci-fantasy series hands down. I actually reread them almost every year, or I did before my son came along….
I did like Fortress series, but not as much as Chronicles of Morgaine. Read three or your Foreigner p until they went into space and came back. Lost interest. As usual, well written, just not as sparse, spare, dark or evocative as Morgaine.
Never read Chanur, and not really interested.
Loved Cyteen, Downbelow Station and Forty Thousand in Gehenna. Esp. that last one. It was rough, and terribly outdated, but the final scenes/ideas are awesome.
Is she still writing? The new works seem to have stopped, or is it just i am not seeing them?
She's got a new Foreigner novel coming out soon, I'm pretty sure. I guess it's going to be an 18 volume series... :-D
Chanur and Foreigner are my favorites, but Rider at the Gate is PERFECT for summer. Very evocative of the cold.
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I once partially read Chanur's Legacy in middle school, but had to return it to the library before I could finish it. I am in the process of rectifying that now. It inspired me over later years of game design to make different races more memorable/distinctive, realistic, and considerate to their history, biological origins, and interactions with the rest of the universe. That said, it's not quite as much fantasy as I like mixed in - but maybe I need to look at the Morgaine books....
Regardless, hani are my catfolk. Honor, trade, and adventure. The Nymian Beastlands.
The Chronicles of Morgaine are great. One more voice to the consensus.
Is she still writing? The new works seem to have stopped, or is it just i am not seeing them?She's got a new Foreigner novel coming out soon, I'm pretty sure. I guess it's going to be an 18 volume series... :-D
Chanur and Foreigner are my favorites, but Rider at the Gate is PERFECT for summer. Very evocative of the cold.
From everything she's said, she's just going to keep writing Foreigner until she keels over in front of her word processor, like O'Brian and the Aubrey-Maturin series. (Though I imagine O'Brian dying at a typewriter, 'cause he's old school.)
I have, since my last post on this thread, manage to get ahold of The Goblin Mirror, which I enjoyed.
Morgaine series is great, and if you like Tolkien-ish elves (a little bit alien, and tragic), The Dreaming Tree actually out-Tolkiens Tolkien on that front.
I found The Goblin Mirror very inspirational. I ran a whole campaign based on that inspiration. A tiny (mostly) human village cut off from the rest of civilization due to lands populated by evil fey, goblins, and trolls. And a dreaming dragon that no one dared to wake...
I've only read her Morgaine series. This thread has made me want to read more of her stuff!
The Morgaine series is fricken terrific; every time I read it, I get sad that she couldn't finish the second trilogy. There is, however, a sort of crypto-prologue in her short story collection Visible Light, if you can get ahold of it.