I truly love this article. Cherryh was a titan of 80/90s sf, setting the stage for a lot of ¡°hard sf¡± with her novels set in space. I¡¯ve not explored the Kif books as much - I think they are set in the same narrative but I don¡¯t think it matters so much. Interesting to see how she explores the considerations of gender.
posted by The River Ivel at 11:54 AM on September 18

I have read and re-read this series at least a dozen times.

There's a sense in the series that the main characters see more clearly than other actors because others are blinded by prejudice and preconceptions and greed, and the crew of the Pride can fight through change and find a better future because they cooperate regardless of others' expectations.

Then there's the reader's desire for them to win because the crew always looks to the greatest good over short-term success or personal gain.

And then this article covers something I've always personally loved, the crew's acceptance of others. Of total, unexpected strangers. Of other cultures, even those they are expected to revile. And of those who take other paths. Sometimes grudging acceptance, often slow, but always available.
posted by Wilbefort at 12:54 PM on September 18 [1 favorite]

Plus! as an adventure story it is all that and a bag of chips. Poker chips at the high stakes table; thinking of the Pride running home on a storm of politics and alliances and extinction threat gives me the shivers even now.
posted by clew at 1:25 PM on September 18 [3 favorites]

the main characters see more clearly

Something I think Cherryh does well ¡ªthe main characters do not see this clearly to start with. They¡¯re don¡¯t begin as psychologically sweeter than others or more noble. They¡¯re fairly Ancient-Greek-analogous traders, in fact, not coincidentally ¡°piratical¡±. But they love each other and respect others and it flows outward from there.
posted by clew at 1:28 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

the main characters do not see this clearly to start with

Yeah, you're right. I should have been more specific. They are definitely confused about what's going on, often and early. But they manage to figure out what they're willing to do and what's important.

I love how, in Chanur's Legacy, Hilfy reluctantly pulls out her aunt Pyanfur's policies and procedures manual and passes it to her crew. Her recognition that she needs the legacy of wisdom there, and her memories of how hard it was earned, and her decision that it should live on in her ship.... just goosebumps every time.
posted by Wilbefort at 2:30 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

I haven¡¯t read these, but I¡¯ve adored the Foreigner series. She writes aliens like nobody else and is still putting out great books.
posted by astrospective at 2:34 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

Fuckin love me some CJ. If you're a Traveller nerd, it's 100% a Traveller series, an Aslan crew running a medium sized cargo ship right through the middle of an astropolitical storm.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:50 PM on September 18 [1 favorite]

I've heard it said that 80% of CJ Cherryh books are about preparing for, and participating in, meetings; and it's not wrong, but oh! such meetings.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:52 PM on September 18 [4 favorites]

... anything Cyteen, 98% meetings; Gate of Ivrel, possibly no meetings?
posted by clew at 4:06 PM on September 18

naw morgaine is full of meetings, albeit some of them are very brief and violent.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:20 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

I have been reading a bunch of Cherryh and just slammed the whole Morgaine cycle and if you like your despair in quite well-done high fantasy diction, I recommend it.

I also just read Cyteen and wow could I have used a content warning on that one, but it's fascinating. So much chewy thinking about identity.
posted by restless_nomad at 5:32 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

I loved the Morgaine series when I first read it, even though I did not recognize that it was a deeply emotional connection between two people that was not remotely romantic. Like Furiosa and Max in Fury Road, it was intense, asexual, aromantic, and nearly wordless.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:29 PM on September 18

I loved the Morgaine series when I first read it, even though I did not recognize that it was a deeply emotional connection between two people that was not remotely romantic. Like Furiosa and Max in Fury Road, it was intense, asexual, aromantic, and nearly wordless.

I agree! And yet! Not to spoil things, but did you read the last sequel? Exile's Gate?

I'm a huge Cherryh fan, been reading her since my oldest brother brought home a copy of Gate of Ivrel in the 1970s, and yet she doesn't seem to have broken out of the genre ghetto. Sure, the Foreigner novels sell, and sell, and sell. But you don't hear about her outside of the SFF community much.

Which I think is a shame. She's so good, so hard on the characters and the reader.
posted by suelac at 6:39 PM on September 18 [3 favorites]

restless_nomad, Cyteen is amazing. I've read is several times. So many uncomfortable ideas that I just can't let go of.
posted by Zumbador at 3:05 AM on September 19

40,000 in Gehenna was also fascinating, especially when read as a response to Pern. Arkady Martine was just on a podcast talking about it and I have never gone wrong following Arkady's book recommendations. (Well, that's not entirely true, we're never going to agree on A Winter's Tale and I bounced hard off of the Foreigner series, but they're always interesting recs.)
posted by restless_nomad at 6:40 AM on September 19 [1 favorite]

I always heard Downbelow Station was the best starter Cherryh (according to Cherryh herself), but I never made it through. Just a bit too lumpy and meandering for me, with its sprawl of characters and locations. Any other recs for a starting point?
posted by HeroZero at 1:11 PM on September 19

Heavy Time is fast, short, exciting, has a tight human cast and will make you angry at corporations.

(Heavy Time and Hellburner, same characters, were published in one volume as Devil to the Belt.)

Pride of Chanur gets you to lots of interesting aliens.
posted by clew at 3:03 PM on September 19 [2 favorites]

Chanur hurt Hulk head.
Hulk Smash!
posted by y2karl at 7:42 PM on September 19

Any other recs for a starting point?

"Lumpy and meandering" is pretty much all the Cherryh I've read but Merchanter's Luck is a pretty tight little novel set immediately after Downbelow Station in the timeline. Unfortunately I didn't especially like it; fortunately it is now packaged as a duology with 40,000 in Gehenna, which I loved.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:40 AM on September 20 [1 favorite]

(I did find Downbelow Station less engaging than most of the other Cherryh I've read - it's got some interesting plotlines but too many of them and the pacing is all over the place.)
posted by restless_nomad at 6:43 AM on September 20

Yeah, Downbelow Station is a pretty hard place to start. I would go with almost any of the other/shorter Alliance/Union novels (probably not Cyteen). Merchanter's Luck, RimRunners, Heavy Time, etc.

Another option is one of her early trilogies, the Faded Sun series.

But you'd do best with Pride of Chanur, or Gate of Ivrel, which is SF dressed as fantasy.
posted by suelac at 5:47 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]

Oh, oh, speaking of responses to Pern: Rider at the Gate and Cloud's Rider, which are an explicit response to writers like Lackey and McCaffrey and all the other stories about adolescents bonding with powerful telepathic animals.

In Cherryh's hands, that adolescent power fantasy becomes a bloody nightmare.

These are really good, sadly a bit forgotten, with really cool world-building and exciting/terrifying action. They're so neat I wrote a couple of stories crossing them with the Supernatural universe...
posted by suelac at 5:51 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the recs! Sorry for hijacking this very worthy FPP and turning it into a de facto AskMe.
posted by HeroZero at 10:54 AM on September 21

Maybe we could haul starting-point recommendations back onto the FPP gender-representation tack¡­


All I have is: huh, all the fantasy has simple gender roles, doesn¡¯t it? Except maybe Morgaine, who is sort of science fiction. Is it really that tidy?

(Simple roles, complex people.)
posted by clew at 12:50 PM on September 25

All I have is: huh, all the fantasy has simple gender roles, doesn¡¯t it? Except maybe Morgaine, who is sort of science fiction. Is it really that tidy?

Hm. This is something I'd not noticed but I can think of quite a few science fiction stories with all kinds of unusual gender stuff going on. But fantasy, not so much. I mean, there must be, but I can't think of any? Often there are women taking on traditionally masculine roles, but they are still girls or women. And hardly ever vice versa (boys or men taking on traditionally feminine roles).
In fact, some of the more recent "cozy" fantasy books I've read like "A Teller of Small Fortunes" have been uncomfortably (for me) insistent on a strict gender binary - women are like this, men like that, don't you know.
posted by Zumbador at 1:09 PM on September 25 [1 favorite]

usually the argument that fantasy is usually comforting because it's fantasizing a simpler world is talking about politics at a less personal scale, but as above so below *especially in fantasy*

I thought I had a counterexample but I was thinking of an Aliette de Bodard story that feels like fantasy but is pututatively (sp!) science fiction.
posted by clew at 3:34 PM on September 25

There's certainly fantasy with complex and norm-defying gender roles. The shockingly obvious one is The Wheel of Time series - yeah, it's got a binary-gender problem and I wouldn't necessarily hold it up as the most feminist possible example, but it is absolutely putting women in a variety of roles that weren't acceptable or typical especially when it was written, both on the macro (ruler, warrior) level and the micro (head of household, aggressor) level. (Skip the books, watch the show, if you're curious and want less old-white-dude interpretation of the ideas.) Just the idea that it's not a thing that happens is baffling to me.
posted by restless_nomad at 4:02 AM on September 29 [3 favorites]

I¡¯m with restless_nomad that there are options. A few relatively recent ones I¡¯d recommend: She Who Became The Sun, Empress of Salt and Fortune, The Black Tides of Heaven, The Black Sun, and The Mirror Empire. Nicola Griffith¡¯s Hild series may or may not be fantasy but it¡¯s a great, complex series if you don¡¯t mind the density.
posted by adamsc at 5:08 AM on September 29 [3 favorites]

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