Tag Archives: cj cherryh

Betrayer by CJ Cherryh: a short review

Bren, now really obviously a powerful lord of the realm, rearranges almost everything on the Atevi continent. That’s getting to be a habit. And Cajeiri’s continuing to grow up before our eyes, which is fun. Oddly enough, and unlike other LT reviewers, I liked the first half of the book better than the long, dual-threaded, action sequence.

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Conspirator by CJ Cherryh: a short review

Action packed, and funny.

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The Morgaine Saga by CJ Cherryh: a review

Morgaine’s mission is to close the Gates which permit folks to travel from world to world and time to time. She’s assisted by Vanye, her ilin (sort of vassal, often a body-guard, on what starts out as an accidental one-year contract). In the third book, the relationship changes; they’re still not equals, but Vanye’s more a partner than an underling. On most worlds, Morgaine’s treated as a mythical, dangerous figure. She’s done a lot of damage on many worlds over many centuries; most of that was unintended side effects of her main mission.

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Selling e-Books

I see lots of points of failure. Baen’s Webscriptions site moves the Selection step to the purchase point, and makes the UnZIP step voluntary. That’s a bit better, but both stores, to my mind, assume too much technical literacy on the part of their customers. Obviously that’s what Amazon’s Whispernet is intended to address.

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The Writing Life by CJ Cherryh: a review

The author’s intention was to document her daily activities (routine would be pretty misleading), showing what the life of a professional writer looks and feels like. The first few entries are pretty sketchy; thereafter it’s a fairly traditional blog except that there really is a lot of emphasis on the discipline required to make a living by writing.

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Chanur’s Homecoming by CJ Cherryh: a review

Pyanfar Chanur–the main character in these books–grows weary of being other folks’ pawn and takes control of her destiny. This impacts many others’ destiny as an unintended side effect. The joy, here, is watching all this work itself out. As always, Cherryh’s stories are deeply imagined, well-written, and grounded in careful research.

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The Kif Strike Back by CJ Cherryh: a short review

Classic Cherryh: Stuff keeps happening, and eventually it almost begins to make sense. All the nonstop action and political intrigue that marks CJ’s best work. I’m still not entirely happy with the treatment the author’s giving Tully, who used to be a convincing character but now mostly keeps repeating “Friend.” Hopefully in Homecoming he’ll return to earlier form.

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Chanur’s Venture by CJ Cherryh: a review

Beyond that annoyance, the book again displays Cherryh’s remarkable ability to create aliens, and alien cultures. She gives each of several races enough ink to show us vividly how the cultures function, at least in public (that’s a real issue here, as each race has cultural issues in the background that the others seem unable to comprehend, or make allowances for).

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Serpent’s Reach by CJ Cherryh: a short review

This is very early Cherryh, and she’d not fully mastered her craft. Though the aliens–and the strangely-alien humans, for that matter–are well-imagined, and brought to convincing life, Cherryh hadn’t yet developed the extreme character focus-‘intense internal third [person],’ she calls it–which drives her best books.

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Regenesis by CJ Cherryh: a review

There’s an excellent novel in here, but it’s not an excellent novel.

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