r/printSF • u/loopayy • 18h ago
C.J. Cherryh is elite
I just finished reading Foreigner, which is my fifth book of hers (Faded Sun trilogy, Cyteen) and I just can't get over how good she is. I feel like she doesn't get enough love. Obviously people who read sci-fi know and love her, but I feel like she should be in the Asimov, Le Guin, Heinlein, etc category where non sci-fi readers know her name. My review of Foreigner is here (but it has a lot of my thoughts about her in general):
I'm obsessed with Cherryh's style. She's so good at sci-fi.
She always starts pretty slow, which I've come to realize is a feature, not a bug. She does an incredible job of building not only a world, but a full alien culture through conversations and deliberations within characters' minds. There are no information dumps and very few purely descriptive passages, but you slowly start to piece together this new alien race and how they think as you experience the world through the main character's eyes. Her pacing is excellent. The plot moves slowly in the beginning, giving you time to really absorb the atevi culture, and then starts to pick up once you grasp the intricacies.
Nobody does political intrigue like Cherryh. The aforementioned slow start gave me as much information as I needed to be experiencing the plot right along with Bren (the main character). Based on what I had already learned about the atevi culture and their political system, I felt like I was in the intrigue myself. I was able to take the nuggets of information that Cherryh drops and try to put the pieces together myself. And this is a feeling I've had in other Cherryh books as well. Because I have this base of knowledge that she's prepared me with, I am not relying on her to guide me through the storyline. I really feel like I'm in the same boat as Bren, just trying to keep up and put together this fragmented information that I'm learning into something coherent. She uses a very strict third person limited viewpoint so all we know is what Bren is experiencing, adding to the immersion.
There's a scene in this book that rivals any tense conversation scene in media. I compare it to the classic example of the start of Inglorious Bastards and also one of my favorites, the dinner scene in Dune. This one was right up there with them. It's literally just a human and an alien sitting across a desk from each other, with little threat of physical violence, and it still had me on the edge of my seat.
I could talk about Cherryh forever. I haven't even talked about Bren's struggle with being a human representative trying desperately to relate to an alien species which does not operate on the same spectrum of emotion as we do. She's so good. My only critique so far of her, which holds her stars back a little bit, is that the endings are never really the best part of the book. They aren't bad endings by any means, but there is always such a long, intense buildup, and then they just resolve within the last several pages. I almost think her rising action phase is so good that it makes the endings feel dull in comparison. I can never really think of any specific complaints about the endings, but somehow it always feel like they don't quite live up to the absurd tension she builds in the middle of the book. She's so fun to read though. Truly gets my heart racing.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
I'd love to hear any response to my thoughts, especially concerning the way she finishes her books. If I could learn something that I'm not currently appreciating about her endings, it'd open these books up to being perfect in my eyes. I'd also love to hear if you disagree about my placement of her in the upper echelon of sci-fi writers and why. I can't wait to read Downbelow Station, I just can't find a copy of it anywhere!
Edit to add: Also, if you disagree with my claim that "nobody does political intrigue like Cherryh" I'd be grateful to hear who you think rivals her, because chances are I also want to read that haha
27
u/GoldenEyes88 18h ago
She's great. The Chanur Saga was my introduction to her and has more action than many of her books. It's a shame the universe will never be revisited now that she's retired.
8
6
u/thecrabtable 16h ago
She adds some great space combat details in that series. The time is takes signals to reach a ship after arriving from FTL adds a nice dose of realism. I also like how the mutli-species space stations are very tense places where violence can break out at any moment.
2
u/zem 7h ago
i honestly think the chanur books have the best depiction of interstellar war i've read in all of sf, where it is nigh impossible to engage with a ship moving through your system at a fraction of lightspeed, but a space station or planet is a sitting duck, and it is only the threat of mutually assured destruction that keeps warring species from simply wiping each other's habitats out.
5
18
u/Own_Win_6762 18h ago
The Foreigner series is great, a couple of the books near the end get a little dull on action but are aces on political intrigue. The most recent book, Defiance, is truly awesome (read them in order though) and is one of the all time great political thrillers. It ties up some of the biggest threads that have been running for most of the series, but there's still a lot of possibilities. Sadly, CJ announced she's retiring from writing, her health just isn't there. I'm still hoping she passes the torch for the Foreigner and Union/Alliance books to someone like Ann Leckie or Arcady Martine with some story outlines or a series bible.
On the U/A series, most of the books can be read independently, Merchanter's Luck or Downbelow Station are the usual entry points but Alliance Rising and Alliance Unbound are a recently-written jumping in spot, co-written with Jane Fancher. Cyteen is the hub all the other books rotate around, but I don't recommend it as the first. Make sure you read Downbelow Station and Forty Thousand in Gehenna before.
9
u/alangagarin 18h ago
Heavy Time needs to be read before Hellburner, as Hellburner follows directly after the actions in Heavy Time.
8
u/Own_Win_6762 17h ago
I did say, most. Also Cyteen before Regenesis, the Faded Sun trilogy, and the Chanur, Gates of Ivrel, and Meringoven Nights series are loosely related.
9
u/loopayy 17h ago
Honestly until posting this and reading comments, I hadn't even realized how extensive the series is! crazy stuff. Are the trilogies relatively standalone? I can see myself working through the series one trilogy at a time with breaks in between.
7
u/MagratMakeTheTea 17h ago
They get less and less standalone as it goes on, and the trilogy structure sort of stops mattering. I think you could do the first and maybe the second trilogy and stop if you're happy with the story at that point, but if you keep going after that you're pretty committed.
13
u/Paisley-Cat 17h ago
I always recommend reading Downbelow Station before other Alliance-Union books that take place later in the chronology because the ones later in the chronology definitely spoil one of the main mysteries in Downbelow Station.
(I read them in release order so there were no spoilers for me.)
Her style has varied quite a bit over the years. Her early publisher had a definite development program and actually assigned her different types of books to stretch her. Her scifi horror novels such as Voyager in Night were stretch assignments.
5
u/C5_explosive 16h ago
Totally agree, reading the later books first would ruin the suspense of Downbelow Station.
2
16h ago
[deleted]
1
u/C5_explosive 16h ago
Your clarification is a spoiler since the fate of the station is very much part of the tension and mystery. Spoilers: Especially since a Union terrorist trying to destroy the station, and the fleet also trying to do it, is a major plot of the book.
6
u/Own_Win_6762 17h ago
I wouldn't skip from one set to another - there are a couple sets that work independently (the more space based ones), but it all builds.
4
u/loopayy 17h ago
Ok good to know. Yeah I'd definitely read them in order, but it's good to know once I get to 6 I'm in. I honestly find it hard to believe that anyone can keep an engaging storyline going for 22 books, but from the little I've read so far of Cherryh, it seems like she's up to the task!
2
u/spacebunsofsteel 15h ago
The audibles are very good for most of her books. Her contract predated audible books online so there was a lag of 1-4 years on new releases. I don’t think the last one has an audible yet. Some of the later books are a little too complicated for audio for me. It’s hard to go back and reread with books on tape no cap.
6
16
u/Aeikalos 17h ago
She is my favorite sci fi author (I have read all of her sci fi books), and Downbelow Station is my favorite sci fi novel. I especially love the ending of Downbelow Station, so I wonder what you will think of it. I was sorry to hear she had to stop writing (she announced this) because of age and health concerns, but oh my goodness what an incredible body of work she has completed.
16
u/makebelievethegood 17h ago
I've been working through the Alliance-Union stuff, specifically the Company Wars before i let myself switch to her other worlds. I've got a 3-in-1 Faded Sun set, the first few Chanur books, the first Foreigner trilogy... I could read nothing but Cherryh from my own shelves for probably the next 6 months and be happy with it.
14
u/troyunrau 16h ago
Just went through Chanur (all five). What an amazing writer.
What I've noticed is that when she is writing internal monologues, she writes how the characters feel and intuit their way through problems. Like most sci fi protags are ENTP (Picard!) but she creates ISFJ characters that somehow end up heroes. It's so completely different than most sci fi in this sense.
13
u/sonQUAALUDE 12h ago
She’s the greatest long-form fiction author and it’s not even close. Her ability to maintain these massive scope world-narratives across dozens of intricate books is absolutely mind-boggling. Almost all of the “stand-alone” works and trilogies meaningfully contribute to the world-building as well. And she does this in both sci-fi and fantasy with such a commanding authoritative tone. She writes like she invented the genre. Incredible.
I think that the reason she doesn't get quite the god-tier reputation she deserves is the patience it requires to see. Only people who have read like 20-30-50 of her books can really appreciate just how truly next level that talent is.
4
u/sonQUAALUDE 12h ago
i also want to add to this that she literally created many of the sci-fi and fantasy tropes we take as standard now. most notably all of world of warcraft https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/s/mX0wyZWNuI
12
u/Bergmaniac 16h ago
I am always glad to see threads like this one, Cherryh is amazing.
I also strongly agree about her unmatched ability to write political intrigue, I have been trying pretty hard but have been unable to find another author who is as good as hers. And she has shown she can write it masterfully in a classic fantasy setting too, like in the Fortress series.
10
u/Comfortable-Fall1419 15h ago
Downbelow Station and Hellburner are about the only books until the Expanse where the author actually thought about how space combat would actually work.
Plus how shifts would work without a sunrise and sunset.
10
u/tuttifruttidurutti 18h ago
I read all the foreigner series then listened to them as audiobooks. I love her style, her character work. The series will drag for ages and then there's a banger plot twist out of nowhere.
2
u/coyoteka 16h ago
How are the audiobooks narration?
4
u/tuttifruttidurutti 15h ago
Ok. My wife finds the narrator annoying and won't let me listen to them when she's around. I find some of his voices are incredible, I really like his Dowager. But then in the last book he randomly gave Toby a Boston accent, which he didn't have in the preceding 17 books. And I think he only found out Tabini is young after doing his voice for a few books because he makes him sound old
2
u/coyoteka 15h ago
Haha thanks for that. I wonder sometimes about narrators who are recording the audio without having already read or knowing anything about the book ahead of time, but I guess that's probably standard.
3
9
u/DexterDrakeAndMolly 17h ago
For the Alliance universe I love the different perspectives from every faction from different books. I personally like Downbelow station as it has this in a single book (unusually!) but Merchanter's Luck is fantastic and v short.
11
u/mosselyn 13h ago
Cherryh is easily in my top 2 or 3 favorite authors. I've been reading her books since I first tripped over the Faded Sun trilogy in the early 1980s.
One of the things that always strikes me is the distinctive cadence of her prose. I find myself thinking in "Cherryh sentences" for a few days after I finish one of her books.
I'm envious that you're early in your Cherryh journey. Many great reads await. Have fun!
I feel the duology "Rider at the Gate" and "Cloud's Rider" is often overlooked among Cherryh recommendations. I was always sorry she didn't write more stories in that settinging.
Also, her wife, Jane Fancher, has a pretty good fantasy trilogy that starts with "Ring of Lightning", if you run out things to read.
10
u/Surgefist 18h ago
I've never read her, but I've been eyeballing a collection of hers at goodwill. Might take the plunge on a few next time I'm there. I've read bujold, banks and Simmons so seems to be in wheel house.
8
u/Asset142 17h ago
Not being able to read updates from the Grandmaster herself on Facebook was my only sadness shutting down my Meta account. She's a treat to follow. I've read Foreigner series twice and it gets even better with the reread. And we're building a "God's less fortunate/moderately fortunate/felicitous gods" mood chart for the kicks and giggles over here.
5
8
u/shonogenzo 17h ago
I had the same experience a few years ago, started with the Faded Sun trilogy because I liked the look of the cover art, and wow. What really impressed me was her creativity when making aliens as different in their mental worlds as in their physical forms. And as I read more of her work, yes I thought she should be up there with Le Guin, Heinlein etc.
Other replies here give some great suggestions. Another book of hers that has really stuck with me is 40,000 in Gehenna. Such a strange and beguiling story, again of alien and human interaction but much less intellectual than in the Foreigner books.
10
u/lpforrester18 12h ago
Few, if anyone, does humans lost among aliens than CJ Cherryh. She is hands down, my favorite author. I recommend reading all the books in the Foreigner series, even though it will never be finished as she's had to stop writing. Since you like her stuff as much as I do, a couple of recommendations for additional authors is Ann Leckie, especially her Ancillary series, Becky Chambers, and Martha Wells.
7
u/spacebunsofsteel 16h ago
I’m such a Cherryh fan girl. I finally stopped adding her to every list on here but it’s always a struggle because she is such a master.
I envy any reader getting started on the Foreigner saga. There are over 20 books and they are all so good! (Except that one I can’t get through, proving the rule.)
Please try her Merchanter’s Alliance scifi series, too. It’s so good. She really thought out ship board life and trading families, with gritty details, like hallway nooks to keep people safe and contained during sudden evasive maneuvers.
I believe she has retired for real and will never hook up these two series, though it’s the obvious conclusion.
7
u/yukimayari 17h ago
I've read Cyteen and Regenesis and found them to be really good, and very dense/deep with politics. I haven't read Downbelow Station or Forty Thousand in Gehenna yet (though I want to!)
I did find some nice hardcover copies of Rider at the Gate and Cloud's Rider at the used book store - is this a good series?
4
u/_its_a_thing_ 18h ago
I love the Foreigner series. I do find it wordy at times, but the story keeps getting better. (Though I do feel that Cherryh's main characters use the same interjection - God! or Oh Gods! - too often... enough that it can be distracting)
For Downbelow Station, your local library network is your friend.
6
u/Vanamond3 11h ago edited 6h ago
She's one of my favorites and Foreigner is my favorite of hers. One of the things I really like about her is that she gives each faction a well thought out motivation, so it's not just good vs. bad, and sometimes they even work together when their interests align. This is very evident in the Foreigner books because Tabini keeps sending Bren to an enemy, and Bren keeps bringing that person back as an ally.
9
u/4Falcor 11h ago
CJ Cherryh is my favorite writer and I've read A LOT. No other in my opinion writes aliens and alien societies like she does. The aliens she writes are totally alien but also relatable at the same time. I've read everything of hers I van get my hands on.
She recently posted that she has to stop writing due to complications of surgeries and medications and though I totally get it and wish her happiness and good health I am gutted that there will be no more books from her.
5
5
u/cult_of_dsv 14h ago
She uses a very strict third person limited viewpoint so all we know is what Bren is experiencing, adding to the immersion.
This is the aspect of Cherryh's writing that I both love and hate. If something is going on that the character doesn't know about, well... we don't hear about it.
Combined with her prose style, it means you have to read every sentence carefully. You can't expect the story to be spoonfed to you. The mental effort involved makes the scenes more memorable and powerful. (Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban is a much more extreme version of this.)
But it can also mean long periods of mild boredom and confusion because if something important is happening elsewhere, but the character doesn't know about it, you don't know about it either. You don't have enough context to be able to go, "Oh no! If A happens, then B!" because the viewpoint character is unaware of A until chapter 20.
The main thing I remember from Foreigner (apart from "he compared me to a salad!") is the long, frustrating wait to find out why everyone was treating Bren with such suspicion. Finally it turns out the human colony ship has come back. Great reveal! But up until the reveal, there were chapters and chapters of helpless "What's going on? Why is this happening?" that were as mystifying to me as they were to Bren.
It's the old Hitchcock problem of the bomb under the card table. If you want to create suspense, it's a good idea to give the audience information that the characters don't have: there's a bomb under the table! If you only show the audience what the characters know (they're having a peaceful game of cards), you may be able to spring a surprise on them eventually... but until then nothing much seems to be going on and you're stuck wondering what the point is.
Still, it's clear Cherryh is using that limited viewpoint deliberately and carefully, and she does it well, so I can't really fault her for it. I just bounce off it a lot of the time. In some of her books she does briefly switch to another viewpoint just long enough to provide necessary context and suspense.
I really love the Chanur books though, especially the first one, Pride of Chanur, which is a standalone. Fantastic aliens. I particularly like the way that during books 2-4 (a trilogy), the main character and the reader slowly pull a 180-degree turn regarding the psychology of the main antagonists, the kif. At first they're obviously shifty and backstabbing butyou eventually realise they're ferociously, unbreakably loyal... as long as their leader is competent.
And I liked Serpent's Reach, another early standalone that I think was the first mention of azi - in a context where they make a lot of sense.
2
u/loopayy 14h ago
Wow, thanks for writing all of this out. I think this is exactly what I personally have loved about her work, but don't think I could have laid it out as clearly. To me, that third person view gives me some time to develop agency within the story. I love trying to figure out what the heck is going on. I absolutely agree that there was a lot of time (maybe too much time) spent with Bren in a whirlwind trying to figure out what's going on, but I think that just enforces the feeling that SOMETHING is under the table. I wouldn't say reading Foreigner felt like a peaceful game of cards, and those many chapters in the dark just kept building and building that sense of foreboding.
I'm sure you've tried it, but you might like Cyteen. It still has a pretty strict third person point of view, but it bounces between several characters. You don't know anything those characters don't know, but at least you get to see the problem from different angles.
And the salad/dessert moment had me cracking up in the middle of the tension
6
u/steamy_brew 12h ago
I'm so happy to see all the posts just echoing this same point, but she is truly fantastic and you have some great reading ahead of you! Foreigner just gets better and better across the first few books.
I can't pick a favourite series or universe, however. They're all fantastic. It's the Chanur series I've re-read the most, however. It's a little less pent-up and tense than Foreigner, and just such an incredibly intelligently-written and satisfying romp through all the intrigue, species psychology and high stakes... And then the action is just so good.
Really, noone out there does it better (or at least, noone I've found)!
3
u/loopayy 7h ago
I'm glad I posted this! It's been awesome reading all of the comments showering her with praise and I've learned a lot. It's kind of boggling my mind that pretty much everyone is saying to read all of Foreigner. I just can't imagine a series being so engaging for 23 books, but I haven't seen a single person saying "stop at....".
Very excited to be beginning my Cherryh journey, and amazed that everyone seems to love her entire body of work. What other author has so many bangers?? Seems like she certainly gets her kudos in the sci-fi world.
2
u/steamy_brew 3h ago
I think you're just witnessing a burst of excitement from within the ranks of Cherryh fans here.
She's mentioned regularly in this sub, but still seems a bit niche compared to the "big" names out there. We're all just very vocal when we finally get a chance to be!
You've got some good reading ahead of you. 23 Foreigner books in a row is a daunting propisition, though. Break it up a bit of you can, haha.
4
u/IndigoHG 8h ago
She is my favorite SFF writer. She is genuinely one of the best ever SFF writers EVER. Sometimes I think she's just...too complex...for a lot of people.
The clarity of her writing is extraordinary, the richness and depth of it - even in the books I dislike*. Outstanding.
*looking at you, Rusalka, and you, Paladin
6
u/sebmojo99 14h ago
Cj is the fuckin goat. Read Morgaine and Chanur next, but really you can't go wrong with her books. Someone said her novels are 90% preparing for, and engaging in, meetings and it's true and it's fantastic.
3
u/ThePhantomStrikes 16h ago
I’ve read many by her but avoided Foreigner because 24 books? I’m older so must choose books carefully, too many great books. Is it satisfying to just read the first few?
6
u/GoldenEyes88 16h ago
You don't have to read all of them, I just read the first three and was content to end there. Apparently she writes them in 3 book arcs.
3
u/elhoffgrande 14h ago
I love Rider at the gate and clouds Rider.
Also 40,000 in gehenna.
I think she's one of those authors that does first contact stories better than just about anybody. I'm a huge fan of hers.
3
u/katie-kaboom 12h ago
She can also do lighter stuff! Angel With The Sword is one of my favourites of hers. It's very clearly meant to be worldbuilding for what would become a larger shared universe (the entire Merovingian Nights series is worth reading), and the end of the book is all about that. The meat of the story is excellent, though, and it very much inverts her usual high political drama.
3
u/MTonmyMind 11h ago
Just discovered her this year. Love her!
Started with Downbelow Station, great intro to the Alliance-Union universe.
Then read:
Devil to the Belt (Heavy Time and Hellburner)
Alliance Rising and Alliance Unbound
Merchanter's Luck
Forty Thousand In Gehenna
and now about a third of the way into The Faded Sun Trilogy (Kesrith, Shon'jir, and Kutath).
2
u/Bladrak01 16h ago
I will be honest. I've read several books by her, and none of the stories have really sucked me in. However, the writing is just so damn good I kept reading.
2
u/Comfortable-Fall1419 15h ago
She’s not amazing at Endings but I love her work anyway.
Think I’ve read everything except Faded Sun.
Sad to say she retired for health reasons this year so we won’t get Hinder Stars 3
2
u/WoT_Abridged 14h ago
Yeah I love foreigner. I love how many scenes are so gripping and so tense...and it is literally over tea. If you haven't yet, you should try Cyteen. It is one of my faves from her.
2
u/FAanthropologist 12h ago
I've seen Cherryh's oeuvre described as "social science fiction" which is what makes her books work so well for me. Her world building pace is measured, moving at the speed of what her narrators care about rather than exposition dumps. It's much more observation and conversation than action or technological minutiae.
It's a shame how hard it is to get Cyteen in digital formats for an award winner. I have not found any ebooks of it out there, legal or otherwise. Audible is the only way for Cyteen unfortunately.
2
u/Fest_mkiv 11h ago
I've been trying to find Downbelow Station for ages. Unfortunately it's not on the reading ecosystem of my choice and it's out of print. I heard a song about Capain Signy Mallory of the Norway and I'm super keen to read the story.
1
u/WillAdams 9h ago
One of the things which I really like about the Alliance--Union books is that they also have Filk Music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEBVNVcAXhU&list=PLGZbuWTzf2mKfhAhgpdGscJUw-9QCDwes
2
u/Fest_mkiv 9h ago
Yeah that was the series I heard. I've performed Signy Mallory at sea shanty nights. Finity's end is a banger.
1
2
u/Impossible-Bug2038 10h ago
Cherryh is terrific. I keep meaning to go back and catch up on the Foreigner series: I think I read the first six or so a few years back. The Atevi are probably my favorite alien culture in sci-fi.
1
u/BlenderSecrets 15h ago
I've never read anything of her yet, because whenever I'm reminded of her and check out what to read on Goodreads, I'm scared off by the negative reviews (usually complaining that it's "boring" etc). Which book would you recommend as a good first one to get into her work?
6
u/sebmojo99 14h ago
Morgaine, and Chanur.
1
u/BlenderSecrets 13h ago
Thanks! I'll check it out
2
u/Mekthakkit 11h ago
I've given my opinion on this before. Chanur is a great starting point (unless you hate aliens.) The first book is short and great, and stand alone. So if it's not for you, you can stop there. Then there's a trio of short novels (really one long novel) that follows immediately after. You can also stop there. Or you can read the last novel, which was written later and has a small time jump.
Plus they are a good prelude to the Alliance/Union stories, since they take place in the same universe, around the same time.
3
u/loopayy 14h ago edited 14h ago
I can't say I'm super well versed in her work yet, but I started with the Faded Sun Trilogy and it made me want to read more. I think it's a solid entry because they are shorter and not quite as dense, but it still has all of the elements that Cherryh is so good at (alien minds, political intrigue, complicated relationships). Based on my research and this thread, it seems like Downbelow Station is a good one to start with as well, but I haven't read it yet.
As far as her stuff being "boring", I get where reviewers are coming from. It can be wordy and dense for sure. But she uses all of those words to build into something, as opposed to being wordy for the sake of it. It kind of makes it an even better overall reading experience. She doesn't make anything obvious and forces you to work it out for yourself. I wouldn't necessarily recommend starting with Cyteen, but that book has the most complicated characters I've ever read and you kind of have to decide for yourself who you trust. She's not spoon-feeding you anything
1
u/BlenderSecrets 13h ago
Just noticed (this is neither here nor there) that she looked quite a bit like Ursula Le Guin when they were both young. Or went to the same hair stylist...
1
u/BlenderSecrets 13h ago
Interesting, yes Cyteen is the one usually recommended. I'll check out your recommendation instead of the Faded Fun Trilogy. Sounds great the way you describe it (I'll just not read the reviews on Goodreads before I start, haha). Thank you!
2
u/eatpraymunt 12h ago
If you like action, Chanur series is great! It's not super long either. You can find them at 2nd hand book stores pretty reliably too
2
u/CosmicLovepats 8h ago
Infinty's End is a remarkably accessible starting point to her setting. Chanur is famous for a reason but I think Infinity's End- perhaps because the protagonist is a 17yo- comes across as almost a heinlein-juvenile style novel and easier to read than some of her other work.
1
1
1
u/Bobosmite 14h ago
I've always been a huge fan of Michael Whelan, but to my teenage self, those Chanur covers were poison.
1
u/lostinspaz 12h ago
I misremembered Cheryh writing “The Snow Queen”. Turns out it was by Joan Vinge. You might like that too. Lots of politics. but also further out sci-fi. Foreigner is closer to our time period.
1
u/oceangothic 11h ago
I read Serpent's Reach on a whim earlier this year, hadn't heard of her before, and I loved it. It was everything I want from that sort of story and I'm planning to read a lot more of her in the future.
1
u/jimgogek 10h ago
I recently read all the Chanur books and liked them a lot, tho some don’t think they’re her best. Excellent writer and I like her science, and particularly about how ftl jumps are so hard physically on spacers. Haven’t seen that anywhere else and it’s an interesting idea.
1
u/Hayden_Zammit 14h ago
I've tried Chanur, and Downbelow Station and DNFd both.
She seems like someone I would love, but I just can't stay interested in her books. Really hate her writing style, too.
It's really annoying because there's a ton of her books I could be reading lol.
44
u/CubGeek 18h ago
I haven't read Foreigner in probably 20 years, but I know the exact scene you're talking about. And, Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager is one of my favorites from the series. Though I did lose track of them about book 12 or 13....