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Age of Exploration #1-2
Alternate Realities
In Port Eternity : Their names were Lancelot, Elaine, Percivale, Gawain, Mordred, Lynette, and Vivien, and they were made people , clone servants who worked aboard The Maid , an anachronistic fantasy of a spaceship. They had no idea of their origins, from those old storytapes of romance, chivalry, heroism, and betrayal, until a ripple in the space-time continuum sucked The Maid and her crew into a no-man’s-land from which there could be no return, and they were left alone to face a crisis which their ancient prototypes were never designed to master….
In Wave Without a Shore : Freedom was an isolated planet, off the main spaceways and rarely visited by commercial spacers. It wasn’t that Freedom was inhospitable, the problem was that outsiders—tourists and traders—claimed that the streets were crowded with mysterious blue-robed aliens. Native-born humans, however, denied that these aliens existed—until a planetary crisis forced a confrontation between the question of reality and the reality of the question….
In Voyager in Night : Rafe Murray, his sister Jillian, and Jillian’s husband Paul Gaines, like many other out-of-luck spacers, had come to newly-built Endeavor Station to find their future. Their tiny ship, Lindy , had been salvaged from the junk heap, and fitted to mine ore from the mineral-rich rings which circled Endeavor. But their future proved to be far stranger than any of them imagined, when a “collision” with a huge alien vessel provided them with the oddest first contact experience possible!
In Wave Without a Shore : Freedom was an isolated planet, off the main spaceways and rarely visited by commercial spacers. It wasn’t that Freedom was inhospitable, the problem was that outsiders—tourists and traders—claimed that the streets were crowded with mysterious blue-robed aliens. Native-born humans, however, denied that these aliens existed—until a planetary crisis forced a confrontation between the question of reality and the reality of the question….
In Voyager in Night : Rafe Murray, his sister Jillian, and Jillian’s husband Paul Gaines, like many other out-of-luck spacers, had come to newly-built Endeavor Station to find their future. Their tiny ship, Lindy , had been salvaged from the junk heap, and fitted to mine ore from the mineral-rich rings which circled Endeavor. But their future proved to be far stranger than any of them imagined, when a “collision” with a huge alien vessel provided them with the oddest first contact experience possible!
525 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 2000
86 people are currently reading
352 people want to read
About the author
C.J. Cherryh
292 books3,561 followersCurrently resident in Spokane, Washington, C.J. Cherryh has won four Hugos and is one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed authors in the science fiction and fantasy field. She is the author of more than forty novels. Her hobbies include travel, photography, reef culture, Mariners baseball, and, a late passion, figure skating: she intends to compete in the adult USFSA track. She began with the modest ambition to learn to skate backwards and now is working on jumps. She sketches, occasionally, cooks fairly well, and hates house work; she loves the outdoors, animals wild and tame, is a hobbyist geologist, adores dinosaurs, and has academic specialties in Roman constitutional law and bronze age Greek ethnography. She has written science fiction since she was ten, spent ten years of her life teaching Latin and Ancient History on the high school level, before retiring to full time writing, and now does not have enough hours in the day to pursue all her interests. Her studies include planetary geology, weather systems, and natural and man-made catastrophes, civilizations, and cosmology…in fact, there's very little that doesn't interest her. A loom is gathering dust and needs rethreading, a wooden ship model awaits construction, and the cats demand their own time much more urgently. She works constantly, researches mostly on the internet, and has books stacked up and waiting to be written.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 28, 2025
Another omnibus collection of C.J. Cherryh novels, this time from the early 1980s. This time, there's no direct connection between any of the individual books other than their being set in Cherryh's Union/Alliance universe, and all being slightly ... weird or experimental to one degree or another. In order:
Port Eternity -- a 1982 novel. Interestingly, it's written in first person -- this might be the only time Cherryh's written an entire first-person novel? although she's used it in some of her shorter fiction. The narrator is Elaine, one of the crew of the ship Maid of Astolet, owned by the unthinkably rich (and perhaps somewhat horrible) Dela Kirn. Elaine and the rest of the crew (Lancelot, Percivale, Gawain, Modred, Lynette and Vivian) are not "born men" -- they're tank-grown and tape-trained; apparently, they're azi (Cherryh's term for the tank-grown people Union uses as, well, slave labor probably isn't the wrong term, although the term azi itself wouldn't appear in her books for a few more years (EDIT: I was wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong: The term azi appears in Serpent's Reach, which had come out a few years prior)) and, as revealed by their names, they're at least loosely modeled on the Arthurian characters of legend, although they're mostly unaware of this fact -- Dela Kirn being rich enough that she can indulge her whims to make an impractically opulent spaceship and crew it with people artificially made and modeled after old legends.
And for the most part, the crew has been content (because they're made to be that way, and because it's constantly being reinforced by their tape learning).
But then, a jump drive malfunction leaves Dela and Griffin (her current boy-toy) and the crew trapped in hyperspace (an environment very much not conducive to human minds) and moored to a ... station? ... that is old, studded with other derelict ships of unfamiliar design, and clearly not of human make, and something starts tapping on the hull ...
This is one of the very few Cherryh books from that era that I'd never read before -- I must not have known about it back in the day, although at some point (probably 35 years ago, plus or minus) I did pick up a copy which still sits unread on my shelf. And now I regret not reading it sooner -- it's not one of her major works, but even minor Cherryh is worth the time.
Voyager in Night -- a 1984 novel. This one I did read back in the day. It might have been the first new Cherryh novel to come out after I had started reading her work (in my case, beginning with Downbelow Station, Merchanter's Luck and The Pride of Chanur), so I'm sure I grabbed it off of the bookstore shelf.
This one is very definitely Union-Alliance set because the opening section includes snippets of a timeline that ends with the Company Wars which concluded in Downbelow Station. Part of that first section is from the point of view of three humans (Rafe, his sister Jillan, and her husband Paul), crew of the Lindy an insystem miner working on the construction of Endeavor Station; the rest of that first section is from the point of view of <>, the commander(?) of a ship(?) most definitely not built by humans that had been exploring the galaxy for a very long time, and which briefly jumps into Endeavor's system, engenders a great deal of panic, and inadvertently drags Lindy along with it when it jumps back out.
At which point (minor spoilers) <> notices its stowaway and its crew, two of whom are beyond repair, but it still manages to "record" all three of them at a level of detail (down to particle state and spin) that allows it to recreate them as simulations on the ship, although it takes them (and the one who did survive the incident, barely; and the recording process is not pleasant) a while to suss out exactly what their situation is; and over the millennia of its voyaging, the ship and its inhabitants (not just <> <>self, but also >, <^>, ((((())))) and various other largely incomprehensible entities) have grown altogether strange and factional, and now these new arrivals (and such other copies as may be created from those templates) are drawn into the inter-ship politics as they try to figure out what in the hell has actually happened to them.
This one has some similarities with Port Eternity, mostly in the thematic sense of "space is weird and there are Things out there", but it's a much more ... experimental book, in terms of its narrative, and it's always been a dark horse favorite of mine.
Wave Without a Shore -- a 1981 novel. The world Freedom was colonized some time ago but due to an accident was left without a station and has existed mostly at a relatively low tech level and with minimal contact with the wider universe. And its inhabitants are, for the most part, insufferable. The cities and continents are named things like Kierkegard and Sartre and Camus, which should tell you what you need to know about the locals.
Most of the book is built on the relation between one Herrin Law (student and sculptor) and his friend Walden Jenks (also a student, at least at first, and son of the planetary ruler, at least at first), who meet and enter into a relationship of prickly admiration and guarded mutual respect (to the extent that either of them can respect any other human being) that results in Herrin being recruited to make a sculpture of Walden that will be a thing for the ages. But once you've made your masterpiece, maybe the subject of said masterpiece doesn't want you going off and making another masterpiece?
Lots of thoughts about obsession and the relationship between art and politics, and what we see and what we choose not to see. Again, not major Cherryh, but doing some interesting things.
Port Eternity -- a 1982 novel. Interestingly, it's written in first person -- this might be the only time Cherryh's written an entire first-person novel? although she's used it in some of her shorter fiction. The narrator is Elaine, one of the crew of the ship Maid of Astolet, owned by the unthinkably rich (and perhaps somewhat horrible) Dela Kirn. Elaine and the rest of the crew (Lancelot, Percivale, Gawain, Modred, Lynette and Vivian) are not "born men" -- they're tank-grown and tape-trained; apparently, they're azi (Cherryh's term for the tank-grown people Union uses as, well, slave labor probably isn't the wrong term, although the term azi itself wouldn't appear in her books for a few more years (EDIT: I was wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong: The term azi appears in Serpent's Reach, which had come out a few years prior)) and, as revealed by their names, they're at least loosely modeled on the Arthurian characters of legend, although they're mostly unaware of this fact -- Dela Kirn being rich enough that she can indulge her whims to make an impractically opulent spaceship and crew it with people artificially made and modeled after old legends.
And for the most part, the crew has been content (because they're made to be that way, and because it's constantly being reinforced by their tape learning).
But then, a jump drive malfunction leaves Dela and Griffin (her current boy-toy) and the crew trapped in hyperspace (an environment very much not conducive to human minds) and moored to a ... station? ... that is old, studded with other derelict ships of unfamiliar design, and clearly not of human make, and something starts tapping on the hull ...
This is one of the very few Cherryh books from that era that I'd never read before -- I must not have known about it back in the day, although at some point (probably 35 years ago, plus or minus) I did pick up a copy which still sits unread on my shelf. And now I regret not reading it sooner -- it's not one of her major works, but even minor Cherryh is worth the time.
Voyager in Night -- a 1984 novel. This one I did read back in the day. It might have been the first new Cherryh novel to come out after I had started reading her work (in my case, beginning with Downbelow Station, Merchanter's Luck and The Pride of Chanur), so I'm sure I grabbed it off of the bookstore shelf.
This one is very definitely Union-Alliance set because the opening section includes snippets of a timeline that ends with the Company Wars which concluded in Downbelow Station. Part of that first section is from the point of view of three humans (Rafe, his sister Jillan, and her husband Paul), crew of the Lindy an insystem miner working on the construction of Endeavor Station; the rest of that first section is from the point of view of <>, the commander(?) of a ship(?) most definitely not built by humans that had been exploring the galaxy for a very long time, and which briefly jumps into Endeavor's system, engenders a great deal of panic, and inadvertently drags Lindy along with it when it jumps back out.
At which point (minor spoilers) <> notices its stowaway and its crew, two of whom are beyond repair, but it still manages to "record" all three of them at a level of detail (down to particle state and spin) that allows it to recreate them as simulations on the ship, although it takes them (and the one who did survive the incident, barely; and the recording process is not pleasant) a while to suss out exactly what their situation is; and over the millennia of its voyaging, the ship and its inhabitants (not just <> <>self, but also >, <^>, ((((())))) and various other largely incomprehensible entities) have grown altogether strange and factional, and now these new arrivals (and such other copies as may be created from those templates) are drawn into the inter-ship politics as they try to figure out what in the hell has actually happened to them.
This one has some similarities with Port Eternity, mostly in the thematic sense of "space is weird and there are Things out there", but it's a much more ... experimental book, in terms of its narrative, and it's always been a dark horse favorite of mine.
Wave Without a Shore -- a 1981 novel. The world Freedom was colonized some time ago but due to an accident was left without a station and has existed mostly at a relatively low tech level and with minimal contact with the wider universe. And its inhabitants are, for the most part, insufferable. The cities and continents are named things like Kierkegard and Sartre and Camus, which should tell you what you need to know about the locals.
Most of the book is built on the relation between one Herrin Law (student and sculptor) and his friend Walden Jenks (also a student, at least at first, and son of the planetary ruler, at least at first), who meet and enter into a relationship of prickly admiration and guarded mutual respect (to the extent that either of them can respect any other human being) that results in Herrin being recruited to make a sculpture of Walden that will be a thing for the ages. But once you've made your masterpiece, maybe the subject of said masterpiece doesn't want you going off and making another masterpiece?
Lots of thoughts about obsession and the relationship between art and politics, and what we see and what we choose not to see. Again, not major Cherryh, but doing some interesting things.
November 6, 2011
An omnibus collection of three novels (I'll update this review as I finish the subsequent books - Wave Without a Shore and Voyager in Night):
Wave Without a Shore (read Nov 5-6): "Man, said the inscription, is the measure of all things. 'No,' he said." (p. 516).
The quote pretty much sums up the theme of this novel, and I don't mean that to disparage the book. Before there was Beszel/Ul Qoma, there was Freedom*, a remote planet in Cherryh's Union-Alliance future whose human inhabitants refuse to "see" the native ahnit, or even the occasional human spacer who visits the system. The book is told from the point of view of Herrin Law, an artistic prodigy who, along with Waden Jenks, the antagonist, carries the solipsistic conceits of the planet's human inhabitants to extremes - the only Reality that matters is the one that they build around themselves. When Waden's (the planet's ruler) "reality" collides with the one Herrin inhabits, Herrin is forced to truly "see" the world around him and it precipitates a revolution.
This is easily the best novel of the omnibus, exploring as it does questions of how we (try to) shape reality and how it shapes us. Herrin starts out as one of the most arrogant, self-centered and unlikable persons you're likely to ever meet but the shock that finally opens his eyes and his subsequent transformation are believable.
Like many Cherryh novels, this one slowly builds to a sudden, pell-mell conclusion but the story is short enough that it doesn't drag.
* And before Freedom, there was Jack Vance's Ampridatvir in The Dying Earth.
Rating: 3.25
Voyager in Night (read Oct 15-16): Voyager begins a year or so after the end of the Company Wars (AD 2355). Rafe and Jillan Murray and her husband Paul Gaines are orphans of the War trying to re-establish the Murray clan and return to the starlanes as merchanters.* Unfortunately, their ancient, creaky insystem miner is swept up by an alien starship that passes through the Endeavor system, and they find themselves unwilling guests of Trishanamarandu-kepta, also called "<>". Actually, it's only Rafe who's physically present on the ship, Jillan and Paul having died in the collision, but all three's brains have been copied by <> and they continue to exist (several copies eventually) as hologrammatic memories within the ship.
What struck me when I finished this second book was its similarity to John Varley's Gaea trilogy. Anyone who's read those novels will understand when I say that <>'s nature and problems mirror that of Gaea's to a great degree.
I think the near fatal weakness of Voyager is that I can't care about the characters. Rafe, Jillan and Paul never become much more than the insubstantial holograms of their ghosts, and Cherryh goes out of her way to make <> and <>'s passengers utterly inhuman so there's not much to identify with there. There's also too much exposition and not enough action. And by "action" I'm not talking about Han Solo shooting Imperial stormtroopers but the simple process of learning about someone through their actions and dialog. Instead, for example, we're told the nature of the humans' relationship with each other - in fact, they're told about the relationship by <>, who's mapped their minds.
A final cavil, in her effort to make Trishanamarandu-kepta as alien as possible and to avoid pitfalls like thinking of <> as male or female, Cherryh uses a supremely annoying convention of using symbols to refer to the aliens (which I've imitated in the paragraphs above - forgive me gentle readers).** It results in nearly unreadable sentences like:
Does anyone know what the audiobook version of that sounds like?
Despite my reservations about the novel, this is still a decent read and a pleasant way to waste a weekend afternoon, though for Cherryh fans more than anyone else.
* Readers will need to have a basic knowledge of Cherryh's Union-Alliance books to understand that prior to the discovery of Cyteen, the first inhabitable world discovered outside of Earth, starfaring humanity had become divided into merchanters and stationers, who developed complementary but very different societies. That dynamic plays a significant role in the course of the story.
** Cherryh does a much better job of dealing with the multisexual stsho and their complicated pronominal system in the Chanur novels.
Rating: 2.75
Port Eternity (read Oct 8-9): Like many of her SF novels, Port Eternity is set in the author's Union/Alliance universe, where humanity is divided between the two major eponymous powers. Union sustains a massive colonization effort and rapid expansion of planetary populations by using "azi," cloned humans who are conditioned for obedience, routinely re-educated via tapes, and usually put down around the age of 40. Some of Cherryh's more interesting stories revolve around how azi react when left to themselves or are forced to push the bounds of their conditioning (e.g., Forty Thousand in Gehenna and the Josh Talley thread in Downbelow Station).
This is a less successful effort along those lines. The azi here are named after characters from Arthurian romances - Lancelot, Elaine, Vivien, Lynette, Percival, Gawaine and Modred - and they staff the household of the born-man Dela Kirn. When Dela's starship, The Maid of Astolat, is caught up in a subspace warp from which they can't escape, the azi crew must learn to cope without the certainties of their structured existence.
Rating: 2.5
Wave Without a Shore (read Nov 5-6): "Man, said the inscription, is the measure of all things. 'No,' he said." (p. 516).
The quote pretty much sums up the theme of this novel, and I don't mean that to disparage the book. Before there was Beszel/Ul Qoma, there was Freedom*, a remote planet in Cherryh's Union-Alliance future whose human inhabitants refuse to "see" the native ahnit, or even the occasional human spacer who visits the system. The book is told from the point of view of Herrin Law, an artistic prodigy who, along with Waden Jenks, the antagonist, carries the solipsistic conceits of the planet's human inhabitants to extremes - the only Reality that matters is the one that they build around themselves. When Waden's (the planet's ruler) "reality" collides with the one Herrin inhabits, Herrin is forced to truly "see" the world around him and it precipitates a revolution.
This is easily the best novel of the omnibus, exploring as it does questions of how we (try to) shape reality and how it shapes us. Herrin starts out as one of the most arrogant, self-centered and unlikable persons you're likely to ever meet but the shock that finally opens his eyes and his subsequent transformation are believable.
Like many Cherryh novels, this one slowly builds to a sudden, pell-mell conclusion but the story is short enough that it doesn't drag.
* And before Freedom, there was Jack Vance's Ampridatvir in The Dying Earth.
Rating: 3.25
Voyager in Night (read Oct 15-16): Voyager begins a year or so after the end of the Company Wars (AD 2355). Rafe and Jillan Murray and her husband Paul Gaines are orphans of the War trying to re-establish the Murray clan and return to the starlanes as merchanters.* Unfortunately, their ancient, creaky insystem miner is swept up by an alien starship that passes through the Endeavor system, and they find themselves unwilling guests of Trishanamarandu-kepta, also called "<>". Actually, it's only Rafe who's physically present on the ship, Jillan and Paul having died in the collision, but all three's brains have been copied by <> and they continue to exist (several copies eventually) as hologrammatic memories within the ship.
What struck me when I finished this second book was its similarity to John Varley's Gaea trilogy. Anyone who's read those novels will understand when I say that <>'s nature and problems mirror that of Gaea's to a great degree.
I think the near fatal weakness of Voyager is that I can't care about the characters. Rafe, Jillan and Paul never become much more than the insubstantial holograms of their ghosts, and Cherryh goes out of her way to make <> and <>'s passengers utterly inhuman so there's not much to identify with there. There's also too much exposition and not enough action. And by "action" I'm not talking about Han Solo shooting Imperial stormtroopers but the simple process of learning about someone through their actions and dialog. Instead, for example, we're told the nature of the humans' relationship with each other - in fact, they're told about the relationship by <>, who's mapped their minds.
A final cavil, in her effort to make Trishanamarandu-kepta as alien as possible and to avoid pitfalls like thinking of <> as male or female, Cherryh uses a supremely annoying convention of using symbols to refer to the aliens (which I've imitated in the paragraphs above - forgive me gentle readers).** It results in nearly unreadable sentences like:
"Only older," > returned, gaining more of <>'s territory, > extended a filament of >self all about the center, advanced Paul-mind and ==== in their attack. The passengers huddled far and afraid, in what recesses they could, excepting ((())), who had forgotten who had killed ((())), long ago; excepting entities like [], who ranged themselves with >. "<>'ve grown older and less integrated, <>. Give up the center." (p. 322)
Does anyone know what the audiobook version of that sounds like?
Despite my reservations about the novel, this is still a decent read and a pleasant way to waste a weekend afternoon, though for Cherryh fans more than anyone else.
* Readers will need to have a basic knowledge of Cherryh's Union-Alliance books to understand that prior to the discovery of Cyteen, the first inhabitable world discovered outside of Earth, starfaring humanity had become divided into merchanters and stationers, who developed complementary but very different societies. That dynamic plays a significant role in the course of the story.
** Cherryh does a much better job of dealing with the multisexual stsho and their complicated pronominal system in the Chanur novels.
Rating: 2.75
Port Eternity (read Oct 8-9): Like many of her SF novels, Port Eternity is set in the author's Union/Alliance universe, where humanity is divided between the two major eponymous powers. Union sustains a massive colonization effort and rapid expansion of planetary populations by using "azi," cloned humans who are conditioned for obedience, routinely re-educated via tapes, and usually put down around the age of 40. Some of Cherryh's more interesting stories revolve around how azi react when left to themselves or are forced to push the bounds of their conditioning (e.g., Forty Thousand in Gehenna and the Josh Talley thread in Downbelow Station).
This is a less successful effort along those lines. The azi here are named after characters from Arthurian romances - Lancelot, Elaine, Vivien, Lynette, Percival, Gawaine and Modred - and they staff the household of the born-man Dela Kirn. When Dela's starship, The Maid of Astolat, is caught up in a subspace warp from which they can't escape, the azi crew must learn to cope without the certainties of their structured existence.
Rating: 2.5
June 12, 2024
This book is made of three shorter novels and I will comment on each novel separately.
1. Port Eternity - An interesting novel about a rich woman, her lover, her starship, and several Cyteen created clone servants she has leased. When something goes wrong with their superluminal drive, they become stuck in the "in between"space and end up near some unknown structure. Finding out what it is and dealing with their new fate makes for an interesting story. This story is told from the perspective of one of the clones. This gives some interesting insights into the life of servant clones.
2. Voyager in Night - A tiny miner space ship in the "Alliance-Union universe, is picked up by an unknown to humanity alien starship. The story follows how they interact with and affect the aliens on this starship. It is a bit of a sad story, but well written and interesting.
3. Wave with out a Shore - I have to admit, I really didn't like the characters in this story, until I realized what the author had done. The tale takes place on one of the planets from the Alliance-Union universe, but one that did not get a space station, and so has remained pretty much isolated from the rest of humanity for the several hundred years of its existence. Because of this, it has grown and created a culture that is somewhat alien. Ms. Cherryh is truly a Mistress of creating alien cultures. Here she uses that ability to portray a truly unusual human culture. This was probably the best of the three novel in this anthology, even though I spent more than half of the novel not liking it or the main characters. A truly amazing twist and portrayal!
1. Port Eternity - An interesting novel about a rich woman, her lover, her starship, and several Cyteen created clone servants she has leased. When something goes wrong with their superluminal drive, they become stuck in the "in between"space and end up near some unknown structure. Finding out what it is and dealing with their new fate makes for an interesting story. This story is told from the perspective of one of the clones. This gives some interesting insights into the life of servant clones.
2. Voyager in Night - A tiny miner space ship in the "Alliance-Union universe, is picked up by an unknown to humanity alien starship. The story follows how they interact with and affect the aliens on this starship. It is a bit of a sad story, but well written and interesting.
3. Wave with out a Shore - I have to admit, I really didn't like the characters in this story, until I realized what the author had done. The tale takes place on one of the planets from the Alliance-Union universe, but one that did not get a space station, and so has remained pretty much isolated from the rest of humanity for the several hundred years of its existence. Because of this, it has grown and created a culture that is somewhat alien. Ms. Cherryh is truly a Mistress of creating alien cultures. Here she uses that ability to portray a truly unusual human culture. This was probably the best of the three novel in this anthology, even though I spent more than half of the novel not liking it or the main characters. A truly amazing twist and portrayal!
January 5, 2020
I picked up this collection from the library because I really wanted to read Voyager in Night again - I think it's the best science fiction horror story I've ever read. It's certainly one of the most memorable, with characters called things like <>, <^>, and ====. I see some reviewers had issues with this; maybe it's because I am a programmer, but for me, this was actually surprisingly readable.
Three people - a brother, a sister, and the sister's husband - own a small ship. It's not up to much but it's what they've wanted since they were orphaned, so they can control their own destinies. After a successful first run they get captured by a mysterious ship and taken far, far away from any other humans. Two of them die, and one survives, but all of them have their state mapped by the ship before they die, and it then recreates them from these templates multiple times.
Sometimes <> doesn't get it right, and effectively tortures them. Sometimes another part of the ship captures one of the copies. Sometimes <> assumes the identity of one of the copies to impersonate another. Sometimes they interact with the survivor. It's full of identity crises and explorations of how people handle trauma.
For a story that was published in 1984, this still feels remarkably fresh and prescient. (For better or worse, with a little tweaking, it could be a Black Mirror episode.)
Voyager in Night is actually the second story here, but I got excited and started talking about that before the others.
Port Eternity is the first story, and fairly straightforward. It touched on the Alliance-Union universe - particularly the Union side - with the tape-grown staff for Lady Dela. The story (and maybe even the title) flags that the characters may be wrong about what's happening fairly early, and that means it drags a little in the middle section. I found it hard to care about the details of their preparations for a situation I was pretty sure they'd misinterpreted.
Possibly this is a Cherryh thing. Downbelow Station, which is another book of hers that I really enjoyed, has similar pacing: slow for perhaps two thirds or even three quarters of the book, and then sudden acceleration towards the end.
On the plus side, I think by being first it serves as a nice warm-up for Voyager in Night, as this is also about something strange capturing a spaceship in the depths of space. This has a simpler approach, however, and a more optimistic one.
The third story, Wave Without a Shore, has a very different plot - two prodigies at a university on a remote planet try to impose their reality on the other. The people who live there don't recognise the existence of the other sentient species with whom they share the planet, or people who do. (So if you acknowledge an Ahnit, you are also an Outsider and therefore not noticed.) It's a lot like The City & the City in that respect.
The pacing here is like that in Port Eternity, and I found this really dragged in the middle section. Once the main character experiences their crisis, the plot starts to move much faster.
These are all enjoyable stories. Obviously Voyager in Night was my personal favourite, but I'd recommend all of them. CJ Cherryh is a very distinctive and underrated author, and I'd love to see her work be more widely-known.
Three people - a brother, a sister, and the sister's husband - own a small ship. It's not up to much but it's what they've wanted since they were orphaned, so they can control their own destinies. After a successful first run they get captured by a mysterious ship and taken far, far away from any other humans. Two of them die, and one survives, but all of them have their state mapped by the ship before they die, and it then recreates them from these templates multiple times.
Sometimes <> doesn't get it right, and effectively tortures them. Sometimes another part of the ship captures one of the copies. Sometimes <> assumes the identity of one of the copies to impersonate another. Sometimes they interact with the survivor. It's full of identity crises and explorations of how people handle trauma.
For a story that was published in 1984, this still feels remarkably fresh and prescient. (For better or worse, with a little tweaking, it could be a Black Mirror episode.)
Voyager in Night is actually the second story here, but I got excited and started talking about that before the others.
Port Eternity is the first story, and fairly straightforward. It touched on the Alliance-Union universe - particularly the Union side - with the tape-grown staff for Lady Dela. The story (and maybe even the title) flags that the characters may be wrong about what's happening fairly early, and that means it drags a little in the middle section. I found it hard to care about the details of their preparations for a situation I was pretty sure they'd misinterpreted.
Possibly this is a Cherryh thing. Downbelow Station, which is another book of hers that I really enjoyed, has similar pacing: slow for perhaps two thirds or even three quarters of the book, and then sudden acceleration towards the end.
On the plus side, I think by being first it serves as a nice warm-up for Voyager in Night, as this is also about something strange capturing a spaceship in the depths of space. This has a simpler approach, however, and a more optimistic one.
The third story, Wave Without a Shore, has a very different plot - two prodigies at a university on a remote planet try to impose their reality on the other. The people who live there don't recognise the existence of the other sentient species with whom they share the planet, or people who do. (So if you acknowledge an Ahnit, you are also an Outsider and therefore not noticed.) It's a lot like The City & the City in that respect.
The pacing here is like that in Port Eternity, and I found this really dragged in the middle section. Once the main character experiences their crisis, the plot starts to move much faster.
These are all enjoyable stories. Obviously Voyager in Night was my personal favourite, but I'd recommend all of them. CJ Cherryh is a very distinctive and underrated author, and I'd love to see her work be more widely-known.
January 28, 2018
C.J. Cherryh is one of my favorite science fiction writers. Her Downbelow Station is one of the greatest SF books of all time and she always provides a good read. Port Eternity is one of her more fanciful novels. It’s set in the Alliance Space universe of Downbelow Station and Cyteen and focuses on seven Azi—cloned humans—who run a luxury yacht for the extravagantly wealthy Lady Della Kirn. When the yacht is stranded in jump space the azi are pressed to grow beyond the taped instructions which define their personalities and help Lady Della and her paramour cope with the terror of being stranded forever out of contact with the rest of humanity. The crew quickly discovers that the only thing more horrifying than being isolated as they are, is discovering that unknown alien beings also inhabit this strange surreal space and that those beings are not willing to leave them alone.
Port Eternity combines the themes of encountering the unknown with deep introspection. It’s a beautiful book, reading in many ways like the Arthurian legends it is consciously modeled after. Not Ms. Cherryh’s best work, but certainly entertaining.
Wave Without a Shore is about the nature of reality--also a highly philosophical book. Its characters live on the planet, Freedom, and operate on the assumption that their personal power of belief creates reality. Therefore, people they choose not to see, don't exist. And they also choose not to see the alien race that coexists on the planet with them. It is a powerful and intriguing setting which is upset by the introduction of interstellar humans interacting with Freedom and bringing with them their own understanding of reality. Calamity results…
Voyager in Night is one of the most unique and difficult novels I have ever read. Images from this book have stayed with me a quarter century after I first read it, although I had completely forgotten how it ends. I think that is because the ending is so difficult to interpret. Cherryh, herself, in an introduction to the Alternate Realities version said that she and her editor disagreed on what the ending meant. Unfortunately, the room for interpretation in the ending left me with an unhappy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
That being said, I liked the book. The plot premise is that three people are plucked out of their small spacecraft by an alien entity exploring the galaxy. The alien makes electronic copies of them and their digitalized programs are tinkered with as the alien entity and its opponents on the ship, Voyager, vie with each other for control of the ship.
Port Eternity combines the themes of encountering the unknown with deep introspection. It’s a beautiful book, reading in many ways like the Arthurian legends it is consciously modeled after. Not Ms. Cherryh’s best work, but certainly entertaining.
Wave Without a Shore is about the nature of reality--also a highly philosophical book. Its characters live on the planet, Freedom, and operate on the assumption that their personal power of belief creates reality. Therefore, people they choose not to see, don't exist. And they also choose not to see the alien race that coexists on the planet with them. It is a powerful and intriguing setting which is upset by the introduction of interstellar humans interacting with Freedom and bringing with them their own understanding of reality. Calamity results…
Voyager in Night is one of the most unique and difficult novels I have ever read. Images from this book have stayed with me a quarter century after I first read it, although I had completely forgotten how it ends. I think that is because the ending is so difficult to interpret. Cherryh, herself, in an introduction to the Alternate Realities version said that she and her editor disagreed on what the ending meant. Unfortunately, the room for interpretation in the ending left me with an unhappy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
That being said, I liked the book. The plot premise is that three people are plucked out of their small spacecraft by an alien entity exploring the galaxy. The alien makes electronic copies of them and their digitalized programs are tinkered with as the alien entity and its opponents on the ship, Voyager, vie with each other for control of the ship.
March 11, 2020
Until I was given a copy of Alternate Realities by C.J. Cherryh, I had never heard of the author, apparently she's a well-respected author of Science Fiction. I am not familiar with her other works, but based on this book I am struggling to understand how this is possible. I struggled to finish this book, and at times I was very close to giving up, leaving it unfinished, but I persisted in the hope that it would improve and make more sense as I continued, but I was wrong.
As I am not familiar with C.J. Cherryh's other works, I cannot say whether this book, Alternate Realities, is typical of her writing. If this book is indeed typical of her writing, then I am sure readers familiar with her previous work will not have any issues with this book. However, for anyone else, it can be very difficult to understand what is going on most of the time, let alone understand any point trying to be made. I am all in favour of authors employing an experimental style of writing, or not divulging too much information at once, forcing the reader to figure things out for himself. However, there is a point where such a style can be counter-productive, and that is where the reader is provided with very little information to make sense of anything. I couldn't help feeling that many parts were deliberately written in a cryptic style to be confusing and difficult to understand, some readers might enjoy such a style, but for me, it became very frustrating after a while.
If Alternate Realities had been a single story, it's highly unlikely I would have finished it, but as it is three short novels, Port Eternity, Voyager in the Night, and Wave Without a Shore, I didn't think each story would take long to read, and if I didn't like the current story, there was always the hope the next one would be a little more interesting, unfortunately, I was wrong. While the three stories are very different, there are a few things I did find they shared in common, they weren't easy to follow at times, and I soon lost interest in them.
I am sure readers of C.J. Cherryh's writing may enjoy Alternate Realities, but for anyone else, I would say don't bother wasting your time with this book.
As I am not familiar with C.J. Cherryh's other works, I cannot say whether this book, Alternate Realities, is typical of her writing. If this book is indeed typical of her writing, then I am sure readers familiar with her previous work will not have any issues with this book. However, for anyone else, it can be very difficult to understand what is going on most of the time, let alone understand any point trying to be made. I am all in favour of authors employing an experimental style of writing, or not divulging too much information at once, forcing the reader to figure things out for himself. However, there is a point where such a style can be counter-productive, and that is where the reader is provided with very little information to make sense of anything. I couldn't help feeling that many parts were deliberately written in a cryptic style to be confusing and difficult to understand, some readers might enjoy such a style, but for me, it became very frustrating after a while.
If Alternate Realities had been a single story, it's highly unlikely I would have finished it, but as it is three short novels, Port Eternity, Voyager in the Night, and Wave Without a Shore, I didn't think each story would take long to read, and if I didn't like the current story, there was always the hope the next one would be a little more interesting, unfortunately, I was wrong. While the three stories are very different, there are a few things I did find they shared in common, they weren't easy to follow at times, and I soon lost interest in them.
I am sure readers of C.J. Cherryh's writing may enjoy Alternate Realities, but for anyone else, I would say don't bother wasting your time with this book.
March 14, 2013
It's odd calling something "Alternate Realities" when they take place in the universe that the author has created. At least it seems weird to me but that's probably why I don't work in publishing. Most of the Cherryh's novels set in the Alliance-Union history don't have a grand central plot but are mostly a series of stories set within different time periods and places inside that universe. Most of the time you can pinpoint where and when and mark the novels in relation to the "big" anchoring stories ("Downbelow Station" or "Cyteen"). These ones here, not so much, although they are clearly set inside her big future history, they're set more at the peripheries or are stories so insular that it really doesn't matter where or when they take place in relation to everything else.
Putting all three novels together in an omnibus is not a bad idea, as these three represent more of her experimental side. She's not indulging in space opera political action or alien world building here as much as trying out philosophical concepts or teasing a scenario to see how far she can take it. On their own I can see why they would have been tough sells on initial release because while her writing can connect with its intensity, something it can fall victim to its own abstractions and while that never happens in any of these to the point where it ruins the novel, you can see it straining to walk that fine line and not fall over.
The novels, then, for the more detail oriented out there:
"Port Eternity" - Odd at first glance this one ultimately turns out to be the most normal of the trio. A ship owned by rich Lady Dela is crewed by azi, basically Cherryh's version of vat-grown people who are designed to servants and "imprinted" with certain personality traits. For whatever strange reason, Lady Dela decided to name everyone after figures from Arthurian legend (thank goodness I just read "Once and Future King"), which doesn't become relevant until the ship gets stuck during a hyperspace jump into whatever places exists between here and hyperspace. At which point the crew and Lady Dela and her new lover-boy Griffin have to figure out what's going on and whether they're stuck there forever. Oh, and they may have company.
As I said, this one is the most normal, touching upon her usual themes of exploring other mindsets and coming up with aliens that operate under a different internal logic. It's a first person narration from Elaine and it's interesting to see how Cherryh captures the thoughts of someone who is literally born to be a slave, knows it and doesn't seem that concerned by it. The psychological intersections of the crew (there's a love triangle, natch) and the "born-men" can be a bit frosty at times and with the threat outside being a bit abstract it runs the risk of being a chamber opera that spins its wheels. But she gets credit for not reenacting "Le Morte d'Arthur" with SF characters, only bringing in the traits when it works for the plot (the rising of Mordred to the foreground is well done in particular). However it does suffer from a "what the heck just happened" type ending, one of the few times when her ability to create workable aliens doesn't quite come up to par.
"Voyager in Night" - NOW things get psychedelic. By far the strangest thing I've ever read from her, space travelers Rafe, Jillian and Paul (first two are brother/sister, the last two are married) wind up colliding their junk heap of a ship with an alien vessel. Then things get weird. In the course of trying to figure out what humans are, the ship winds up killing two of them (maybe) but then proceeds to make multiple copies of everyone (maybe) and to make things better, the ship appears to have divergent personalities that are at war with each other. We're then taken down an absolutely bizarre series of circumstances as the people and the copies and the copies of the people all try to figure out what's going on even as the ship becomes both too good and terrible at explaining things. The alien mind(s) depicted here are more up her alley, even if this is a bit more abstract than previous ones like the mri and the Chanur saga, it's closer to her methane or hydrogen based aliens. Except those generally aren't the stars. This one takes some patience and while it's rewarding, it'll be up to you to decide if payoff is the reward or finishing is a reward to yourself. Interestingly, the back cover copy makes this one sound the most normal of the lot, when in reality it's so experimental I'm impressed they even published it as a standalone book. Still, her handling of all the voices and personalities are deft, considering it starts to turn into some weird SF version of "Waiting for Godot" at various points.
"Wave Without a Shore" - A better choice to end the collection on, it mixes the more straightforward plot of the first novel with some of the experimental tendencies of the second. On the world Freedom everything seems fairly normal except that some of the upper class are heavily into philosophy. First Citizen Waden and his friend Herrin come at reality from two different angles and are quite content to keep it that way. Herrin comes up with a plan of doing a complicated statue of his friend that will stand the test of time, and then proceeds not to pay attention to anything else going on around him. Meanwhile, strange robed aliens walk the streets but everyone ignores them figuring that if everyone collectively pretends they don't exist, they won't. It almost works.
This one be the most frustrating from a dialogue standpoint, as the main characters tend to talk in a very stylized fashion, like graduate students constantly defending a thesis. It's meant to sound highminded and slightly off I imagine but too often comes across as pretentious, to the point where you just want to smack every character because they're so insufferable. You imagine everyone with smug grins on their faces as they score imaginary debating points versus whoever they're speaking to. But she keeps the central mystery of "what is the deal here?" going on long enough that the book can almost sustain it and there's a welcome return to the space politics she's often very good at, even if most of it happens in the background (which makes it even more interesting). The downfall here is that the aliens, when they do appear, aren't up to her usual standards, coming across more as "noble savages" which is a bit cliche for someone of her caliber. But it provides a nice shift to the proceedings and out of all of these here, it has the most satisfying ending.
Definitely not for newcomers to Cherryh, this is for the person who has read most of the major works and wants to delve into some deeper stuff. It showcases other sides of her writing personality and shows how versatile her universe can be from a storytelling standpoint, and that it ultimately has room for the stories that don't make complete sense either. Which is sort of welcoming in a way.
Putting all three novels together in an omnibus is not a bad idea, as these three represent more of her experimental side. She's not indulging in space opera political action or alien world building here as much as trying out philosophical concepts or teasing a scenario to see how far she can take it. On their own I can see why they would have been tough sells on initial release because while her writing can connect with its intensity, something it can fall victim to its own abstractions and while that never happens in any of these to the point where it ruins the novel, you can see it straining to walk that fine line and not fall over.
The novels, then, for the more detail oriented out there:
"Port Eternity" - Odd at first glance this one ultimately turns out to be the most normal of the trio. A ship owned by rich Lady Dela is crewed by azi, basically Cherryh's version of vat-grown people who are designed to servants and "imprinted" with certain personality traits. For whatever strange reason, Lady Dela decided to name everyone after figures from Arthurian legend (thank goodness I just read "Once and Future King"), which doesn't become relevant until the ship gets stuck during a hyperspace jump into whatever places exists between here and hyperspace. At which point the crew and Lady Dela and her new lover-boy Griffin have to figure out what's going on and whether they're stuck there forever. Oh, and they may have company.
As I said, this one is the most normal, touching upon her usual themes of exploring other mindsets and coming up with aliens that operate under a different internal logic. It's a first person narration from Elaine and it's interesting to see how Cherryh captures the thoughts of someone who is literally born to be a slave, knows it and doesn't seem that concerned by it. The psychological intersections of the crew (there's a love triangle, natch) and the "born-men" can be a bit frosty at times and with the threat outside being a bit abstract it runs the risk of being a chamber opera that spins its wheels. But she gets credit for not reenacting "Le Morte d'Arthur" with SF characters, only bringing in the traits when it works for the plot (the rising of Mordred to the foreground is well done in particular). However it does suffer from a "what the heck just happened" type ending, one of the few times when her ability to create workable aliens doesn't quite come up to par.
"Voyager in Night" - NOW things get psychedelic. By far the strangest thing I've ever read from her, space travelers Rafe, Jillian and Paul (first two are brother/sister, the last two are married) wind up colliding their junk heap of a ship with an alien vessel. Then things get weird. In the course of trying to figure out what humans are, the ship winds up killing two of them (maybe) but then proceeds to make multiple copies of everyone (maybe) and to make things better, the ship appears to have divergent personalities that are at war with each other. We're then taken down an absolutely bizarre series of circumstances as the people and the copies and the copies of the people all try to figure out what's going on even as the ship becomes both too good and terrible at explaining things. The alien mind(s) depicted here are more up her alley, even if this is a bit more abstract than previous ones like the mri and the Chanur saga, it's closer to her methane or hydrogen based aliens. Except those generally aren't the stars. This one takes some patience and while it's rewarding, it'll be up to you to decide if payoff is the reward or finishing is a reward to yourself. Interestingly, the back cover copy makes this one sound the most normal of the lot, when in reality it's so experimental I'm impressed they even published it as a standalone book. Still, her handling of all the voices and personalities are deft, considering it starts to turn into some weird SF version of "Waiting for Godot" at various points.
"Wave Without a Shore" - A better choice to end the collection on, it mixes the more straightforward plot of the first novel with some of the experimental tendencies of the second. On the world Freedom everything seems fairly normal except that some of the upper class are heavily into philosophy. First Citizen Waden and his friend Herrin come at reality from two different angles and are quite content to keep it that way. Herrin comes up with a plan of doing a complicated statue of his friend that will stand the test of time, and then proceeds not to pay attention to anything else going on around him. Meanwhile, strange robed aliens walk the streets but everyone ignores them figuring that if everyone collectively pretends they don't exist, they won't. It almost works.
This one be the most frustrating from a dialogue standpoint, as the main characters tend to talk in a very stylized fashion, like graduate students constantly defending a thesis. It's meant to sound highminded and slightly off I imagine but too often comes across as pretentious, to the point where you just want to smack every character because they're so insufferable. You imagine everyone with smug grins on their faces as they score imaginary debating points versus whoever they're speaking to. But she keeps the central mystery of "what is the deal here?" going on long enough that the book can almost sustain it and there's a welcome return to the space politics she's often very good at, even if most of it happens in the background (which makes it even more interesting). The downfall here is that the aliens, when they do appear, aren't up to her usual standards, coming across more as "noble savages" which is a bit cliche for someone of her caliber. But it provides a nice shift to the proceedings and out of all of these here, it has the most satisfying ending.
Definitely not for newcomers to Cherryh, this is for the person who has read most of the major works and wants to delve into some deeper stuff. It showcases other sides of her writing personality and shows how versatile her universe can be from a storytelling standpoint, and that it ultimately has room for the stories that don't make complete sense either. Which is sort of welcoming in a way.
September 14, 2017
A collection of three unrelated stories set in Cherryh's Alliance-Union construct. All three are highly experimental in nature and reveal the highly sophisticated underpinnings of the author's education and imagination. Each is an expansion on her former Classic studies not in the pure sense but the Great Books sense and create a new synthesis with her passion for science fiction.
"Port Eternity" is an outgrowth of Arthurian legends and is focused on the conditioned behavioral patterns of the azi, genetically constructed and psychologically scripted human replicants. It is a study in the impact of environmental stress on mental programming whether lab or naturally derived. It is also a good and direct action story. "Voyager in the Night"is her most experimental from a writing perspective. The changing viewpoints may be a bit confusing and overwhelming for very linear readers and this is further complicated by variations of the main characters. It is an extremely interesting look at digitalized beings and the concept of uploaded intelligence.
However, the reason I gave this collection a 5-star rating is "Wave Without a Shore". She prefaces the story with discussion of her personal perspective as a Stoic and a criticism of positive thinking. What she writes in the story is a full blown rejection of the Modernist metanarrative and its treatment of The Other. "Wave" is a delightful Postmodernist assault on the inhumanity of the abuse of minorities, Native peoples, immigrants, women, and LGBTQ under the Western experience. It also leads Western philosophy through a theater of the absurd by juxtaposing Protagoras' "Man is the measure of all things" in a galaxy with alien inhabitants. Really a delightful and profound read that is almost a reference to and humanizes Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead".
For those readers looking for something beyond entertainment and still accessible I cannot recommend this book enough. Have at it!
"Port Eternity" is an outgrowth of Arthurian legends and is focused on the conditioned behavioral patterns of the azi, genetically constructed and psychologically scripted human replicants. It is a study in the impact of environmental stress on mental programming whether lab or naturally derived. It is also a good and direct action story. "Voyager in the Night"is her most experimental from a writing perspective. The changing viewpoints may be a bit confusing and overwhelming for very linear readers and this is further complicated by variations of the main characters. It is an extremely interesting look at digitalized beings and the concept of uploaded intelligence.
However, the reason I gave this collection a 5-star rating is "Wave Without a Shore". She prefaces the story with discussion of her personal perspective as a Stoic and a criticism of positive thinking. What she writes in the story is a full blown rejection of the Modernist metanarrative and its treatment of The Other. "Wave" is a delightful Postmodernist assault on the inhumanity of the abuse of minorities, Native peoples, immigrants, women, and LGBTQ under the Western experience. It also leads Western philosophy through a theater of the absurd by juxtaposing Protagoras' "Man is the measure of all things" in a galaxy with alien inhabitants. Really a delightful and profound read that is almost a reference to and humanizes Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead".
For those readers looking for something beyond entertainment and still accessible I cannot recommend this book enough. Have at it!
July 20, 2025
An odd assortment of not-quite tales: I'll start with the last one Wave Without a Shore which I did not complete. This offering seemed . . . more like an exercise or allegory: pitting the laws of behavioral science against the philosophy of ethics, Kantian style, rather than a story. Oh and the presentation style also evoked something Ayn Rand-ish, I found particularly disturbing in our present moment (2025 for those of you who might read this later).
The other two took on the classic Cherryh themes of the unknowability of aliens. In Voyager in the Night a tiny mining ship with three passengers is pulled into a huge and ancient space-faring behemoth, full of . . . no longer living aliens . . . everyone a copy of the original. The three find themselves caught up a) in that weirdness, seeing copies of yourself and b) a battle between different copies of the same fellow, the one who pulled them in . . . because he was curious. The first story has a ship full of 'made' humans that work the ship, are servants (slaves, really) of one fabulously wealthy woman who is aboard with her husband who get sucked into a spatial anomaly and find themselves facing many questions that must be reconsidered and also a constant struggle between the methane vs oxygen breathers. Tossed into the mix is the fact that the woman chose and named the for the literary inhabitants of La Morte D'Artur -- a story the crew doesn't know until they get hold of a tape telling the story . . . . you can guess that Modred wasn't too happy. That was, perhaps, the best story (to me) of the lot. *** and almost a half.
The other two took on the classic Cherryh themes of the unknowability of aliens. In Voyager in the Night a tiny mining ship with three passengers is pulled into a huge and ancient space-faring behemoth, full of . . . no longer living aliens . . . everyone a copy of the original. The three find themselves caught up a) in that weirdness, seeing copies of yourself and b) a battle between different copies of the same fellow, the one who pulled them in . . . because he was curious. The first story has a ship full of 'made' humans that work the ship, are servants (slaves, really) of one fabulously wealthy woman who is aboard with her husband who get sucked into a spatial anomaly and find themselves facing many questions that must be reconsidered and also a constant struggle between the methane vs oxygen breathers. Tossed into the mix is the fact that the woman chose and named the for the literary inhabitants of La Morte D'Artur -- a story the crew doesn't know until they get hold of a tape telling the story . . . . you can guess that Modred wasn't too happy. That was, perhaps, the best story (to me) of the lot. *** and almost a half.
March 20, 2024
Port Eternity *** A wealthy woman with a passion for Arthurian legends names her clone servants for characters in those stories. When she and her fiancé set off on a space journey with the clones, their ship gets sucked into a space warp and gets stuck to another vessel, which they eventually find out has had many other vessels stuck to it as well. There is a slow build of tension as the passengers deal with the unknown outside their ship, as well as some philosophical drama regarding clones vs. humans rights and personhood.
Voyager in Night *** A bit confusing. A small ship with three crew members is taken over by a large ship/entity which makes repeated digital clones of the humans and they try to figure out where they are, who the aliens are, and what they want to do about the whole situation. Another slow burn with tension built up around what will happen with the different alien entities.
Wave Without a Shore * Too much abstract, philosophical conversation between egotistical characters. I couldn't stick with it.
Voyager in Night *** A bit confusing. A small ship with three crew members is taken over by a large ship/entity which makes repeated digital clones of the humans and they try to figure out where they are, who the aliens are, and what they want to do about the whole situation. Another slow burn with tension built up around what will happen with the different alien entities.
Wave Without a Shore * Too much abstract, philosophical conversation between egotistical characters. I couldn't stick with it.
September 10, 2017
The three short novels collected in this book represent some of the most creative stories set in Cherryh's Union-Alliance universe, even if the characters come off as distant. These tales are only tenuously connected to the Union-Alliance universe, with the last one, WAVE WITHOUT A SHORE, being the only one that actually seems to interact with it in any manner. The stories feel like throwbacks to the 1970's era of sci-fi with an almost surreal aspect to them.
August 5, 2022
These three short novels are excellent sci-fi, among my favorite Cherryh novels, held back only by the level of abstraction in Voyager in Night and Wave Without a Shore waxing a bit too philosophical at times. All are worth reading on their own, but definitely enriched by having read some of the Alliance-Union novels first (Downbelow Station, etc.).
December 28, 2022
2022 reread: I skipped the Arthuriana on this reread, although I may return to it some day. But oh, "Voyager in Night," "Wave Without a Shore," my beloveds! The former is about alien and iterated consciousness, and it's the story that made me fall in love with this speculative premise; and still much darker, stranger, and chewier than most takes I've encountered since then. Cherryh has a penchant for hurt/the barest shred of comfort, for interrogating social bonds formed in intolerable circumstances, and both works so well in this very high concept setting. The latter is such a guilty pleasure, id-fic for 20-something me: oh-to-clever assholes in a battle of wits for social control, clever and rich with repressed longing and rejection and unexpected consolation. Cherryh calls these "magic cookie" stories, and they really are: maybe too rich and indulgent to be complete books, but such a treat at this length. & even more fun on reread.
Original review, 2014: A great introduction to Cherry--although I say this as someone who still hasn't finished a novel. It's more accessible than finding a starting place in her extended series, while still taking place in the Alliance-Union universe: practiced space opera-level scifi without the detraction of the genres trappings. And it feels like Cherryh distilled: premises are slightly inscrutable, forcing the reader to actively engage with the text; the concepts are original (in Voyager in Night, brilliantly so) and the philosophy is intense.
Wave Without a Shore is the collection's highlight, a pretentious and affected, utterly delightful philosophical investigation with id-level characterization; cousin in some ways NBC Hannibal and Tartt's The Secret History, and as enjoyable to read. Cherryh occasionally overreaches into the unsubstantiated profound, and too many stories have unnecessary action sequences for their climaxes; there are flaws. But I loved this collection, and thought it a fantastic introduction; I'll certainly read more of her in the future.
Original review, 2014: A great introduction to Cherry--although I say this as someone who still hasn't finished a novel. It's more accessible than finding a starting place in her extended series, while still taking place in the Alliance-Union universe: practiced space opera-level scifi without the detraction of the genres trappings. And it feels like Cherryh distilled: premises are slightly inscrutable, forcing the reader to actively engage with the text; the concepts are original (in Voyager in Night, brilliantly so) and the philosophy is intense.
Wave Without a Shore is the collection's highlight, a pretentious and affected, utterly delightful philosophical investigation with id-level characterization; cousin in some ways NBC Hannibal and Tartt's The Secret History, and as enjoyable to read. Cherryh occasionally overreaches into the unsubstantiated profound, and too many stories have unnecessary action sequences for their climaxes; there are flaws. But I loved this collection, and thought it a fantastic introduction; I'll certainly read more of her in the future.
March 18, 2016
Of the three novellas that make up "Alternate Realities," two are magnificent and one I can't ever finish reading.
SUMMARY OF "PORT ETERNITY":
Wealthy Dela Kirn has made her personal starship into a tribute to the Arthurian legends she loves, staffed with androids named after the old heroes and villains. Only Elaine, Dela's maid, has listened to the tape that inspired their existence. She carries the burden for the others: why her dear friend Lance is programmed to hopelessly adore his owner, why gentle, awkward Modred is always viewed with suspicion.
An idle cruise with Dela's latest lover aboard turns terrifyingly permanent when the ship's systems fail in mid-jump. Now crew and passengers alike are trapped in an eerie space between star systems. Questions about "real" humanity and the right to life are raised alongside concerns as to the crew's purpose, if they can no longer serve. Their fears lead them to the tape and the story they were "born" to fulfill, even as something alien and monstrous begins knocking on their hull.
SUMMARY OF "VOYAGER IN NIGHT":
The "Lindy" was never equipped for deep-space travel. When a massive alien vessel appears out of the empty space around the Endeavor system, it drags the tiny prospecting ship in its wake. The violent wrench into jumpspace proves fatal for the Lindy's three fragile human occupants.
Then the real danger begins.
The entities within the alien ship scan and project replicas of the Lindy's ravaged crew: body, mind, and memory. They are unfamiliar with humans, curious about what their new passengers would do if they had lived, and will do now that they are dead. But one of the three humans still has a physical, living, breathing body--one which can still be destroyed, but one which can, in turn, threaten their captors.
A full review of both--and warnings for "Voyager in Night"--are over at Book Grumps.
SUMMARY OF "PORT ETERNITY":
Wealthy Dela Kirn has made her personal starship into a tribute to the Arthurian legends she loves, staffed with androids named after the old heroes and villains. Only Elaine, Dela's maid, has listened to the tape that inspired their existence. She carries the burden for the others: why her dear friend Lance is programmed to hopelessly adore his owner, why gentle, awkward Modred is always viewed with suspicion.
An idle cruise with Dela's latest lover aboard turns terrifyingly permanent when the ship's systems fail in mid-jump. Now crew and passengers alike are trapped in an eerie space between star systems. Questions about "real" humanity and the right to life are raised alongside concerns as to the crew's purpose, if they can no longer serve. Their fears lead them to the tape and the story they were "born" to fulfill, even as something alien and monstrous begins knocking on their hull.
SUMMARY OF "VOYAGER IN NIGHT":
The "Lindy" was never equipped for deep-space travel. When a massive alien vessel appears out of the empty space around the Endeavor system, it drags the tiny prospecting ship in its wake. The violent wrench into jumpspace proves fatal for the Lindy's three fragile human occupants.
Then the real danger begins.
The entities within the alien ship scan and project replicas of the Lindy's ravaged crew: body, mind, and memory. They are unfamiliar with humans, curious about what their new passengers would do if they had lived, and will do now that they are dead. But one of the three humans still has a physical, living, breathing body--one which can still be destroyed, but one which can, in turn, threaten their captors.
A full review of both--and warnings for "Voyager in Night"--are over at Book Grumps.
June 8, 2014
6/20014 Three shorter novels - Port Eternity, Voyager in Night, and Wave Without a Shore are combined in this omnibus edition. All are older novels by the brilliant and talented author. All three novels involve changing perspectives/realities of humans as they interact with others in the outer reaches of space.
April 10, 2015
This would have gotten three stars except for the third novel in the collection, Wave Without a Shore, which was pretty high concept. It deals with personal realities and willpower and actually put me in mind of a Mage the Ascension game (My Paradigm v. yours) in an SF setting. Pretty thought provoking and it will probably stay with me for some time.
August 23, 2016
I checked this book out as an ebook from my city Library to see how that would work, not to read it. After starting the book I just couldn't put it down. 5 stars for a truly immersive read that I couldn't predict, but became crystal clear in hindsight.
October 6, 2011
Only read Port Eternity. It was slow and dull right up to near the end where it suddenly got complicated. I really did not want to read the next story, which seemed similar after a few pages.
February 6, 2012
The writing it too cumbersome. In the end it does not make much sense even for Sci-Fi.
June 6, 2015
"Port Eternity" is fun; "Voyager in Night" is trippy and puzzling as all get out (but makes sense in the ); "Wave Without a Shore" is the best story in the book.
January 14, 2008
I like two of the stories, but not the third.
"Wave Without a Shore" was wonderful.
"Wave Without a Shore" was wonderful.
December 31, 2011
Despite my adoration of C. J. Cherryh, I found little of this early work to be compelling.
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February 28, 2018Very speculative fiction. Obviously early works by this author. All of them quite odd in their own ways.
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