Divine Right

Merovingen Nights #5

by C.J. Cherryh (Editor)

As the summer heats up and the tangle-lillies clog the canals, boat traffic slows to a crawl, while rumors of sabotage escalate. But the tangle-lillies are more than a mere nuisance for they have the potential to break the hightowners' long-standing fuel monopoly. As the plants proliferate throughout Merovingen, their spread generates anger among the dissatified canalers and fear in hightown circles.

But far more than tangle-lillies threatens the peace of Merovingen. For the Janists have found a long sought means for spreading forbidden technological knowledge to the canalers even as the Nev Hettek agents led by Magruder see their plot to infiltrate and gain control of some of the great Houses place in sudden and unexpected jeopardy. And, with the city's future already in peril, will the discovery of an intelligent, nonhuman native race shift the precarious power balance and spark a long-feared revolt?

Includes:
"Seeds of Destruction" novelette by C.J. Cherryh
"Run Silent, Run Cheap" novella by Leslie Fish
"Farren's Folly: Meeting of Minds" short story by Roberta Rogow
"Foggy Night" short story by Bradley H. Sinor
"Second Opinion" novelette by Janet Morris
"Red Skies" novelette by Lynn Abbey
"Turning Point" novelette by Mercedes Lackey
"Draw Me a Picture" novelette by Nancy Asire
"Postpartum Blues" novelette by Chris Morris
Appendix: "From the Files of Anastasi Kalugin, Advocate Militiar" short fiction by C.J. Cherryh
Appendix: "Index to City Maps" essay by uncredited
Appendix: "Merovingian City Maps" interior artwork by Pat Tobin
Appendix: "Merovan Sea Floor and Hemispheric Maps" interior artwork by Pat Tobin

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Anthologies, Speculative Fiction

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 3, 1989

About the author

Currently 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.

Reviews

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intricate as ever. Mondragon's background scheme paid off in an entertaining way, and the overall plot continues to thicken.

[Annie Yotova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whoever wrote the back cover copy for this book needs to find another job - you do not reveal the biggest surprise in the book, happening just a few pages before the end of the book, on the back cover of said book.

This book uses the format of the early books in the series - the stories don't flow one after another but get intersected with each other - thus making that more of a mosaic novel than an anthology. That format had always worked better for this series anyway because of the way the the different authors tell the stories (and the type of stories they tell).

Revolution is in the air and everyone is scrambling for better position - in any way they can think of. The seeds which the Janes threw in the canals are annoying everyone (but at the same time can be used to brew the new type of fuel so the ones at the canals are happy, the ones above - not as much). A baby is born, almost noone dies, people get into tighter and tighter corners and every time you think you can underestimate someone, you get surprised. Before the end of the book, things get even more complicated than usual because the whole "we are too scared from the sharr to explore and innovate" had led to people missing something which had always been in front of their eyes (and which gets spoiled by that back cover...). I am curious to see what happens next.

Larger continuity tidbit: before this book, the connection to the Alliance-Union Universe was somewhat tenuous and mostly implied; a conversation here ties the people who were left behind on Merovingen to the Union much firmer (they even mentioned clones).

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summer has come and the plague has passed in part because of the tangle lillies that were planted. They also have cleaned up the polluted water of Merovingen. But the dying plants are stinking up the city and entangle motor propellers and poles alike slowing commerce and transportation. New tech--an engine design that is more reliable, quieter and cheaper than before--threatens the status quo.
Tensions are rising between upper and lower Merovingen. New vigor is applied to intrigues that are as much the life's blood of Merovingen as the river than runs through it. The battle for the future of Merovingen is explored in a series a short stories by popular authors in the fantasy and sci-fi genre.

Not much favorite in the series but I liked it better as I read it over again. Of course, many story lines are left hanging but why else would you buy the next installment in the series.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Roughly one interesting plot point per 100 pages. Cover art doesn't come in until the very last bit of the book.

[Macha · Rating 4 out of 5]

best so far in the series.

[Edward Brock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a really good time with this series. A great read.