Faery Moon

by C.J. Cherryh

Fantasy: massive revision of Faery in Shadow, with notes by the author, Cover by Jane S Fancher.

Genres: Fantasy

440 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2009

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

[Elentarri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Faery Moon is an expanded and heavily revised edition of "Faery in Shadow", also including the short story "Brothers". This novel is set in the pre-Christian Scottish Highlands and makes use of Celtic mythology. The faeries in this novel aren't the light, fluffy and helpful fairies of Tolkien or any children's tale. I found the main characters to be well-written, three dimensional beings with their fair share of flaws. The relationship between the stubborn, hot-tempered Caith and the wicked and feckless, but loyal Pooka is at times amusing. This novel is rather dark, but it is delightfully written with vivid landscaping. Besides, who doesn't like Pooka tales?

Faery in Shadow is a beautifully written novel, despite the issues Cherryh had with editors and publishing it. However, Faery Moon is even better and with more Caith and Dubhain.

[☼Bookish in Virginia☼]

Anyone know where to find this?

[Estara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this is very much a story (as pointed out in the afterword) of one character stuck directly in the middle of old Faery/Faerie and early Medieval Scotland.

Born under a dark Faery curse because of his father's true misdeeds but raised in ignorance of who his father really is, Caith (pronunciation Keith) actually has quite a bit of a temper, but is fundamentally honest and true (that was hardly explained, I thought, how he got that mindset because his foster father certainly doesn't seem to have set an example - maybe it was just his dreams of getting out of the situation and the tales he had heard of his family?).

So the short story that starts this novel shows the very unexpected resolution of the curse on his family, Caith basically taking it on himself to save what is left of the innocent ones he came to know (that was a bit of a wobble in the novel, supposedly he saved the life of his best friend - but in the short story the sacrifice is even greater, because he has only known the young neighbouring lord and his sister for one night of guesting in their house, and has only saved his younger half-brother right at the climax without that brother ever getting to know him). But even the Faery recognise that he doesn't deserve that - light sidhe as well as the pooka Dubhain who uncharacteristically helps him and now is cursed to be his companion (a pooka is supposed to drown his rider).

This whole novel is Caith accepting and warring with the fate that is set him and trying to do his best to stay true to his ideals, to what he wants himself to be, all the while also wanting to fulfil the bargain he made with the Faery Nuallan - who uses him for whatever purpose he wants (so far mostly to combat true darkness).

The various magical influences on hapless humans come alive here, the older gods, the Faery magic, the untamed wild magic of Selkie and Dubhain, the mix of human and wild magic in the twins (poor, poor Keenan whom I didn't like for most of the story but who really got the short stick) - and above all Caith trying to chart his course.

His curse is not lifted at the end of the book, no, but he has put things into balance, he himself is of no worse than at the start of the adventure and I do think that he has put at least Nuallan even more into his debt.

[Leslie Q · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, and just a bit dark...