Rider duology, Cherryh

[cahn]

This post is for ase, who refused my protestations that I did not like Cherryh's novels but did like her short stories, and convinced me to read Rider at the Gate and Cloud's Rider by telling me that there were proto-sentient black horses (well, horse types) that liked bacon.

So... I'd been complaining for a while that there was nothing else Bujold-like to read, but... this is almost it. (The "almost" will come in a bit.) Weber doesn't count; he's nothing like Bujold except that they have both written books that take place in space and sometimes contain space battles. But ahem. The Rider books did several things for me:

-it sucked me into the action to where I forgot who I was and was totally immersed in the story. This is neither a necessary (e.g., John M. Ford, even Megan Whalen Turner, who writes in a slightly distant style) nor sufficient (Mercedes Lackey...at least before she got really silly) condition for me to love a book, but there is a really really high correlation there. And the absence of this in the other Cherryh books I'd tried was a huge barrier.

-The world was actually pretty well imagined, though the first book in particular suffered a bit from a heavy-handed religion (though this was greatly mitigated in the second). There seemed to be actual thoughts about economy and ecology! wow!

-there were sympathetic characters. This is a necessary condition for me. I was also happy that some of the unsympathetic characters in both books turned out to be more complex and sympathetic, just like in real life. (When I first met the people who are now my best friend and husband, I didn't think much of them, and they didn't think much of me. This changed.)

-you were given enough insight into the villains' heads that you could understand why they acted as they did, even if you thought they were kind of lame. Bujold is pretty good at this. Orson Scott Card used to be the king of this (Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, the Call of Earth series, Pastwatch), before he got old and maudlin and started inventing psycho supervillains (yes, Shadow series, I am looking at you). I really think this is a good thing, because in real life? No one actually thinks s/he is a supervillain; everyone feels justified in his/her actions.

Now for the almost: this differed from Bujold in that Bujold has a penchant, which I share, for world- and universe-shattering events (and people-shattering events) to happen in her books. I feel kind of like the world has been put back together in a different way when I'm at the end. Cherryh is much quieter. The inside of one or two people's heads is maybe shifted around, hardened in some places, softened in others, cracked in a couple of places, opened up in others. The world is explained, but not necessarily obviously changed or split open. This is, of course, a perfectly valid mode of telling stories, probably with some advantages over the shattering kind in its subtlety-- it's just that I wasn't expecting it, so it threw me a bit in the first book, and then I was much happier with it in the second.

Also, the nighthorses were brilliant. They are like Valdemarian Companions on crack.

Comments

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I like the nighthorses. And enjoyed both Rider stories.

I like much of the Cherryh that I have read, but it varies a lot. I liked the way she developed the alienness in the Chanur books, but I found that the middle trilogy dragged a bit. Singleton-trilogy-singleton she also did with the Fortress books, but the last singleton dragged even more.

I liked the way she developed the thought processes of the child in the last two-thirds of Cyteen.

But sometimes she can be a bit dreary.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Hmm, so does this mean I should read some of the Chanur but not others? I tried the Fortress books and just could not get through them at all-- I found them very slow paced and I didn't seem to be able to bring myself to really care about the characters all that much.

I also tried Downbelow Station, which I might just not have been in the mood for at the time-- I think I might give another shot now that I see more what her novel style is like.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

The first one, Pride of Chanur IIRC, is great. Then a trilogy follows, more involved, which perhaps slows things down, but worth it if you like the glimpse into the various aliens of the first book - she delves further in the trilogy. The last singleton is truly a sequel, not as strong as the first, but good.

Haven't done Downbelow Station myself. Also she has two trilogies (to which she is adding a seventh) starting with Foreigner. I had trouble getting into those.

I liked her contributions (and her main character) to the Thieves' World series.

Both ase and I enjoy Cyteen. It has been published as a trilogy, but is really one book - it has been published that way, too.

A couple of related recent books: Hammerfall and Forge of Heaven. Interesting setting. I have seen Hammerfall panned as a bit derivative, but I think it is simply a chosen setting. The story and the characters I found interesting. The second is a sequel in which some major characters in the first are secondary characters, but the main action takes place on a totally different stage, again, with well-imagined, different characters and culture.

The trouble with Thieves' World was runaway character power inflation. Cherryh ran her own series, Merovingen Nights, the first of which was wholly hers: Angel with a Sword. I liked it and the series, and it was much better managed.

Oh, well, better stop blathering. I agree, there is some Cherryh that is hard to wade through - takes some experimentation. Enjoy the rest!

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Ooh, okay, I'll go look up Cyteen. And maybe some of Chanur. Yay!

Gosh, it's been forever since I read Thieves' World... I remember some of the early stuff being interesting, and some of it just not, but it was a really long time ago now. I did like the shared world Liavek (which to the best of my knowledge Cherryh was not involved in, but Pamela Dean and John M. Ford were).

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Pertinent discussion of varied reaction to Cherryh on james_nicoll

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/989155.html

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

You know, this puts the finger on something that I think is somewhat unique to Cherryh among popular SF authors: most people agree on that author's superior works (e.g., most people think Card's Speaker for the Dead is a good book and think Children of the Mind isn't nearly so good; or, for Bujold, think Memory is miles better than Diplomatic Immunity) but people seem to have wildly different ideas on which of Cherryh's books are "the best"...

[ase.livejournal.com]

I could rave about Cyteen for a long time, since it's pretty much Cherryh's masterwork (IMO), but the first third is absolutely beastly to get through, because you're likely to spend most of it wanting to scream at Justin to suck it up, admit he's in over his head, and sue Ari for workplace sexual harassment. Once [most discussed spoiler ever], the urge to throw the book across the room and take a hot shower dissipates a lot.

Point of reference: I find the Foreigner series impossibly repetitive. Bren angsts about the human/atevi divide, stuff happens, Bren angsts, stuff happens... etc. So that's a dis-rec from me. I don't know if the fifth Chanur book is sufficiently standalone to be read independently, but I would rec the first and the fifth, and tell you to skip the middle trilogy. (To my eye, the trilogy essentially expands the troubles of The Pride of Chanur without saying anything new. The fifth book, Chanur's Legacy, is as close to comedy as Cherryh gets.) I love the Morgaine novels for a lot of reasons. I haven't read any of her shared-world stories, unless they were in the short story collection. Anyway, shutting up now.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

I'll go with the above.

I very much enjoyed The Paladin, a stand-alone set in a medieval oriental setting.

Had to slog through Russalka, but did and got the sequels, which I have not attacked yet.

If you haven't seen the Morgaine graphics, you can get them from her site, or at least you could a while ago. Just the first part of Ivrel, but the art was reasonable, and, of course, very enjoyable for a fan. Apologies if that is a repeat; I forget where I've made recs; I expect you know her site.

[ase.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted you liked them. Cherryh holds a special, twisted place in my heart, so I like sharing. LMB does the Worst Possible Thing that a character can learn from; Cherryh does one better and just breaks characters. Or she does a less comic version of Worst Possible, I'm not sure.

I must confess I read the books out of order - got a chapter or so into Cloud's Rider and said, "this is the second novel. Drat!" and kept going - which may have made the religion thing less obvious to me. I had other issues with Rider at the Gate, like wanting to smack Danny and make him grow up.

Also, the nighthorses were brilliant. They are like Valdemarian Companions on crack.

Yes. Yes, they are. Isn't it great?

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

hee. I can see that reading them out of order would make you want to smack Danny. Since I started out with him as a confused kid, I didn't mind so much. Now, Randy I wanted to smack!... I was mortally afraid he was going to be another Brionne, and in my head if that happened I was totally going to throw up the book in disgust.

I totally love the nighthorses. I cracked up every time Cloud went -cattle-, imagining a Companion saying such a thing.

Cherryh does one better and just breaks characters. Or she does a less comic version of Worst Possible, I'm not sure.

She definitely has less of a problem breaking her characters than Bujold does. Being a squeamish person myself, I kind of prefer Bujold in that way, but I do see the virtue of Cherryh's way as well. But yeah, the ones that aren't broken, less comic version of Worst Possible.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Randy was annoying, but in ways that made profound sense to my 17-year-old self. I didn't peg to the Brionne #2 possibilities because, again, reading order.

I cracked up every time Cloud went -cattle-, imagining a Companion saying such a thing.

Oh, my. Yes. If I had read these after a few more run-ins with crazy internet fandom, that would have been my reaction too.

I first read Bujold when I was 16 and Cherryh at 17, to I tend to see them as a continuum of character treatment, even though Bujold tends to write character-driven stories and Cherryh strikes me as more plot-driven. This may have been reinforced by accidental conflation of bits of Barrayar with bits of Downbelow Station, which was just weird.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Randy was annoying, but in ways that made profound sense to my 17-year-old self.

This is exactly what I thought about Danny. He was annoying, but I got why. But reading order, yeah. Once you saw Relatively Mature Danny I imagine it'd be hard to go back.

If I had read these after a few more run-ins with crazy internet fandom, that would have been my reaction too.

Huh. I don't think internet fandom had to do a lot with this particular reaction, except that I probably wouldn't've figured out the Companion/nighthorse correspondence if you hadn't made the connection to Lackey for me.

Bujold tends to write character-driven stories and Cherryh strikes me as more plot-driven.

I think it is a compliment to both writers that when I read this, I was all, "No, that can't be true! ...Well, maybe." Because Bujold has about the best plots on the planet, when she decides to exert herself. But she cares about characters more. And Cherryh is all about characters. But she's perfectly willing to sacrifice them to plot demands (and not in the bad way, where she makes them act OOC, but in the good way where they might die/be unhappy if the plot demands it, whereas Bujold likes her characters too much to do that (really, Miles didn't deserve quite as many fair ladies as he actually got!)).

[ase.livejournal.com]

The internet fandom moment has more to do with attitudes, which probably would have come with more exposure to life in general. Flamewars and sullen truces happen offline too. :-)

Cherryh and Bujold can both write outside their "area" when they want to, which is why they're both awesome authors. But they do have fall-backs that don't work well on autopilot. (Sharing Knife, I am so looking at you.)