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.
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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.