Jane S. FancherReseñas

Once again Bren is stressed by rough traveling and being kept in the dark by Ilisidi, when all kinds of disruption is active and impending. And once again he, well, you know, if you've been on this journey before.
And meanwhile, Cajeiri, hearing that his great-grandmother is ill, takes things upon himself, changing what's going on in certain important ways and has to face new factors in his household and duties.½

In Defiance, the twenty-second volume of the Foreigner series, C. J. Cherryh teams up with her life partner, Jane S. Fancher. I suspect that Fancher may have had at least an editorial hand in several of the earlier books. It should go without saying that Defiance should not be your first foray into the series. In fact, by this time, Cherryh feels free to lard her prose with so many Atevi terms that readers new to the series may suspect they have picked up a foreign language edition.
Cherryh’s world-building is meticulous. Her aliens, especially, continue to impress. The Atevi routinely refer to themselves in the third person—not I know, but one knows. Their language is formal and full of honorifics. They seem to weigh every utterance for its political impact. It is always mother and father—never mom and dad. Friendship and love are not Atevi concepts; instead, they have associates, bound by loyalty and a sense of duty. Boundaries are seldom stable, and private armies and a guild of assassins keep what order there is. This setup reminds me of shoguns and samurai.
Although they are hooked on numerology, they are a rational species who seldom think about the past. Their mental life is filled with calculations about the effects of their actions and what others may be planning. Cherryh’s close, shifting third-person narration keeps us involved in their ongoing mental debate.
Recommended.

Going in blind!

Last time we saw Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, human translator to Tabini-aiji, he was on the Red Train fleeing from, or racing towards, an undisclosed location with the Atevi aiji-dowager Ilisidi, various Guild members, including Bren’s own staff, important lords. All vital to the canny dowager’s plans—as we can best guess, to rid the realm of the Shadow Guild before it rebuilds.
The long, long train journey, only stopping for fuel seems to be heading towards Bren and Lord Geigi lands, on the coast.
During the journey the Dowager is not seen for days. There’s been no communication with Bren, and Bren can’t communicate with Tabini, as Cenedi (ilisidi’s body guard) hasn’t passed on to him the secure com as ordered by Tabini (head of the atevi aishidi’tat).
Meanwhile overhead the space station is sending some 5000 humans down to the surface. Who’s to meet them? How to handle this?
Lord Reijiri of Dur and his yellow biplane make an appearance, along with a longtime friend of Ilisidi’s, Lord Tatiseigi.
Cajeiri who’s about to turn unfelituous ten has a hand in persuading both these Atevi to take action.
Tabini and Cajeiri are concerned for the Dowager. She’s ill. She’s way down South. She hasn’t named an heir. If anything should happen to her that would be a personal blow and a major political disruption.
Oh, the wily Dowager might be down, but one can never underestimate her.
For me this was exhilarating as more pieces of the Atevi/Human story come together. Entrenched in this world I’m thrilled to join even more dots on the canvas of the Atevi story and of humans come as strangers to this land. Humans who are divided into different groups. All have changed, those who came down to the surface, and those who continued to man the space station awaiting the return of a third group, the space voyagers. All sets of humans need to understand the Atevi mindset, so different to their own. That difference is fraught and dangerous. How to coexist is problematic. The human story will be out of balance.
I’ve been reading this series down the years since the first title came out and love it.
I recommend if you’re new to Cherryh’s world of the Atevi you start further back. Ideally from the beginning.

A DAW ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.

A distinct story finally emerges as the politics of the planet and the feelings the three Rhomandi brothers have for each other.

The first in a great trilogy if you can get through a lot of unnecesary crap.

A good conclusion finally emerges from too much extraneous information.

I have loved Cherryh's Alliance-Union novels, with "Downbelow Station" and "Finity's End" standing among my favorite SF novels. This one does not.

While I'm pleased to return to this imagined world and there is a good story with viable main characters here, the book is unevenly - even poorly - written. Internal monologues can be fine and potent, but "Alliance Rising" is replete with repetitive ruminations chewing the same cud over and over. That's not tension-building or adding backstory, it's lazy writing and onerous for the reader. Also, it seems as if this book saw little editing/proofing, since there are continuity flaws and textual errors (such as "won't" in place of an obvious "would") that increase towards the conclusion. Why are so many readers content to settle for these mediocrities?

I love political intrigues, economic tensions, and dialogue. Arkady Martine's phenomenal novel "A Memory Called Empire" plays those for keeps. By comparison, this is bathwater.½

oboy a return to the already huge Alliance-Union Universe, in a new-series collab by Cherryh with Jane Fancher. 4 spaces. lots of exposition, but there's still great characters, and that breathless barreling-forward so typical of Cherryh. i'm all for it. go team!

Cherryh has done it again. In Alliance Rising she has given us a deep, interesting, and satisfying prequel to her Hugo award winning Alliance universe books, full of three-dimensional characters and the usual political intrigue. I'll be anxiously awaiting the next book in this new series.½

So good to get back into the Alliance-Union universe. With this one we go back before the Company Wars, to when the Merchanter Alliance is forming, getting names signed to a formal alliance. It centers around Alpha Station, the first station established from Earth, but things are in a mess, with Earth Company trying to assert itself from ten years away, by building a new ship to supposedly rival the big FTL ships, like Finity's End. The station and the ships that support it have been neglected for the last twenty years in order to build Rights of Man, and things are coming to a head. With a touch of romance and a very satisfying ending I give this my highest recommendation!

A long awaited return to Alliance/Union space is well worth the wait. The Merchanter Families are always the best of these characters and it's great to spend time with them again, even if they don't actually leave the station. It's not at as politically dense as Cyteen but it moves faster with more action, and the ramifications for the rest of the trilogy? will be just as important.

I'm not quite sure when this is set in the fairly complex Alliance timeline. Somewhat later than Finity's End is sure, as the teenaged Fletch from there is now 1st Security on Finity, which has made an unusual docking at Alpha, bring the offer of the Alliance to the five Families who call that their home port (a quaint notion to Finity's way of thinking). (After some discussion, apparently this is actually a prelude to the whole company wars series, with names being re-used on the ships, hence this is early probably before Downbelow). One of those Families are the Monahons on Galway, of which Ross is junior Nav, shadowing the venerable main crew. Ross gets caught up in the brawl when security clamp down on the spacer's first gathering with Finity's crew. Because Finity aren't aware of the tensions on Alpha. Unlike other stations in the Beyond this is Earth Company station, and Sol despite the long lag, are accustomed to having things their way. There's several tangles to the politics, with station Admin more concerned about raw materials from wherever they can afford it, ships needing re-supply, and always Sol wanting their priorities, including a new longhauler that no-one can fly.

I'm not sure where Fleet fit into this timeline, they should still be around somewhere, but aren't even mentioned (see above, as a prelude Fleet doesn't exist yet, the later books in this trilogy may introduce them). Ross is great, just junior enough to have thing explained to him, but grown-up enough that we don't have to deal with angst, even when finity's female crew are attractive. There's some good interactions with station admin which is a side of the story we don't often get in this universe. Somehow though it's just a little thin, it doesn't quite feel portentous enough events of this magnitude, with Sol and it's billions on the verge of finally crossing the FTL gap into the Beyond proper.

Jane has always worked behind the scenes on CJC's novels, and it's good to see she's finally credited on the authorship. There's certainly no noticeable change in voice or tone between any sections, so any direct writing she's contributed has been well blended in. I've no idea who's been involved with the cover design, but it bears no relation to the story at all.

Another really enjoyable installment in this universe. It isn't a recommended starting point, Downbelow Station and maybe Finity's End are required reading beforehand (as this is a prelude, I'd still recommend reading them first, and then coming back to this) but for anyone roughly familiar with the politics, it's all heading in a great direction.½

A long section of exposition at the beginning, with nothing much happening but the introduction of a few main characters, but when it does get going it turns into a cracking good yarn, with political shenanigans, divided loyalties, trust and hope. Highly recommended - a great addition to the Alliance-Union universe.

I really enjoyed this look at the early history of the Alliance-Union universe.

Alliance Rising takes place before Downbelow Station and Heavy Time, and may be the earliest novel in the timeline. The novel provides backstory about the Alpha Station, perfect for those who read the early novels decades ago.

Alliance Rising focuses on the economic and political life of the Alpha Station before Sol (Earth) had direct FTL access to it. At the time, most seem to think that Sol will soon find the FTL jump points to break out to the wider universe. Sol’s building of a large ship at Alpha Station seems to reinforce this, and makes others throughout the merchanters and stations curious about the ship.

Alliance Rising contains a lot of information about how the Alliance-Union universe functions at the time of the novel, and the characters’ internal reflections and musings serve to flesh out the story. Indeed, the characters extended musings remind me of the interludes Cherryh wrote for the Merovingen Nights anthologies.

Alliance Rising is a buildup to the next novels in the Hinder Stars series. The action mostly comes mid-way through up to the end of the novel, not atypical of Cherryh's more anthropological novels. The style of the novel seems mostly of Cherryh, and I can’t really say I see much stylistic input from Fancher.

I am looking forward to the next novel, and won’t wait so long after its publication to read it.

I admit to being a total fan; why? Because I emerge from the story hopeful, energized, restored. I don't know how her stories do this for me. It's not the prose, it's the plot and the characters with shape and solidity and nuanced struggles.
And, of course, the return to the Alliance world was welcomed!

No doubt this is C.J. Cherryh in the Alliance-Union universe, but without the most common view point of the displaced, disadvantaged core character. What is displaced is the past reality giving way to an unknown new one. The pushers in a ten year cycle between Sol and Alpha and the FTL ships of the trading families between Alpha, Bryant, Glory and Venture in what the rest of Beyond calls the Hinder stars are overshadowed by the Earth Company's huge Rights of Man building at Alpha and monopolizing all the resources from Sol. Into this mix come 4 FTL ships from Beyond, including the legendary leviathan of a Merchanter, Finity's End, the plans of which were stolen to build Rights. Nobody does exposition as adroitly as Cherryh, but after 100 pages of it, the engagement with the main characters is quite welcome, even if the usual anxious self-searching is almost absent. Those of us familiar with the A-U books know how tenuous the hopes of the main characters are, but we are also used to ambiguous endings.½

Cherryh has done it again. In Alliance Rising she has given us a deep, interesting, and satisfying prequel to her Hugo award winning Alliance universe books, full of three-dimensional characters and the usual political intrigue. I'll be anxiously awaiting the next book in this new series.½

Beguiled once again by Cherryh!

Starting off I found this a dense read. Having been a Cherryh reader for years I was scrambling to recall the earlier novels I'd read eons ago and to have those line up with the present happenings. Not that it's necessary to read these before Alliance Rising but as I am an avid fan I was busy sorting through what I already knew to meld this current offering of the Alliance-Union saga with what has gone before. (As it happens I was sorting my hard copy Sci-fi collection and one of the first books I picked up was a 1988 copy of Cyteen. I feel a re-read coming on!)
What a solid return Alliance Rising is to a cosmos I have freely rummaged through over the years, compliments of the masterful Cherryh!
Alpha Station, part of the Hinder Stars, unusually receives recent visitations from a number of ships. It turns out to be a consortium led by James Robert Neihart, captain of a massive space ship, Finity's End. This puts some stress on the station, particularly when security has been virtually seconded by Earth Company as part of their project to build a huge ship, The Rights of Man, at a cost that has become a financial albatross hanging around the neck of the station master and of the ships that serve Alpha and the Hinder Stations. There is a struggle going on at the command level of the station and the visit by Finity's End ups the ante. Drawn into the struggle is the Captain and crew of the Galway, and in particular crew members Ross and Fallon.
Cherryh's writing style has that distinctive gravelly, almost staccato note that conjures up the differences of those wed to star travel, and of the family ships like Galway running on luck, hope and the often uncanny ability to parse the cards one's dealt.
Pride and loyalty to one's ship is foremost but a time has come when the Merchanter families need to band together. And it starts here!
As always with Cherryh, a masterpiece is unfolding, and I'm thrilled to have a front row seat. I have stars in my eyes!

A NetGalley ARC

This graphic novel is a continuation of "Gate of Ivrel: Claiming Rites", and both are based upon CJ Cherryh's superb novel, "Gate of Ivrel". The artwork and adaption are both very good, although the story is not quite as clear as was the first. Recommended.½

Doing very well as the prequel duology to Jane's intensely character driven trilogy (you don't need to have read the trilogy first, this makes as much sense on it's own) right up until the very protracted end. It is the backstory of Wesley Smith, and why he ended up on the distant world of NateHumid, where we meet him in the trilogy.

Wesley Smith is the grandson of the prestigious Seneca Smith who developed the instantaneous communication network that has supported mankind's' expansion into space. Wesley has grown up with her learning all her tricks and many more. By the time he reaches the official Academy he's bored by tall the repetitive lessons, and beginning to suspect that there is an error in the underlying physics. However in order to explore this properly, he has to be accepted in the NetAT, the Design headquarters looking after all of the 'Net. Seneca herself set a rule banning this until the applicant had reached an age of 25, so Wes has 6 years to kill. Seneca has almost died, and is connected too a life support Unit. Which contrives to bypass varies legalities but her status remains much in doubt. Wes' visits to her remain his sole solace.

The opening book contains mostly Wes' high jinks with a few asides of social commentary (eg how 21st cen texting nearly killed literacy). Most of these are viewed through the role of Wes' tutor JP, who is working for at least on e of the NetAT factions. It becomes apparent that not everybody wants Wes to succeed. The diversions to Wes' point of view are mostly distracting in the earlier sections Later on his voice becomes more important.

All of Jane's work that I've read is intensely character driven. Worlds are only described in passing as the characters experience them. This does mean that sometimes it takes a while to get a feel for the place because it's natural for the characters and hence they don't spend a lot of time admiring the view. At the conclusion the action scene - when it finally arrives is very well scripted and cleverly done. however the following 100 pages are almost unnecessary, the tidying up of a few loose ends that are irrelevant and mostly clear from the main trilogy anyway. 100 pages is far too much for such stuff. there follows another 30 pages of afterword explaining Jane's history with writing this series - although interesting it again is probably best left for a webpage somewhere.

Interesting and inventive character driven SF looking at the role of technology in society.
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Pretty much as above, the tidying up at the end does drag a little. but the characters really sparkle. In some ways Wes is almost a Mary Sue, and too intensely good at everything, but his charm comes through so strongly that we don't mind, and he has responsibility to know and act accordingly. He could twist everyone around his finger, but doesn't.

Read this online, a graphic novel based upon the first part of the original book, The Gate of Ivrel. Well done adaption of the novel.

This is the first book of a series set in a world with a different technology. The story is about 3 brothers who are heirs to leadership of a city. The eldest has rebelled, the middle brother has taken up his responsibility and the yougest has just reached his majority as the story opens. In this a nd the next 2 books they are matched there is a hatch and some dispatches. I thoroughly enjoyed this partially to my own surprise and really wish the author could continue the series. My copy is ebook from the author's website.½

People ignore or don't know that Dracula was contemporary fiction, even a techno-thriller when it was written, audio memo taking, express trains, steam launches and telegraphy feature heavily.
What Jane Fancher has done here is have her vampire visit todays world, he has been looking on the internet. The baggage has been dumped her vampire isn't a psychotic leech there are, no stupid damsels in nightgowns and no Buffy either. Sergei is just a very long lived individual who has visiting the big wide world every few decades for, well that would be telling. Now he has engaged an American archeology post grad as his guide, ostensibly because Peter speaks Rumanian. Peter finds that his knowledge of Roman and pre-roman history seem more relevant Sergei corrects him with all the confidence of an eyewitness(?). The story mostly takes place in Sergei's villa in Rumania before moving to Seattle for the action, running down a psychotic blood sucker, well it is vampire story.
I enjoyed this and hope there will be some more although I preferred the author's Ring dancer series.

I mistakenly read Harmonies of the Net before I read this and now wish I had been intelligent enough to read them in the intended order. This book cleared up lots of the questions I struggled with when reading "Harmonies". In retrospect, the whole series is much more coherent now that I have the intended background to understand "Harmonies", my fault for fouling the intended order. Interesting story and the queued "Protection" the the Cocheta's conditioned the cave seekers to provide at the expense of their abilities to function in their society explains the hostile actions of Nayati and even Stephen's "Papa". This book draws the series together and makes the concerns of both the Alliance and the Recons more understandable. Stephen's early conditioning by his "Papa" also explains his extreme sense of "guilt" and sensitivity to tactile senses that are part of his confusing public persona. Once Wesley/Anevai decode his desire for physical contact for what it is rather than an attempt to use sexuality as a manipulative tool, they become much better at supporting his extreme lack of self confidence and allow him to recognize his unique abilities. Series is really much better than I had imagined. Now I need to take the time to read again in the proper order and see if the implications presented provide a tangible philosophical case.½

This story focuses on an off-corridor earth like planet, HuteNamid, that has been inhabited by colonists with American Indian ancestry. This group has lured some exceptional but quirky doctors to their Alliance sponsored Think Tank. The Alliance commerce, communication, interplanetary navigation and repository of all civilizations knowledge is resident and dependent on the Net DataBase accessible to citizens throughout the galaxy. Admiral Loren Cantrell and her crew had been pulled off first planetary leave in over two years to travel with a newly minted Net specialist and investigate missing people, scrambled or missing Net Records and lack of any results from the planetary ThinkTank on HuteNamid. This book (# 1 in a series of 3 NetWalkers) introduces the principle characters, the political tapestry, the unique geographical construct of HuteNamid and the resulting friction between the colonialists and the Alliance administration. This sets the stage for the remaining stories. Necessary background for what is to come! Warning, not all the players have shared beliefs, incentives and goals.

Wesley Smith and his protege, Stephen Ridenour are both gifted programmers. Stephen is also a remarkable beautiful boy and had been used by the administrators at the Vandereaux, the student academy. Stephen was an orphan and had no political levers to advance his position in the hierarchy, only his remarkable programming ability, personal beauty and sensitivity to the net. The story traces the challenges faced by a politically weak student among upper classmates who take advantage of the weak and use them unmercilessly. Wesley vacillates between being a sympathetic supporter of Stephen and a suspicious critic thinking Stephen uses his abilities to manipulate his peers. Stephen goes on an Indian like spirit quest with a native on the planet and makes contact with an entity in the mountain that is intent on straightening out the connections on the net to prevent failure and subsequent ruin throughout the system. Deep story with entertaining value.½