1988! EIGHTY-EIGHT. Absolutely nothing dates this book, there are no cringe fashion moments, no ridiculous formerly high tech gadgets. There's just concrete character building, like.. her characters are morally gray, but these books cause YOU to have a moral dilemma. (Or several actually.)
The world! The politics! The absolute lack of sexism, two of the main relationships are homosexual, the other relationship is RIDICULOUSLY complicated with NO ROMANTIC cop outs. Jesus Christ.
1988!

These books are just so SATISFYING. ( )

I have a complicated history with Cyteen. It was the first novel by Cherryh that I read - about 20 years ago, in Bulgarian, in a botched translation that randomly removed parts of the story including the end of the novel (considering that there is a murder mystery in the book, removing the end was particularly bad but considering all the other removed parts, even if they had left it in, it probably would not have made sense). I loved the ideas. I found the execution... weird (and I could not understand how this can win a Hugo). But that bad translation (and the even weirder decisions made when a previous novel was published) made it impossible for the author to get published in Bulgarian again so I kinda forgot about her.

Then in 2008, 20 years after this book was initially published, a direct sequel was announced for early 2009. I was reading English books mostly in English at that point so I figured I should try Cherryh again - with reading Cyteen and then its sequel. The book made a LOT more sense and a few years later I started reading all Cherryh's books - mostly in order. And here I am back to Cyteen. I considered skipping it but considering that I had read the other 19 books in the Alliance-Union Universe written before that one, I figured I should reread it. And I was right - a lot of things that flew over my head last time registered now.

As most of the books in this universe, the book is designed as a standalone (the obvious exceptions - the Chanur books, the Mri novels and so on - are not even exceptions if you consider them as one work in multiple volumes). All the back story you need is in the book. All the references to what happened before are in the book. But only the ones that matter to the story are explained. There is a reference to the Compact and the Sol issues with it. It explains some of the actions of some people but you do not need to know anything more than the fact that there is a whole alien group of planets somewhere on the other side of the Sun and they really did not like humans when they met them. But if you had read the Chanur novels (the 4 published before Cyteen), you know what the Compact is and you know exactly why the humans got in trouble (and you finally connect some things from the Chanur books to the bigger story - because the Chanur books can be read on their own and you don't need to know anything about any other books - unless you want to connect some references). That's how this whole universe works - like a set of history books - one book adding a clue to allow you to unlock a connection from another...

But back to Cyteen. The novel is the second novel to deal with the Union side of the human split in the universe explicitly. There are some references in other novels and some others that can be counted as Union side novels ([Port Eternity] for example) but the one that really introduced the culture of Union is [Forty Thousand in Gehenna]. While Cyteen is not really a sequel to it, it deals with the aftermath of Gehenna and if you have read the Gehenna story before Cyteen, you have a baseline for azis and a lot better understanding of what is normal (or not).

At the core of the novel "Cyteen" are two main stories: a murder one and a quest for power one. None of them is fully resolved in the novel - you have an idea what happened in both but there is still enough ambiguity left for a "but what if". But these two stories are interweaved with story of the azis (the human clones who are educated by tape since the cradle and thus not allowed to have certain logical and brain pathways which are developed in normal people) - the whole Union side of the universe is very clearly on the Nurture side of the Nature vs. Nurture conversation - the only difference between a human and an azi is how they were brought up, even humans can be cloned but they don't get fed tape so early. Add to that the persecution of a boy (and then a man) who did nothing wrong (and yet seems to be always considered dangerous), the political games of the Union, the big and very wealthy clone-factory/laboratory and a little girl who needs to navigate a world she was brought into not because anyone wanted her but because she needed to be someone. There is a lot of cruelty in the book, there are moments where you are not sure who is on the good side really (shades of grey which I missed the last time I read the novel) and you never know just what might happen next - when money, power and long lives get combined, things get a bit skewed. But there is also friendship (although there is also the moral question of how much that exists if you are programmed to like someone). And even love (well.. with the same note).

It is a very long novel and yet it did not feel long enough. I wanted more of it, I wanted more details, more conversations, just more of everything. I had the same reaction last time I read it - it almost feels like a tease in places. And yet, it is an organized whole. But as with a lot of Cherryh's novels it can be a bit rambly and the characters' internal struggles can make Hamlet look like someone with a very definite grasp of the "to be or not to be" question (or his sanity). I enjoyed this side of the novel but it probably will be too much for someone who does not expect it or is not used to it. ( )

I finished Cyteen. Someone gifted me Regenesis a few years ago, and I realized I had never read the whole preceding work, just only one installment. I only remembered a few bits and pieces. Couldn't really tell just which part it was that I read decades ago. Didn't like it. Didn't get it, especially the last bit.

It's like the nexus of all the Union-Alliance novels. I read Downbelow Station (took me 2 tries to get through the whole thing) because it was a Hugo winner. That gets brought up in the opening exposition. Can't say I remember much about that story. Forty Thousand in Gehenna also plays a role in a good chunk of the story in Cyteen. The exploration of programmed cloned azi vs cloned unprogrammed human and reflection on extremely long timeframes involved in societal evolution very much reminded of Serpent's Reach, which I love. The theme of the profound isolation of genius without peers to connect with is reminiscent of Wave Without a Shore (again, love that story). Frankly, I'd rather read those tighter stories with aliens than the endless human political maneuvering with plot holes and opaque motivations.

Felt like Cyteen had some real gaps/inconsistencies and didn't really hang together in some ways. I also really didn't like that the central plot point that defined the entire trajectory of 600+ pages was the rape of a drugged teenager that was then reframed as an Intervention (and thus somehow not really rape???!!). Also, presenting homosexuality as maybe really misogyny, or pathology/trauma reaction, so not okay. Said teenager becomes a traumatized adult who is regularly retraumatized by the corporation security apparatus doing all sorts of nonconsensual mindfucks. Maybe that's supposed to be the point? The whole novel is an endless series of psy-ops by the psy-ops masters out-psyching each other. Blehh.

Next paragraph is all sorts of spoilers, so skip if need be. Plus, it's an undigestible stream of reaction.

Counselor Corain is set up as a viewpoint character at the beginning then sporadically to the end--but does it actually contribute anything to the story? Like Jordan Warrick, he's established as an ideological opponent to Ari, but it's a little unclear just what their differences are, and who really cares anyway. Neither of them is actually developed as characters. Jordan Warrick apparently has ethical differences with Ariane Emory because she's too quick to kill off azi once they're no longer useful to her. And yet, Ariane Emory leaves instructions for her cloned heir (both biologically and psychologically) emphasizing that her duty is first to humanity overall and second to azi and everything else below those. Ari apparently orchestrates the rape of Jordan's clone/son to counteract his bad parenting, but he's not actually a bad parent? Or maybe it's to warp Justin in the direction she needs to develop his talents in a useful way? Yuck. Reseune, home of azi cloning and programming is being funded by Defense dark money, yet it's unclear what the hell they're supposed to be doing for the military. Like, years and decades of funding science and getting nothing back? Jordan Warrick has ethical problems with how azi are being treated, but he's head programmer at the military base? How does any of that make sense? Somehow, Reseune's finances are deeply in trouble for so many years, and creative accounting/Defense spending is all that's keeping it afloat--so what? And again, why and how? And Ari II's guppies somehow put the company back on its feet? Really? It's unclear to me just how Yanni Schwarz has somehow been disrespected in House politics and why that is such a critical plot point at the end. The various family relationships are important and simultaneously not--why introduce all these folks when they really have no bearing on the story. Ari II is so smart that she doesn't like to play with the other kids, but then she gets her personal bodyguards to help her coerce the kids one by one to become her besties, and it all works out. Sure. Ari II sets up her independent household when she's 12, and she has the maturity to self-regulate rather than self-indulge and self-destruct. Sure. Uncles Giraud and Denys push the rebirth of Ariane Emory as the latest in techniques and proof of concept and the great hope of Reseune but then turn around and try to end the project with prejudice--why exactly? All the cognitive dissonance! So many questions and gaps and nothing really resolved beyond people dying here and there.

So yeah, not going to be keeping this one. Probably will read Regenesis. Supposedly, it addresses all the plot holes and loose ends. We'll see. ( )

Read 2017, favourite. ( )

Upon finishing it, all I can say is that I am thoroughly confused. Obviously an example of masterful world-building, but I felt it had a distressing tendency to tell me "This character is cool and will triumph" and then sit back and play out how... big surprise... that character acted cool and triumphed. I kept expecting something disastrous to happen and ruin Main Female Character's plans, and nothing ever did. It's definitely one of those "You wiggled your eyebrow at me significantly in that room full of important people, how dare you, now they've seen that and from that they will infer Very Complicated Thing and oh noes, paranoia, but you knew they would infer the Very Complicated Thing and what does it mean that you wanted them to infer the Very Complicated Thing from your raised eyebrow???" I find it stretches credulity to the limit to have a character as fully in control of all features of a situation the author paints as Very Complex Indeed spanning lots of people and lots of worlds (this being scifi) as the main character of Cyteen is portrayed as being. It doesn't seem like anybody grows or changes in that sort of situation because they never have to respond to the unexpected. Admittedly, I think Cyteen is more about worldbuilding and setting up a world in which Cherryh has subsequently written other novels (this being a guess, as I haven't read them) but it just didn't turn my crank. I did read all 600+ pages of it anyway, however, which might say something about the book's quality.

Cherryh is one of those authors who I keep trying to get into- she has a fantasy series I enjoyed and yet didn't- and I think the issue I have with her is that the way she believes people are capable of behaving and acting simply isn't within the parameters I understand for human behavior. Admittedly, none of her protagonists are strictly human- they're either incredible geniuses or golems or something- so perhaps she's just showing a genius for creating alien psychologies- but as a character-driven reader, I find her fiction difficult to work through and her resolutions unsastisfying. ( )