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Mar. 2nd, 2023 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreI have now read two books by C J Cherryh - Downbelow Station and Merchanter's Luck. They've been very enjoyable, if on the depressing side of "enjoyable".
My impressions of C J Cherryh before I started reading her were "complicated space opera" and "interesting stuff involving clones and aliens". I can vouch for the first; the books I've read so far haven't touched a whole lot on the second, but what has been there has been fun.
However. What I did not know coming in, and what would have maybe made me pick up her books a lot earlier, is that her books contain the saddest, most pathetic, miserable-wet-stray-cat dudes I think I've ever encountered in scifi. That sounds like it could be a criticism but I assure you it is absolutely not. It is perhaps my favorite thing about her writing so far. In both the books I've read so far, there have been several passages that made me write "this is awful, I'm crying, oh no" all over my ebooks. It's like reading really good whump fic, and the surrounding universe is so bleak and realistically awful all the time that it never feels gratuitous (to me). I love it. (The sad wet cat aspects of Downbelow Station are better than the ones in Merchanter's Luck, but that's because Downbelow Station is a much better book overall. Merchanter's Luck still managed a few good heartstring tugs, however.)
Probably I cannot rely on there being sad-wet-cat dude content in all of her books, but I'm two for two so far, so I'm hopeful.
My impressions of C J Cherryh before I started reading her were "complicated space opera" and "interesting stuff involving clones and aliens". I can vouch for the first; the books I've read so far haven't touched a whole lot on the second, but what has been there has been fun.
However. What I did not know coming in, and what would have maybe made me pick up her books a lot earlier, is that her books contain the saddest, most pathetic, miserable-wet-stray-cat dudes I think I've ever encountered in scifi. That sounds like it could be a criticism but I assure you it is absolutely not. It is perhaps my favorite thing about her writing so far. In both the books I've read so far, there have been several passages that made me write "this is awful, I'm crying, oh no" all over my ebooks. It's like reading really good whump fic, and the surrounding universe is so bleak and realistically awful all the time that it never feels gratuitous (to me). I love it. (The sad wet cat aspects of Downbelow Station are better than the ones in Merchanter's Luck, but that's because Downbelow Station is a much better book overall. Merchanter's Luck still managed a few good heartstring tugs, however.)
Probably I cannot rely on there being sad-wet-cat dude content in all of her books, but I'm two for two so far, so I'm hopeful.
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Date: 2023-03-02 09:50 pm (UTC)Here via network to say there are indeed sad wet cat dudes in the majority of Cherryh's work. So much I'm not sure I even have any particular recs! You might want to try Cyteen (bonus: clones), The Book of Morgaine,* or The Faded Sun (bonus: aliens) next, though.
Or you could throw a dart at a pile of Cherryh paperbacks, which would work just as well.
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Date: 2023-03-02 09:52 pm (UTC)