Arctic Light

I was thinking about Alliance-Union tonight, having posted a Hellburner snippet for a prompt on Tumblr - so I looked it up to see if there was any news and it turns out the next book, Alliance Unbound, is up for preorder! .... in October 2024. So long to wait! But apparently (as per Cherryh's blog) she and her wife have had a truly dismal couple of health-issue-filled years, so all her books are extremely behind. But we have a cover and a release date!

I wasn't sure if it was going to be a direct sequel to the previous book or not, but now we finally know what it's about and more-or-less what era it's set in.

( Blurb & speculation under the cut - cut for any who are avoiding spoilers to this extent )

So I haven't done one of these lately; I stopped for awhile and read other things (you kinda have to; Cherryh's books are heavy). I bounced off Tripoint this spring after I'd already read a ton of Alliance-Union books, because it's dark even by the standards of that universe and I think I kinda hit a wall.

I really loved it on the second try, though. It's still extremely dark; it actually reminded me a lot of Rimrunners in various ways. But it's got that "people finding each other and pulling together in a dark place" aspect that Cherryh's books almost always have. It's also very tense; I found this one of the more engaging of her books, actually, once I got past the bleakness of the general premise and the early chapters, because the tension of the characters' uncertain and dangerous situation pulled me along.

This book is basically one enormous trigger rating for rape and various kinds of abuse. The plot itself hinges around a rape, and the victim's attempts to seek revenge (justice not really being an option; each ship is its own law) while being stonewalled by her relatives because her efforts to bring down another ship's captain are putting all of them at risk. There's also an explicitly described female-on-male rape scene and a whole variety of other kinds of intra-family, intra-society emotional and physical abuse.

One thing I really love about Cherryh's Merchanter books is that she doesn't portray the closed, insular society of the matriarchal merchanter families as a good thing - it's not a bad thing either, it just is, but she's really good at depicting the way that extremely small, closed societies with no outside oversight actually are, and I think of all the merchanter novels I've read, this might be the one that is the most unflinching about just how awful and cruel a merchanter ship can be for someone who doesn't fit in. The close-knit merchanter families have each other's backs right up until they don't, and I think these books (and this one in particular) are painfully believable in how twisted and complex life can get when your family is and will forever be your entire world, and if you lose your place in a merchanter family, there is nowhere else to go. At least nowhere else worth being.

I have occasionally been thinking, reading the Alliance-Union books, about what a claustrophobic place Cherryh's space future is. I really love that she depicts a universe without a central government not as a wide-open frontier, but as a bunch of microcosmic dictatorships, the size of a space station or a ship, where your options are actually incredibly limited depending on where you're born. You can't even easily travel between space stations, since there basically is nothing like passenger spaceflight in Alliance-Union. If you're born on a space station, you'll most likely never be anywhere else but that one space station for your entire life, unless you manage to hire onto a non-merchanter ship (which based on Rimrunners and Tripoint appear to be universally dysfunctional and horrible), or get impressed into the remnants of the Fleet, in which case you'll probably have a short and even more horrible life; if you're born on a merchanter ship, you'll probably spend your life mostly in deep space following a preset trade pattern between three or four space stations, with your life tangled up in the lives of a hundred cousins and opportunities for sex/romance limited to a couple weeks on a space station every year or so.

It's a fascinating universe and a plausible one, and one that I love to read about, but it's also one that makes Earth feel so wide open and full of possibilities and free, which is really something you don't get much from the exploring-the-cosmos brand of sci-fi.

I am curious, for anyone else who knows Cherryh's timeline/mythos better than I do, about (major worldbuilding spoiler for the end of Tripoint) ( Under the cut )

This was apparently one of her earliest Alliance-Union books in terms of publication dates (published in 1982) but I'm glad I read it after reading enough of the other books in the 'verse to get a strong sense of how much people fear jump-space and how profoundly important it is for humans traveling through jump to drug themselves so they don't remember it. This is a book about what happens when you don't, and what actually IS between, and why ships or individuals getting lost in the between is a thing that happens sometimes.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It's got a lot of great high-concept stuff going on: the trapped and haunted spaceship for all your Something Is Outside The Ship creepiness, the ship full of slaves forced to play-act a doomed Arthurian romance for the amusement of their mistress who end up somewhere their play-acting can become real, the clone-people whose entire lives are templated off pre-programmed tapes inadvertently using entertainment tapes to template themselves into more complex emotional lives. The general idea of azi developing more complex emotions and being, essentially, forced to become more human when they're stuck somewhere that their programming doesn't apply was the main thing I wanted (and didn't get, to my satisfaction) from the first section of Forty Thousand in Gehenna. And since we spend the entire book inside the head of an azi narrator, there is a lot of background thinky stuff about what are emotions, really, and what counts as "real" emotions. Are Elaine's (and the others') feelings of love and loyalty any less real because they were programmed to feel them? Are naturally born humans any less programmed? And so forth.

There's also the deeply creepy worldbuilding detail that Elaine, and others like her, are "terminated" at age 40 because her line of azi are designed to be ornamental, and once they stop being pretty, they're killed; the only way to avoid this is to find a way to be "clever" or otherwise useful. Elaine is clearly terrified of this fate while trying to convince herself that she's not because she has no right to her own life, she's only an azi. This seemed particularly relevant because we'd just been talking in the Chanur discussion about the way the Chanur books upend our own society's screwed-up relationship with male vs. female aging, where males in hani society are considered useless once they're past their reproductive prime. It was clearly something on Cherryh's mind at the time, because this book deals with the same issue in a different way: in Union, people like Elaine are meant to be looked at, their sole function is to be beautiful, and once they're no longer young and lovely, they're killed. (It's not specifically a female issue in this book, because that's also the intended fate of her fellow azi Lancelot, who is also around mainly for ornamental purposes. But it's pretty obviously a related statement on youth and attractiveness.)

(Randomly, the back-cover blurb describes the azi as "androids", apparently missing the point that they're genetically human, they're just clone-people. But in retrospect I guess the book doesn't really go into the details of Union, so if you're not already familiar with the universe, it's not that obvious what, exactly, the azi are, just that they're driven by programming more than ordinary emotions.)

... The main problem I had with the book, though, is that it's a bunch of very passive and in some cases unlikeable people stuck on a spaceship in the middle of nowhere, with no one but each other to interact with. The first half of the book in particular was extremely heavy on descriptions of people sleeping and entertaining themselves with the 24th-century equivalent of movies. I liked Elaine as a protagonist but I just wished there had been more ... well ... happening, which is an ironic comment given that the book was about a bunch of people trapped in a situation of DOOM and possibly under attack, but somehow the book's narrative style managed to leech out a lot of the suspense.

I also have zero emotional connection to the Arthurian mythos, which the entire book is built around, so that was probably also an issue. If you're more into the idea of Camelot In Space than I am, you might enjoy this book better.

But there was still a lot about it that I liked, particularly the vivid and creepy descriptions of in-between space and the survival aspects of trying to adjust to the idea that they might be trapped for the rest of their lives with no one to depend on but each other. I ended up wishing some of the ideas that were developed in this book had been developed in about three times the space (it's a short book, more novella-sized than full novel sized) so that we'd had more of an opportunity to get to know the characters better and to really deal with the ins and outs of azi psychology that this book merely brushes across. Which, come to think of it, is probably why she wrote Cyteen later on. This book strikes me as an early attempt to feel around the edges of some of the issues of identity and self that Cyteen addressed head on.

(... or at least I assume it does. I did read Cyteen a very long time ago, but I don't really remember anything about it now except "clones". It's one of the ones I'll be getting to soon-ish; it's in the pile!)

Also, giving me more fuel for my theory that Cherryh's id is pretty much my own, this is another book that revolves around a little group of found-family-ish types who are all up in each other's space all the time. As well as everyone living together on the ship, the azi prefer sleeping in a big cuddle-pile because they're more comfortable with other azi around them. It also comes thiiiiiiis close to a canonical threesome or possibly foursome, but then veers around it at the last minute; awwww. (You can headcanon it in very easily, though.)

Another new read for me, and oh man, I really loved this one! Especially all the slice-of-life-on-a-spaceship details of life on board a merchanter ship. I mean, basically this is a boarding school novel IN SPACE, with extra bonus family feels, and of the Alliance-Union books I've read so far, this is the first to really go into details of worldbuildy stuff like how the ships are set up, how they trade, how jump really works (e.g. what's going on when they talk about the weird side effects of dumping velocity when they come out of a jump), and so forth from a ground-level, characters'-eye perspective. A side effect of the tight third-person POV she tends to use -- her characters generally don't explain things to the reader that they already know, and this is the first of the merchanter books I've read that's told largely from the POV of a character who isn't used to the ships, so we get to see how it's all set up as he learns about it. It also really expands the Alliance part of the universe, since we get to see so many of the space stations and get a feeling for them as unique places, along with all the changes that have happened since the war -- in a similar way to how we got to see the in-depth functioning of prewar life in Jupiter's asteroid belt in Heavy Time.

I think everything else I have to say about this book is spoilery, so it'll go under the cut ...

( Spoilers )

AO3 appears to have died on me, so I'm just going to have to inflict my Hellburner accidental baby acquisition fic on all of you. :P (To be crossposted at AO3 whenever it stops being dead.)

I think actually, as far as things I've written in this fandom that don't require canon knowledge, this one works pretty well. There's not really a whole lot of necessary background beyond "space opera" and the fact that I'm attempting to pastiche Cherryh's style. Also, babies that I decided to dump on the least baby-appropriate characters in my entire range of fandoms.

And wow, it's been awhile since I've posted fic directly on DW or LJ.

Title: Keep You Always
Fandom: Heavy Time/Hellburner (Alliance-Union)
Pairing: Canon ones, plus faint ot4-ish undertones
Rating: PG
Summary: "You're off duty," Graff said, "not doing anything, and everyone up top has their hands full. And I trust your team with a baby."

"Why?" Meg all but wailed at his back. "I don't trust us with a baby!"

Or: Accidental baby acquisition, Hellburner style.

ETA: Now on AO3.

( Keep You Always )

I decided to buy myself a new Kindle Paperwhite to replace my ancient Kindle with the side buttons. It arrived in the mail today, so I've been setting it up and so far my thoughts are decidedly "hmmm." I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually, but I'm definitely not going to toss the old one anytime soon. I expect it'll be nice to have one that's backlit for reading in bed, though!

I had enough fun writing up my thoughts on The Pride of Chanur that I think I might just forget the "book club" idea for the time being, and simply make more posts on the Cherryh books I've read lately. Which one(s) are y'all most interested in hearing about?



*I haven't actually acquired these yet, but they're definitely going to be part of the "read all the Cherryh" project. Apparently the library has them; they've got a good Cherryh selection, come to find out.

In other news, I've settled on Mar Delaney as my F/F pen name and set up a website. Now I just need, you know ... to write some books. (Details.)

Apropos of that, rachelmanija has started a project called F/F Fridays, similar to Reading Wednesdays - post about an F/F book, story, or fanfic rec on Friday. Which I'm going to try to start doing, not every week, but as the mood takes me. (I'll probably post them here and also at Mar's website, to give it some content.) Also, rachelmanija has a poll where you can vote on the next book she'll review.

Random, not that spoilery comment on the Chanur series (I'm now up to book 3) - though it probably won't make a speck of sense if you haven't read the books.

( Kinda spoilers )

I've been traveling for the last couple of weeks, which is why I didn't jump on this right away, but I can FINALLY talk about my recent CJ Cherryh obsession.

It started when I picked up a pinch hit for space_swap and fell headlong and hardcore back in love with Cherryh's Heavy Time/Hellburner duology, which I seem to orbit cyclically and fall back in love with every few years. Actually, let me just link to the two Hellburner fics I wrote for Space Swap:

Search and Rescue (8400 wds)
A violent act of sabotage leaves the Hellburner crew scattered and separated on a damaged station.
[Tags include "Hypothermia", "Cuddling & Snuggling", and "Families of Choice", to give you an idea what this one is like. It was hella fun to write.]

Long Haul Into Night (1900 wds)
It's always on the night shift that Dekker asks the off-the-wall questions.

So Heavy Time/Hellburner is part of a much larger universe of Cherryh's, Alliance-Union, and this time I decided to try to read the rest of it. My Cherryh reading has always been sporadic. I read a scattered assortment of her books as a teenager, fell passionately in love with Heavy Time and Rusalka in particular, but was never fond enough of her writing to seek out everything she'd ever written.

I think that time has come. Either I've grown into her books as an adult, or something, because OH MY GOD. I don't think I realized, reading her books piecemeal over the years, that the aspect that drew me in such a major way to my favorites of hers - the above-mentioned ones - is pretty much A Thing in nearly everything she writes.

Basically Cherryh absolutely LOVES writing about (for lack of a better word) queerplatonically bonded little groups of characters in codependent, mutually-weird-about-each-other found-family arrangements. In some of her books it's built into the cultural structure of the world (e.g. the nighthorse riders in the Rider at the Gate duology*, or some of the cultural arrangements in Alliance-Union). In other books the characters fall into it by accident and just kind of make it up as they go along. Either way, I'm starting to realize that characters being passionately loyal to each other, living right on top of each other in intense domesticity while often being fundamentally undomestic people, and just generally being weird about each other in iddy found-family ways is very much a Cherryh thing.

*Of which I've only read the first book so far; nobody spoil me for book 2 plz!

Also, in nearly ALL her books that have this (which is nearly all her books, period), it's either one very lonely and traumatized person being adopted by a more stable group, or a group of lonely and traumatized people adopting each other. Which is also, er. Highly relevant to my interests.

There is a post I read on DW a few years back, that I don't think I can find again without extensive googling, but it described EXACTLY what I like in fiction in a very clear way - "clair pockets in a noir universe". I latched onto that description hard, because YES, THAT. I love, love, love books/shows/movies that are entirely honest about the terribleness of the world - terrible things happen, and in fact, things fundamentally ARE kind of terrible - but the characters create their own little warm places of light and love, because they just love each other that much. And that's the button Cherryh's books are hitting so hard for me right now. There are a lot of awful things that happen in her books that WOULD be grimdark if handled in a different way, except that the characters manage to drag their own little corners of the universe, and each other, kicking and screaming into the light. I love books that expose all the awfulness of the world and then say "but we don't have to be like that," and especially when they do that through the characters' love and loyalty for each other, and damn but Cherryh's id seems to align perfectly with mine in that area. Not all of her characters get happy endings, but most of her books actually do end in a way that makes me feel all wrapped up in a warm fuzzy blanket - in part because they go through such horrible things getting there.

Also, she is absolutely shameless about writing wildly iddy stuff if she feels like it. Two characters who started out punching each other in the face and end up clinging to each other desperately while covered in their own blood and left to die on an abandoned space station after sacrificing themselves so their friends can escape a ruthless space pirate fleet, while said friends are fighting their way through space pirates, morally gray military, and their own families to get back to the space station and rescue them? SURE, WHY NOT.

I want to write further posts about individual books because I have a lot to say about them, or at least a lot of feels about them - when I'm done traveling (soon!). But I did want to throw out there that a lot of people are probably introduced to her work through Downbelow Station because it won the Hugo, and while it's a book I'm glad I finally managed to read (after bouncing off it several times and finally getting myself to read it by virtue of being trapped with it on a train), and it does actually hit Cherryh's typical emotional notes in the last, oh, fourth or so, it is NOT typical of her books; her books can be grim, but generally not THAT grim, and that book also has really offputting Noble Savage aliens, which is weirdly something that I have never encountered in any of her other books, even ones written around the same time. She can do great aliens! (I need to reread the Chanur books, speaking of which.) Just ... not those particular aliens. They are slightly less offputting in context of her other books because characters being intensely loyal to each other and loving each other through cross-species/cross-cultural bonds is something she really likes and writes a lot, but when one group of them are heavily coded Noble Savage and are basically getting murdered because of their affection and loyalty to the offworlders who use them as cheap labor, it becomes, let's say, uncomfortable. So yeah. That's a thing.

But basically her books are Found Family R Us and I still have SO MANY of them to read or reread, whee.

ETA: I found the post on Tumblr where I link to the "clair pockets in a noir universe" post (actually, as it turns out, a comment on a slightly different post), for further context.