Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
DAW Books (New York, 1976). 1st DAW edition, 1st printing. 254 pages. $1.50.
Description
C. J. Cherryh planned to write since the age of ten. When she was older, she learned to use a type writer while triple-majoring in Classics, Latin and Greek. At 33, she signed over her first three books to DAW and has worked with DAW ever since. She can be found at cherryh.com.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AnnieMod
That was the first novel that Cherryh sold but the second to be published. So when I decided to start reading all her books in order, I wondered for a bit where to start. And as the two are not relate, it ended up with starting from the one I could find first.
Meet Kurt Morgan. He is not the
The planet is the home of the Nemet - a non-human (but humanoid) race living in a society that looks like the Middle Ages with honor and family being at the top of the list. There is also another human - a woman... and Hanan. To say that things do not go very well will be an understatement.
It is an old style adventure on a new planet - there are pirates (of a type) and a girl, a big adventure and a revolution, death and almost death, loss and hope. And if you come to this novel expecting that, it is a pretty good one - it is not perfect and it has the issues of the SF novels of the time - it is a boys tale in a world that looks like a boys' dream (it is kinda amusing that it was written by a woman). It has female characters - although besides Djan (the second human), all other women are subordinate and to some extent just there - the adventures happen only to the men, the decision are taken by the men (although there is always a matriarch in the family that seems to be as important as the patriarch for some things).
That novel started what will become one of the big and well known series in the world of SF - the Alliance-Union universe. Kurt and his planet are part of the Alliance - even though the tale is set way ahead in the future.
It is a fascinating world and the Nemet are an interesting race. If I was rating just the world building, it would have been 5 stars. But the story does not hold that well for an adult book - I am happy I read it but unless if you want to read the whole set of the Alliance novels, it can be skipped.
Meet Kurt Morgan. He is not the
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luckiest man in the universe - he was on a ship fighting another ship of the Hanans (both sides are human - just good old human on human war amongst the stars being led for 2 000 years - and noone remembers why anymore) when his ship manages to destroy the enemy one - but not before jumping after it to a star he had never seen and allowing one last charge of their weapon - that is coming to destroy Kurt's ship. Ship explodes, Kurt evacuates and he has not idea where he is, how to get home or if there is where to crash. Well - maybe he is lucky after all - a planet that he can breath on is just in range and he lands - with no chance to ever get back home. And he is not alone. The planet is the home of the Nemet - a non-human (but humanoid) race living in a society that looks like the Middle Ages with honor and family being at the top of the list. There is also another human - a woman... and Hanan. To say that things do not go very well will be an understatement.
It is an old style adventure on a new planet - there are pirates (of a type) and a girl, a big adventure and a revolution, death and almost death, loss and hope. And if you come to this novel expecting that, it is a pretty good one - it is not perfect and it has the issues of the SF novels of the time - it is a boys tale in a world that looks like a boys' dream (it is kinda amusing that it was written by a woman). It has female characters - although besides Djan (the second human), all other women are subordinate and to some extent just there - the adventures happen only to the men, the decision are taken by the men (although there is always a matriarch in the family that seems to be as important as the patriarch for some things).
That novel started what will become one of the big and well known series in the world of SF - the Alliance-Union universe. Kurt and his planet are part of the Alliance - even though the tale is set way ahead in the future.
It is a fascinating world and the Nemet are an interesting race. If I was rating just the world building, it would have been 5 stars. But the story does not hold that well for an adult book - I am happy I read it but unless if you want to read the whole set of the Alliance novels, it can be skipped.
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LibraryThing member SnakeVargas
This is a fairly typical early C.J. Cherryh work. Dealing with cross cultural (human/alien) understanding, being an "outsider", and being a human in an alien culture where humans are the minority. Themeatically very similar to the Foreigner series. A decent read for Cherryh fans, though not a great
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introduction to her work. Show Less
LibraryThing member Darrol
An Alliance man is stranded on an earth-like world after a battle with Union. On this world, one city is ruled by a Union human female. This city is a former colony of a city across the sea. This former colony city has two groups of the native species, where the city across the sea has one. There
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are humans that are the very degenerate descendents of a once dominating class. I think they were stranded and awaited rescue by (I believe) Union forces, but the native species conquered them. The Alliance man falls in love with a women of the lower class native. And this sets up the action that results in the threatened destruction of the former colony. This romance between human and native seem to come out of the blue and not well explained. The Union female ruler seems more formidable in the beginning of the book than she does at the end. An entertaining read. I wonder how much of the outline of the Alliance/Union universe was actually in the author's mind with this initial publication. Show Less
LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba
Okay - I really wanted to like this one. But it is just not very good. The plot is all over the place, the characters mostly one sided. There isn't much reason for any of the actions of the humans, although the alien species, the Hanan, has a culture that is well written. I couldn't finish it.
This
I think that if you are a CS. Cherryh fan, you will probably want this book.
This
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is one of the first books written by this author - and all of Cherryh's trademarked elements are there - Almost human aliens (but not quite), tradition vs new ideas, all the elements found in her later books are here, but jumbled. I think that if you are a CS. Cherryh fan, you will probably want this book.
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Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1976-06
Physical description
254 p.; 7 inches
ISBN
UW1257