Do not get into this page if you are trying to read a book. This is for after you’ve read it. Likewise follow the custom of putting a subject and then dropping down a number of lines to make it possible for a reader to duck out if they don’t want the information yet.
I will answer questions about pronunciation, etc, all the little questions I’m normally asked. I won’t discuss things that disturb my creative process, like where I’m going or such. You can theorize among yourselves.
Nand Cherryh:
One begs a boon. One would be more than happy to shell out hard cold cash for a story about Ilisidi’s arrival at Shejidan as a blushing bride — not to mention the negotiations leading up to that marriage.
I missed the posts on the Finisterre books on July 8th, but I have this to add. The two Rider books were my introduction to the worlds of CJC, and I have fond memories of them. Recently I reread both books and enjoyed them just as much as I did the first time. To echo ready4more’s sentiment on July 8th, I too would love to see a third book to complete the trilogy.
I’ve got a general question: How do you manage to create such strong, lifelike characters? I’ve never come across another author who can do this.
When I read one of your books– Downbelow Station for instance, I can actually see the players as if they were on screen as opposed to on a page.
Ms. Cherry — do you base characters in your novels upon people that you have known? You have a unique talent here — and for what it’s worth, your books have spoiled me! Great Job!
Walt
what I do technically is a style of viewpointing I call ‘intense internal third’, which means you stay very, very ‘inside’ the third person viewpoint, think their thoughts, feel what they feel, and observe the world as their eyes see it, and only what they see, know, or imagine. I started developing this technique when I was still in university NOT taking writing classes. 😉 Or majoring in English. [I was a Latin major.] I saw the kinds of stories I wanted to tell and developed a technique that would let me do it. I don’t know that I’m the only one to do it, but it’s at least the way I do it, and it’s the way I explain characterization in the things I’ve written about writing, so perhaps others will find it helpful, if it clicks with the stories they want to tell.
Thank you for your kind compliments.
Hi
Ref your kif/knnn/kyo post – I was under the impression that Foreigner is set in a different universe to AU/Compact? The “folded space” drive instead of jump being the difference that sticks out most.
It actually is. The reason was that I didn’t want two publishers at each others’ throats. If it wasn’t the same universe, no fuss.
I agree with Spider D. The Phoenix cannot ever find the kif or the knnn, because they are in different literary universes. And I suspect the reason the descendants of the Phoenix cannot find Earth is because they slipped into a different physical universe or dimension than their Earth is in. This seems to me the reason they cannot find home.
I’ve always thought of them as finding a real ‘undocumented feature’ of the local universe, which has either shunted them to the other side of the Milky Way galaxy, or *really* elsewhere, because they can’t even find the quasars they’d like to use to orient themselves. Translation: yes, they are definitive up a cosmic creek without a paddle.
oh yes, this answers a lot of questions about the Foreigner universe – like, how come the ship crew don’t have to drug down for FTL travel …..
The answer is about five posts up: Foreigner isn’t in the AU/Compact Space universe due to arcane, technical, metaphysical considerations. (A different publisher.)
I have a question about Cuckoo’s Egg.
Warning: Spoilers follow …
Is it correct to assume that the humans who entered the Shonunin’s home system did not have FTL capabilities? The crippled human ship the Shonunin were chasing sent out distress messages to their home base some light years away. Years later (I think it was 9) the Shonunin picked up a response from the human base and were expecting the humans to return. Now if the humans had FTL ships, they would have arrived before their message was received. Is my argument correct, or am I missing something?
True. I’m trying to recall the situation (that book’s been decades ago for me). But an FTL ship can indeed outrace a lightspeed signal. In my general universes, ships eventually go faster than messages can, so ships are the carriers for translight communications.
Human civilization, in my main scenario, got all the way to Pell before the invention of a translight system. And there was one ship that failed to convert, and just set out slogging its way across space, kind of a Flying Dutchman of the space lanes, more legend than fact.
Huh. I always figured Earth was trying to Do It Right–i.e. open relations before blasting in there with carriers etc.–for once (not much of a track record for doing that, so far). It does not seem likely that Earth would have picked up radio, etc., from the Shonunin system, I’d always thought they’d just sorta picked a G-type star away off in a “safe” direction and pushed off into the Dark.
Jeff
Will we ever see another visit to Merovin? I’d love to see Jones et al return to a post-revolutionary Merovingen.
I’ve got a question regarding the UDC (Unified Defense Command) — from what I understand, it is a unified military force from all nations of Earth.
My question is this; do the individual nations still have their own militaries? Would there still be a US Army, Navy and Air Force? (I doubt I’d be alive at that time — but would I still be getting my Army retirement? I’d probably need it pretty bad by then LOL)
Heavy Time and Hellburner were always my favorites 🙂
Walter
Lol: the individual nations still have their own forces, but once you move into space, you have a pretty specialized group in charge, who are generally recruited from those born on stations, and getting into it from Earth is difficult…mmm, maybe there’s a story there….
And then there’s the Fleet, which had the wrong leader at the wrong time…
Speaking of the leader of the fleet, I can’t help picture actor Frank Langella when I’m reading about Mazian. Am I close?
He could. I look on Mazian as a guy who’s learned to schmooze with the corp-rattiest of the corp-rats. Looks good in a boardroom, all the while playing shark and getting appointments and funding.
My dream is a decently formatted and complete Chanur series, Heavy Time, Hellburner and the rest of the Alliance Union novels. Perhaps revised editions. Could replace references to printouts with datapaks and they could have been written last week instead of 25 years ago. One of the neatest things is in Chanur, them shifting stuff from screen to screen – reminds me of the screen tech seen in NCIS on tv at end of last season with some guy touching an onscreen image and flinging it across the room to an active or command display. Happens I think the first 4 Chanur books are one of the greatest works of science fiction ever.
Interesting point Major. I always got the impression that the UDC is a sort of world-wide NATO. Just how effective Earth’s governments are when the Corp appears to be running everything I don’t know.
If you look at ECS carrier names, and assume they are named after participating nations, then it’s pretty well global. http://www.io.com/~thrash/CJCships.html if you’re not familiar with them.
Hi there everyone! what a cool website this is :-D. have to drop in my 2 cents:
1. If you ever decide to do more with the Chanur series, it’d be a lot of fun to see if maybe hani, mahendo-sat, kif and etc could be presented with the difference in human versus azi, and how they deal with that psychological conundrum. (because alliance/union and chanur are same universe? i think…maybe? in the 1st 4 chanur, there’s brief reference to there being more than one human compact – which i assumed meant the alliance/union struggle) what if reseune offered to create azi versions of other species?? this could get deliciously complicated.
2. pyanfar is one of my favorite characters in literature, ever. the end. hands down. someone mentioned a young ilsidi story, i want a young pyanfar one! (forgive possible foreigner misspelling)
lol—welcome in!
I think if I started mixing universes I’d get more confused than I already am!
Hola, reader of the old blog making my way to the new digs. And in celebration, a query for CJ: Is there ever a temptation to return to some of the older settings or characters, and are editors tolerant of such endeavors? I always found the Iduve in Hunter of Worlds fascinating and hoped to see another appearance from them, even if the whole “recruitment through threats of total annihilation” routine would make for lousy neighbors to humanity.
Thanks!
Evan
Welcome! I’ve tried over the years, but my publishers haven’t been keen on it: there’s this psychology among editors: they want something related to something THEY bought, and most of my first editors have departed this planet. With e-books, if I can make a living this way, who knows?
CJ:
Could you resolve a few questions that have been bantered about by several of your fans concerning the physical attributes of the Atevi people? Starting with skin color. Do they have a range of colors like humans do? What is that range if they have it and if not, what is the color of their skin? Is it chocolate, burnt umber, black, ebony? and hair, black & straight like the Chinese, or black and wavy like the Sicilians? or a range?
And are they mammalian like human females? And what exactly do you mean when you say that they are alien looking but beautiful? Like the elves of LotR? or like werewolves just before they stop looking human? or what?
If you could answer these questions I might get a few sketches in.
I’d like to add a request to these questions.
Might we possibly get to see the Banichi sketches that were said to have been created once at the time?
The Atevi series, like any long series, occasionally develops small continuity problems, accidentally or on purpose. (I think it was Lois Bujold who stated that the author always reserves the right to have a Better Idea.)
But there is one change that I would dearly like to see reversed. In Foreigner and Invader, and in the Inheritor glossary (but not its text), the cliff-gliders of Malguri were the wi’itkitiin, singular wi’itkiti. That word, while tricky to pronounce, had a wild, alien resonance for me. I visualized it as an onomatopoeic spelling of their cry as they flew –“wi-it-ki-tiiii…, wi-it-ki-tiiiii….”
Subsequently, they have descended to being wi’itikin (singular? plural?), which to me sounds like more of a pidgin/babytalk of a name, and also doesn’t fit what I thought I know about proper word endings and plurals. Could we have wi’itkitiin back, pretty please?
Spoiler for the Chanur Series:
I was pondering Pyanfar’s dilemma in the trilogy in the Kif Strike Back – actually it should be the Kif Strikes up a Lucky, Sikikuk takes up Jik’s filthy habit – but seriously it was at a point where Pyanfar is deep in introspection about what should she do next. My point is that like the members of her crew, I had no real worry. Apparently Ms. Cherryh has so sold Pyanfar’s competence that like her niece who hero worships her and her husband who has absolute trust and the other members of the crew who also trust her implicitly, the competence and ability comes through. This is even with the willing suspension of disbelief necessary when reading science fiction. I still have the suspense and the worry – but not about Pyanfar. The others may panic or make mistakes but by the time we go visit the Kif for the second time on the Kif ship, you firmly believe that Pyanfar will pull it off.
What a sales job .
Jonathan
I have lately wondered about the role of music in Atevi culture. I recall a folk dance in one of the early stories. But I had imagined music, which has a lot of math inherent to it, would be more prevalent in Atevi society.
And I’d just like to say how much I’ve enjoyed the alien stories (Mri, Chanur et al. and Atevi) over many years. I read 40,000 in Gehenna for the first time recently and was absolutely blown away – the insidious calibans! And the weirds, so creepy. I really got into the undercurrent of the story.
The Atevi folk dancing was during the pizza party, one of my very absolute favorite scenes of all the Foreigner books.
Dear CJ
Having been an avid (and often evangelical) fan of your work for many, many years now (since first falling in love with Ischade while reading Thieves World) I relish this chance to ask about an imaginary scene that has been going around inside my head since the age of 18 and how close to the truth it comes…
Probably late ’85 Robert Asprin sits across from Lynn Abbey, Janet Morris and yourself. He’s silent while he steels himself, for facing all three aspects is a frightening thing. “Okay,” he finally says, “this is getting out of control. It’s my city and I want it back…or at least a passable pretence of ownership. The next one’s all yours, just the three of you. Do whatever you need to do to get it out of your system…just leave something workable standing at the end of it. Please.”
And that’s how I’ve always imagined “Soul of the City” (the most often read book in my collection) came about. That, and the smiles of almost evil triumph on your faces.
Hello Ms. Cherryh,
So i have another question regarding some characterization that spans a lot of different books in your oeuvre. There are a lot of connections, themes you seem to vary but also stick to, resonances between characters. Such as:
Florian and Caitlin vs. Jago and Banichi vs. Idyrs (all stoic, very loyal and wildly intelligent body guards)
Sasha and Petyr vs. Tristen and Cefywn (wizard with a power to wish magic around with a less credulous companion)
Captain Mallory and Arianne (strong, assertive woman who’s also a bit nuts)
Tully and Bren and Duncan (i think that’s his name – the faded sun character?) all, interpreters and representatives of humanity, two at least of the three with blonde hair :-).
And we can add Justin and Grant on as another pair. So, observations and questions: you seem to like placing male characters in pairs and your conception of magic is very specific – why? and also, what compels you to revisit themes so often and tweak them for specifically different situations? i’m not saying that this is a bad hobby, quite on the contrary actually, it’s just interesting because it’s not one i’ve seen another author do with so much skill – to make a character so different except also similar.