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Alternate Realities

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Alternate Realities (2000) is an omnibus edition of older novels by this author, including Port Eternity, Voyager in Night, and Wave Without a Shore. All three novels are standalone stories within the Alliance-Union Universe.

In Port Eternity (1982), the story is set on the planet Brahman, where the rich are rejuvenated and their servants are genetically designed humans -- the azi -- grown in artificial wombs and indoctrinated by sleep learning. The azi are normally terminated when they reach forty, but some few are rejuved and live as long as their masters.

In this novel, Lady Dela Kirn is a descendent of a founder of Brahman and is very rich. She owns many azi, but only a few are allowed aboard the Maid of Astolat, her starfaring yacht. Four are the crew and the other three are her staff. All are named for characters in a drama tape about King Arthur.

The narrator of this story is Elaine, named for the original Maid of Astolat. Elaine is probably the most independent of the azi. Her household function is personal companion and she performs a variety of personal services for Lady Dela.

Lance is the steady lover of Lady Dela, available for times that she lacks other lovers. He has been with her for twenty years and is coming up on the age limit. Lance is Elaine's best friend, but he has been conditioned to only love Lady Dela.

Vivian is Lady Dela's accountant and estate manager. She is the most narrow of the azi, focused on her job and obtaining rejuv. She treats the other azi as if she was a born-man and too important to do menial work.

Gawain, Percivale, Lynette and Modred are the crew. They are closely focused on their jobs whenever the ship is activated. Modred is the most narrowly focused, operating by reason only and insensitive to his own and other's emotions. Modred is named such for his dangerous appearance; even born-men step aside when Modred approaches.

Griffin is Lady Dela's current born-man lover. He is young, having never been rejuved, and is full of energy. He and Lady Dela are in love, which is unusual for Dela. Even Lance is convinced that they will be married.

In Voyager in Night (1984), Trishanamarandu-kepta is very old, 100,000 years in ship time, but it has spent so much duration in jumpspace that it is much older in terms of normal spacetime. It is also very large, with the mass of a starstation.

In this novel, the Company Wars are over and Alliance trade routes are expanding. Endeavor Station is being constructed and ships are converging on the system to provide needed raw materials and products. One of these ships is the Lindy, a very small mining ship, jury rigged from scraps and salvaged parts, with a crew of three.

Rafe Murray is the Old Man of the Lindy and his sister Jillian and her husband Paul Gaines are the crew. The Murrays are Merchant brats who were orphaned during the Company Wars and Paul was a stationer on Forgone. The trio has put everything they have into the Lindy.

Having no jump engines, the Lindy was brought to Endeavor aboard the can-hauler Rightwise. It is quickly put to work bringing in rock for the oreship/smelter Ajax. The crew has just finished their first tour and are going out for another load.

While they are gathering rock from the belt, Endeavor longscan detects a tandem jump into the system. At first they think that one of their supply ships is being pirated, but the John Liles sends transmissions claiming that the bogey is alien. The Lindy is within its projected flight path and pushes its puny engine to avoid the oncoming ship. Then they discover that the approaching craft is the bogey itself and they increase the acceleration.

Nothing works, for the bogey is aimed for them and decelerating to pull alongside. Rafe throws on the automatic pilot, but it throws them into a spin. He tries to disengage the autopilot, but blacks out with the spin only getting worse.

In Wave Without a Shore (1981), the story is set on the planet Freedom, where humans coexist with ahnit -- the indigenous aliens -- but have little interaction with each other. The planet is mostly agricultural, with few industries. The only spaceport is outside the town of Kierkegaard on the continent of Sartre.

In this novel, Herrin Alton Law is a gifted child -- at least according to the instructional supervisor -- who will surely go on to University in Kierkegaard. When he hears the news, the seven year old Herrin immediately feels a sense of distance from his family. This feeling is strengthened by the reaction of his family and others in his home town.

Perrin Law is his older sister, but she feels like the younger sibling after hearing about his test scores. From this moment on, Herrin is the center of the family, with Perrin relegated to the periphery. She can hardly wait until he goes off to University.

Keye Lynn is a student of ethics and soon becomes Herrin's lover. Herrin considers her probably the third most brilliant student during their time in University. Naturally, Herrin considers himself the most brilliant and Waden Jenks as the second most brilliant.

Waden is the son of First Citizen Cade Jenks, the ruler of Freedom. Waden is an indifferent student, but highly intelligent. He is still preparing himself to succeed his father.

These novels are typical of the author's early works, depicting relations between humans and aliens from the human perspective. As usual, the humans are less informed than the aliens. Wave Without a Shore is the least typical due to the numbers of humans effected; Port Eternity involves the crew and passengers of a private yacht and Voyager in Night only includes the crew of a very small ship. Much of her works depicts a single human encountering many aliens.

As the title indicates, these stories all involve some form of alternate reality, from another spacetime to computer simulation to altered perceptions. Although set within the Alliance-Union universe, they have little to do with other works in this universe other than the technology and an occasional reference to other worlds.

Highly recommended for Cherryh fans and anyone else who enjoys tales of human relationships with aliens.

-Arthur W. Jordin

This is a compilation of three of Cherryh's older and stranger books. Port Eternity is Arthurian in space, but is much better than that would normally imply. Wave without a Shore is philosophical, concept-driven SF which reminds me somewhat of LeGuin in a similar mode, though perhaps less self-righteous. I enjoyed it a great deal but readers who are put off by heavy philosophy may be bored. Voyager in Night is the weirdest of the bunch -- it reminds me of an SRL video. It's nominally an Alliance/Union story about a ship which gets kidnapped by an unknown alien; it's also about identity both personal and species. Overall, this is a compilation which makes sense and I'd highly recommend it.

I really loved this volume. It was a combination of three books having a common theme. In each book, human beings find themselves in an alien or sci-fi environment that has a profound effect on their thinking, making them alien, too. The author is excellent at helping you enter the minds of these strange, altered people.

These are profoundly intellectual books, examining thought processes in great detail. Sometimes not too much happens, except an examination of what the characters are thinking, perhaps a tiny bit reminiscent of "Waiting for Godot". I found this fascinating, but I wouldn't expect that it would be very interesting for children, for instance.

In the first book, two sets of people are trapped together on a space ship. One set are normal, born people. The other set were made in a lab and conditioned to serve the first group. Most of the book takes place inside the head of one of these lab born servants and looks at how she experiences people and events around her.

In the second book, a group of people end up in the clutches of an alien computer, who plays strange games with them, copying and combining them.

In the third book, a group of human colonists lives on a planet with an alien race, but somehow convinces themselves that they don't see the aliens right in front of their faces. The story examines the bizarre thought patterns they go through in rationalizing their denial of the aliens.

It's hard in summarizing these books to capture a feeling of what the stories are really like. They all move at a good clip and keep up suspense, so you keep wanting to read on, despite the fact that the approach is so intellectual.

Cherryh is an incredibly creative writer. Her work is totally different from any other science fiction that I have read. It is true science fiction from the old school (rather than fantasy) and yet also has an approach somewhat like a romance novel in the detailed look at people's internal lives.

I am definitely getting more books by this author.

This is a collection of novellas from early in Ms. Cherry's career, and are stand alone "Magic Cookie" stories, although Port Eternity will make much more sense in after reading Cyteen, as it is a story about Azi, and their eccentric supervisor.
Voyager in Night is definitely the weirdest of all of Cherry tales, and probably my least favorite. However that doesn't mean it isn't good enough for a re-read, I think I'm only four times for that story.
Wave Without A Shore is one of my all time favorites. It is a great story about philosophy, truth, bigotry, isolation and intelligence.
This group of stories is not the place to start if you want to evaluate Ms Cherry's work.
If you are new to Ms. Cherryh, start with Down Below Station, to begin an exploration of the Merchanter's Universe , or for something really different, try Rider at The Gate.
But if you want something to make you really ponder, give this collection a try, but read slowly and think as you go.

These books really caught me off guard. I've been a fan of CJ for many years and I find her to be one of the best, but these books really made me think. This is a must read for anyone of intellegence.

These short novels are okay, a bit of a hard slog, but they're just not at all what I expected from the title. I love reading about alternate history, set in our world with some single change being worked out. This
is not that at all, but simply three relatively far out SF novels. Badly
misnamed, imho.

Slogged through "Port Eternity"; gave "Voyager in Night" a run but didn't care enough to finish it; couldn't even get into "Wave Without a Shore". As ever, the stories are well written -- Cherryh knows her craft -- but I find that there's no middle ground for me with what she writes. I either really love it or can't abide it. For me, the stories were a little too long on the existential, a lot too short on plot, and extra lean on characterization. That's really my biggest problem with all three stories: no characters worth reading about, especially in "Wave". So if you prefer stories with characters you can care about, if what's happening to a character is what makes you turn that next page, this is not the book for you. Read Cherryh's "Chanur" and "Foreigner" series instead.

Port Eternity is a well written book, (they are not androids, they are 'Made' people, clones) and brings out some very intresting concepts. Voyager In Night is the weirdest of the three, dealing with life and death in a very intresting way. This is the only book I have read where one the main characters askes 'Am I dead?' The conflicts are also unique, as are the names. Wave Without a Shore was my favorite of the three, for it deals with the most intelegent man on the planet, an artist powerfull enough to capture change in stone. Only in the end does he realize that reality is not just what he makes it.

An Execelent combination of 3 Sci-fi books by an execelent author. Great for those who like to read something that they can think about.

This book is a collection of three novels by C.J.Cherryh.

As one of the other reviewers below notes, this collection is very heavy on philosophy, and as such some readers may find this volume boring. I could not agree more. This volume is incredibly dull and slow paced, and is without a doubt a volume that is not for everyone.

Port Eternity is the first story of the collection and revolves around a group of humans and "made" people who get lost in another dimension. There is a lot of food for thought regarding "made" people being less than born people, as well as ideas of identity. The author builds tension well with the mysterious Modred and the banging on the hull. It all moves along well until, it seems, the author realised she was well short of a novel. What follows is repititious drudgery that goes nowhere, seemingly just to fill pages. The banging begins. The banging stops. Elaine looks after her Lady. The banging begins again, the characters have the same conversation as before, the banging stops, etc.

The second story in the book, Voyager in the Night is just weird. Yes, there are lots of good points to ponder on the idea of identity and death, and the story itself is very unique, but it is not strong enough to base a novel around. Again, this is a repititious work and is even duller than the first.

To be honest, I never did finish reading the third story, Wave Without a Shore. I got 70 pages in, nothing had happened and I was quite over Cherryh's dull writing. I read for enjoyment, this was a chore to read. Believe me, I did try, but 3 slow, boring novels in a row is too much to take.

Overall I would have to say that while this volume contains some clever and thought provoking concepts, but the stories themselves should have been restricted to short stories. This volume may be deep, but it is also extremely dull.

Recommended only for people who like slow, thought provoking stories.