Angel with the Sword: Merovingen Nights, Book 1 [Paperback]

C. J. Cherryh (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: DAW (April 7, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886771439
• ISBN-13: 978-0886771430
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,348,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I've written sf and fantasy for publication since 1975...but I've written a lot longer than that. I have a background in Mediterranean archaeology, Latin, Greek, that sort of thing; my hobbies are travel, photography, planetary geology, physics, pond-building for koi...I run a marine tank, can plumb most anything, and I figure-skate.

I believe in the future: I'm an optimist for good reason---I've studied a lot of history, in which, yes, there is climate change, and our species has been through it. We've never faced it fully armed with what we now know, and if we play our cards right, we'll use it as a technological springboard and carry on in very interesting ways.

I also believe a writer owes a reader a book that has more than general despair to spread about: I write about clever, determined people who don't put up with situations, not for long, anyway: people who find solutions inspire me.

My personal websites and blog: http://www.cherryh.com
http://www.cherryh.com/WaveWithoutAShore
http://www.closed-circle.net

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars C.J. Cherryh builds worlds..within worlds..within worlds, September 7, 2000

By 

sheila - See all my reviews

This review is from: Angel with the Sword: Merovingen Nights, Book 1 (Paperback)

Ignore any bad reviews of this book. Ignore the off the wall numbering system. Any book that kicks off a series like Merovingen Nights is a really good book. so who needs a really strange but coherent socio-political-religious system that evolved to meet an identifiable, reasonable problem and makes sense of everything that happens? Most science fiction books do. Only some of them have it-like this one. Who needs a lecture to get it straight? most of them, but not this one. who needs starcrossed teenage lovers who act just like teenagers? well, Shakespeare did, so did Cherryh. They got them. Altair Jones is a star-struck, insecure, inconsistent teenage orphan who talks real tough; Thomas Mondragon is a smooth young aristocrat, a cynical, idealistic rebel-turned- adventurer who's out of his element and in a lot of trouble. They need each other, and they'll turn the whole town upside down. this is the story Shakespeare might have written if Juliet had had a backbone and a boat, and Romeo's whole faction had just been wiped out. The plot is rich: the villains are deadly, the bystanders are nervous, the politics are dizzying, the action is intense, but for Altair Jones, self-centered teenager, every thing is just one thing- Mondragon and her. It's funny, it's fast, it's exciting..it's exceptional. Read this book- you won't see many like it.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Science-Fantasy, March 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Angel with the Sword: Merovingen Nights, Book 1 (Paperback)

I have read "Angel with the Sword" more times than I can count and the reasons for doing so are myriad. The main character, Altain Jones, is an engaging young woman, tough, streetwise, and her romantic prospect, Tom Mondragon, is an aristocrat who nevertheless knows how to fight dirty. Their romance is my favorite part of these books, but the science-fiction element is also quite wonderful. They are set in a futuristic world that has somewhat regressed to Renaissance times. Jones is a poleboater in Merovingen, a city somewhat like Venice. The other reason I love the Merovingen Nights books is that they are short stories cut up and intertwined--I think they call it "braided" style. That way you can follow your favorite characters as they interact with the other ones. Many of my other favorite authors have written in these "anthologies," but C.J. Cherryh's Jones and Mondragon stories are the best, which is why I love the introductory book, solely written by her, all about them.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good book from a great author., August 18, 2004

By 

Michael Valdivielso (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Angel with the Sword: Merovingen Nights, Book 1 (Paperback)

Before I talk about the story, you need to know two things about the book.
First, the story is set in the universe of the Union-Alliance novels, yet you don't need those books to know what's going on. The book is a stand alone and has lots of information in the back with maps, chapters on history, fashion and even language.
Second, this was meant to be the first in a series of books, very much like the Thieves' World series, but instead of a walled city of the Middle-Ages filled with magic and crime, this was more like a city-state of Italy (during the Renaissance) filled with politics and, sometimes, guns.
And the series did go on as other authors added their own skill and stories to the books that followed.
Now, for the story. Like all of her books, C.J. Cherryh starts small, with a character we think of as normal and a daily event. Altair Jones, the main female character, rescues a man who is tossed into one of the canals. This is normal - bodies are always being tossed in by gangs. But he lived and happens to be a high-born. He also happens to be in the middle of something that seems to get bigger and bigger as the story moves along. By saving him Altair might have also gotten herself involved with a mess that could end up with HER in the canals.
The dangers increase as the knots in this plot are untied and we get close to the truth about what is going on and why. C.J. Cherryh is an artist, crafting the story carefully from start to finish, she never wastes a page, a word or a letter.
This is a must for any of her fans or a good book to start with for people who don't know her works.
I plan to find the rest to see how well the saga went!