Customer Reviews

Chanur's Homecoming

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This is the fourth book in the (currently) five book Chanur series. It's also the end of the trilogy that's left incomplete in the supposed "omnibus edition" "The Chanur Saga." As usual for Cherryh, this is an excellently written book that reaches down into your gut and shakes you around. As I'm re-reading these books in quick order, I found this book to be a better read than the previous two in the trilogy. Essentially, it's written at a more sustainable emotional pitch. The first two books in the trilogy just never let up. From the minute you pick them up to the minute they (don't) end, everything goes wrong and everyone's either evil, an enemy, or a fool (or some combination of the three). This book gives you a bit of a break. There are actually other people in it besides the protagonists who are good, competent, and/or an ally. The pacing is also more reasonable. You're not on the edge of your seat on every page. The pitch actually increases fairly smoothly throughout the book. An excellent end to the middle trilogy of the Chanur series.

I almost always rate Cherryh's books high, but this one's definitely one of her best. The Chanur series as a whole is so much fun that I've read every book in it half-a-dozen times at least. Cherryh's hani are one of the most inspired species ever created in the science fiction genre; creative, smart, short-tempered and tough, they're always at the center of a great story. Cherryh in general excels at this sort of anthropological science fiction; any of the Chanur books are definitely worth reading.

Simply excellent!

The fourth book in the Chanur saga wrapped up the preceding trilogy wonderfully. An excellent read, the book keeps the reader in a state of high stress and energy throughout as the space-fairing, wounded and physically exhausted leonine crew of `The Pride of Chanur' struggle desperately to save themselves, their species, and all space-traveling races from war on a scope one recently tortured and terrified character describes as: "New kind thing. Not with rule. ... This new kind word. ... War, Pyanfar, all devils in hell got no word this thing I see."

This is not a stand-alone book. To receive the full impact you have to read the series in order. There are politics involves, species defined words and concepts; the technologies behind starship travels, warped time and the fragile Compact that holds all together.

Even beyond the storyline I think the best thing about the Chanur saga and other of C. J. Cherryh's novels is the underlining theme that just because something/someone thinks and reasons other than yourself and your ways, that does not make them evil or wrong.

The Chanur series is made up of 5 books. A prologue novel ("The Pride of Chanur"), a 3-part series ("Chanur's Venture", "The Kif Strike Back" and "Chanur's Homecoming"), and an epilogue novel ("Chanur's Legacy").

The first 3 books are collected in "The Chanur Saga" omnibus volume -- an odd collection since the concluding volume of the central trilogy is HERE, and not in the badly selected "Saga".

Note that this book does NOT stand on it's own. You need to start with "The Chanur Saga"

Of course, saying that this is the best out of the entire series really means nothing to you because this isn't a series where you can just pick and choose which books you want to read. If you don't read the two books before it (actually three, if you want to get picky, although the prelude novel is basically standalone) you are not going to have a clue about anything that's going on here. Sure, astute readers will pick it up as they go along, but it won't have the same impact without having experienced the prior novels and the events in them. But, to recap: everything is falling apart. Pyanfar and her crew are running for their lives, alliances are being formed and broken and reformed all over the place, pitting species against species, the Compact is close to breaking and above it all rests the spectre of human beings, who might appear at any moment and totally disrupt all the balances. Cherryh must have intended the three novels to stand as one because there really is no break between them, especially in the first time. The last page of one leads you right into the first page of another, but with the first two books it's breakneck and breathless. Here, at least, we finally take a moment to get a breather and get a look at what's going on. For some reason, there's a greater emotional heft in this novel, I found myself connecting to events a little better, whether that was because I was familiar enough with the characters to actually care or because things had slowed down enough that I had a chance to care. Sometimes when the action was so dense you tended to get caught up in it and forget that these were real characters you were dealing with. Here, it's hard to forget, the tone of the novel is beaten and weary, the crew of the Pride has been running around like lunatics for two books straight now and they're tired and hungry and that attitude just seeps into every page of the novel. They want to nap for a week, but they can't, because only they know what's going on and it's up to them to rescue everything. Cherryh gets a lot of credit for creating credible alien politics here, it's so smooth that you don't realize how much genius went into the creation of the various races and their mindsets, and how each one plays into their own racial traits without falling into stereotypes. Sometimes things are a little too opaque for my liking, there were a number of scenes where alliances were switching or people were debating things where it was hard to follow just what the stakes were or who had switched sides and who was with who, especially since species were betraying each other and so on. But what the story loses in coherency (and the climax is a little vague, although the epilog does pretty much redeem everything) it gains in emotional content, whether from the constant struggle of the wounded Chur to stay alive, Pyanfar and her husband finally acting like they are married (Cherryh also sprinkles in some nice flashbacks), Jik and his cool confidence being shattered, the kif finally being nice, everyone being scared out of their wits by the methane breathers, by the time you get to the end of all of this, you do feel that the truimph was earned. You may not understand exactly how it resolved but you don't get the feeling that you wasted your time either. I've commented before that I think Cherryh is vastly underrated in the annals of SF and this series only proves that if she doesn't belong on the same level as the grand masters, she's within striking distance at the very least. Also, no one else I've ever read has come as close to depicting the precise bustle of a spaceship bridge, with its clipped sentences and instantly executed orders and rapid sequences of events, as closely as she has to how it would seem in my head. The pages seem to turn themselves, the action moves so swiftly. Definitely a worthwhile series to get into if you're at all interested in SF, but please start with the Chanur Saga before coming here. You'll thank me when everything makes a lot more sense.

This is the fourth volume of the Chanur saga and an impressive conclusion it is, too. Again, you cannot -- repeat CANNOT -- read the four volumes out of order. It's not just a series of stories set in the same universe, it's a single huge novel sliced into four chunks for the publisher's convenience. This one opens immediately following the pause at the end of _The Kif Strike Back_, with Pyanfar Chanur and her Hani crew having been coopted by one side in the struggle between two kiffish factions, which also has swept up the Mahendo-sat (who, in their traditional and methodical way, are supporting both sides) and the newly-discovered humans (who appear to control a volume of space vaster than the entire Compact in which the Hani, the Kif, the Mahendo-sat, the Stsho (extremely wealthy but extremely xenophobic and physiologically incapable of violence), and a couple of usually incomprehensible methane-breathing species co-exist more or less successfully. Only now it appears the entire Hani home world may be devastated in a war that the "groundling" majority of Hani couldn't begun to understand. The half-dozen members of the crew (all of them cousins) come across very much as individuals, as do the other non-human characters. There are no stereotyped BEMs here. In fact, since you're seeing everything through Pyanfar's eyes, the least-clear character is that of Tully, the adopted derelict human, simply because he's extremely alien to all the others and his psychology and motivations are never really clear. Cherryh does a remarkable job with the complex plot, the almost archaeological detail in the back-story, the multidimensional characters, and the themes of progress and change.

Having helped the ambitious kif Sikkukkut capture Kefk Station, Pyanfar Chanur and her crew find themselves six or seven hyperjumps from home with an injured crewwoman, a han deputy who can't be trusted and a hani pirate who perhaps can, a mahendo'sat friend held hostage by Sikkukkut, an onboard kif whose Dinner (small black animals from his species homeworld of Akkkt) humorously keeps escaping and gnawing on things better left alone, and the lurking menace of Sikkukkut's rival Akkhtimakt, who knows he's losing power--a desperate kif isn't something you want aware of you. But the capture of Kefk was just one small step for Sikkukkut: he wants to be the mekt-hakkikt, or high prince, of all kifdom. To that end he schemes to take over Meetpoint Station, at the junction of the space territories of the Compact's seven races--and control the hyperspace paths that lead into kif territory. To do this he must take control of Anuurn, Pyanfar's homeworld. And if Py won't help him do it, he's perfectly willing to destroy the entire planet by pitching a big space rock at it--which, given that Py's husband Khym is the only male hani in space, could mean the doom of her entire species. As the story develops we learn more and more about mahendo'sat politics, the shifting balance of power in Compact space, the character and culture of its member species, and just how important Pyanfar may be to the resolution of the long list of problems facing them. As the mahendo'sat say, it's God who makes Personages, and Pyanfar is apparently born with whatever it takes to be one--if she can survive long enough for everyone to realize that. Rushing to an astonishing climax, the fourth volume of the Chanur Saga keeps up the quality of the previous three, with plenty of intrigue and fascinating nonhumans.

Hey the book was great/The seller sold me a used copy exactly as he discribed itin his ad/Used in excellent condition/Also I recieved it in good time /Great transaction

I think these books are AWESOME! If you like to read books with fights, advanced technology, where girls are the offworlders, then these are the books. I currently own all of the Chanur series, and they sit on the shelf with my other favorite books, redwall, ga'hoole, etc. I rate them ten out of ten!

My son loves it.I received it very quickly. son says it's a 5 and then some. I'll probly will read it some day. he has the series, so if he is happy withit I am happy.