Customer Reviews

The Faded Sun: Kutath

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4 star:		(1)
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C.J. Cherryh envelops the reader in a tale of one culture's struggle for survival in the face of overwhelming odds, and
does so in the context of a riveting narrative. Cherryh has created, in her science fiction, one of the most cohesive futures
I have ever encountered; this novel deeply explores one ancient culture living in that future. In a time when so many
cultures and ways of life are vanishing from the earth, this tale set on a distant world hits very close to home.

When the Mri, a proud and noble race of warriors serving as mercenaries in exchange for a planet to call home, confront
the human enemies of their employers, they encounter a method of warfare alien to their system of honor. No match for
the Mri one to one, despite their similar physiology, the humans fight without honor, driving the Mri to extinction with
superior numbers and firepower. Both the humans and the regul - former employers of the Mri whose trade disputes with
humans sparked the war in which the Mri were slaughtered - see them as nothing more than professional warriors, the
most dangerous killers in the galaxy. They take no prisoners, they have no fear of death, they keep the company of
dangerous beasts. And yet there is a deep and powerful truth at the heart of Mri culture, hidden even to the warriors, who
are the hand of contact with the outise world. True secrets of Mri culture have never been known to the outside, until one
human being makes direct, personal contact. To understand their ways, he will have to become more Mri than human...

--Phil MacEachron

Kesrith Comes first,
Shon'Jir second,
Kuthath last

When I saw the list, it was reversed

Kutath, the final book in the "Faded Sun" series, picks up where the 2nd book, "Shon'jir," leaves off. In this book, Duncan has completed his journey towards the mri and Cherryh takes us towards a final resolution of the mri/human/regul relationship. The book is just as well-written and interesting as "Shon'jir." About the only negative I can come up with is the somewhat drawn-out initial tableau involving walking across the desert: it gets a bit tedious after a while. A very good book.