The Faded Sun: Kesrith [Hardcover]

C.J. Cherryh (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: Readers Union; First U. K. Edition edition (1979)
• ASIN: B0010ZVOTA
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,835,942 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

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars truly showcases Cherryh's talents in alien portrayal, January 22, 2000

By 

J. K. Kelley "literary mercenary" (Eastern WA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kesrith (The Faded Sun, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Those who know Cherryh generally consider aliens to be her greatest strength. Cherryh's aliens are *really* alien, with alien concepts that humans often won't comprehend. Therefore, while the story unfolds, you also see the unveiling and description of a culture with a completely different set of assumptions than you're used to.

The _Faded Sun_ series is strongly recommended as space opera, as a study in human/alien and alien/alien interaction, and as the painful story of single human warrior's journey from one mindset to another. Definitely get all three books (search on 'Faded Sun').

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exuberant space opera. Cinematic?, August 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Kesrith (The Faded Sun, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

The trilogy is the kind of exuberant ,somewhat pulpish, space opera that I would recommend to fans of Star Trek & Star Wars. Her knowledge of history, anthroplogy, & zoology made her aliens much more real & inhuman then you'd find in tie-in fiction. Making a violent xenophobic race sympathetic was an excellent ,if slightly dubious, effort. One thing I like about Cherryh is when the strong man in charge is a woman ,which is quite often in her work, she's often just as harsh. A fair amount of woman sfers act like women are automatically better leaders. In Cherryh's worlds those in power are brilliant, but ruthless regardless of gender. Power's always going to attract the ruthless types. The end of the trilogy was dissapointing as I recall. My other problem's are a certain confusingness of the style & the fact that an almost genocidal philosophy (unusually it's an exterminate humans, not exterminate aliens philosophy) is made strangely appealing. I found myself rooting for the destruction of the human race which was unnerving. I was surprised a literary type like Ursula K. LeGuin showed a liking for this trilogy & hoped it'd turn into a movie. END

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A culture near extinction fights for survival, February 3, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Kesrith (The Faded Sun, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

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