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Finity's End

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FINITY'S END by C.J. Cherryh a book review by R.C. McDonald

In Finity's End C J Cherryh returns to the universe made popular in her Merchanter and Cyteen series, some of which books earned her science fiction's coveted Hugo award.

This book continues the tale of a centuries-long dispute between the two political entities which rule known human space and the loosely-knit alliance of merchant ships who supply and connect them.

Within this gritty and appealing portrayal of a very believable and very human future you will find the story of one ship in particular, the Finity's End, and of one boy in particular, torn through no fault of his own between the world of the alien hisa and the that of a merchanter family starship.

You can expect to learn some new ideas about how you view your own world after looking at life through the eyes of this book.

There is no need to have read the books previously written in this universe - each book, including this one, is self explanatory, and yet manages to avoid over-repetitive explanations for those who have read the others - the mark of a very skilled writer indeed!

Finally, on a note near and dear to any science fiction reader's heart, strict attention is paid to the laws of nature and the workings of science. All in all, a superlative book, one to be cherished and read repeatedly.

I read this book when it first came out; just finished rereading it. It remains one of my favority science fiction books of all time. Good story, strong characters. You care about what happens to the crew. Very well written story. Cherryh is always a good author; this book is one of her best.

I met Fletcher Neihart and his family and friends and re-visited the trials of youth. With open mouth awe, I also met the hisa on their alien world. I heard my boots ringing on metal docks and smelled strange odors as I tromped around space stations, wide-eyed. Most of all, I felt the exhilaration and real fears of being aboard a working merchant spaceship out among the stars.

This was a new trip, but not a new experience. I have been a vagabond traveler on many a far flung voyage around the universe compliments of Ms. Cherryh. Once again, she mesmerized me and took me a-sailing. I thank her profusely.

...when JR used that voice, bodies obeyed while minds were thinking it over.

Almost two decades ago, war loomed and the vast merchant ship Finity's End answered its call. That meant leaving one member of its family/crew, Francesca Niehart, on Pell Station because the ship could not wait for her to receive medical treatment there. They'd be back in a year, her family promised Francesca. She had her son on Pell, and five years later - with the war still going on, and the ship still unable to return - Francesca committed suicide.

So Fletcher Niehart has grown up in a succession of foster homes, in a society where he simply doesn't fit, with his mother the only relative he can remember. He has no idea that his family aboard Finity's End has tried to retrieve him every time they've visited Pell Station, and that the social service authorities have refused to release him to them because the war is still going on. How can Pell possibly allow a small boy to leave the station's safety for life aboard a ship headed back into combat, the social workers and judges reason?

Fletcher makes his own life as he nears adulthood, by qualifying to work on the world Pell orbits - "Downbelow" - with that planet's gentle, intelligent natives. He's formed a bond with two of those "downers" that is the closest thing to family he has known since his mother's death, and the last thing he wants is to leave Patch and Melody when Finity's End finally prevails with the Pell Station authorities. Just a year before Fletcher will be old enough to decide his own destiny, he finds himself aboard his mother's ship; and it's not at all where he wants to be.

Life aboard Finity's End has its own customs, which Fletcher neither understands nor wants to understand. The ship's people form a closed society, one that has lived aboard for generations. With peace restored (supposedly, at least), Finity is back to trading for a living instead of fighting. The ship's nursery is empty after so many years during which its women dared not bear children, and the junior crew - its future - are sadly few in number. That makes Francesca's lost son precious to the relatives who have finally brought him home, but his presence is not all that welcome as far as some of his fellow "juniors" are concerned.

Every now and then I come across a book that I hate to finish reading, because I want to stay longer in the universe its author has created. Finity's End is one of those books. This is the first C.J. Cherryh I've read, and I put off sampling her work for so long because I honestly feared being disappointed after all the praise I'd heard. I hope that the rest of her books are at least half as good as Finity's End, because I most certainly will be seeking them out!

Another Alliance-Union novel, the highest quality writing, interesting characters and intricate plot. I got used to these, coming from Cherryh. I hate the brand "coming of age novel", and I won't use it, even if part of the story relates Fletcher Neihart's adolescent ways of dealing with loss, responsability, love and rejection. This story is far more than this.

After the gripping tale of the birth of the Alliance, in "Downbelow Station", and a few incursions in the battles between Fleet and Mallory, etc, it was time to tell of the peace in the merchanter universe Cherryh imagined. This is the tale of how that peace was achieved. Captain James Robert Neihart, architect of the Alliance and war hero, proves to be a peace-time hero, too. The new pacts that he convinces his fellow merchants to sign will drive Mazian's Fleet in the background (if space has a background) and will provide the stability profitable trade needs.
The hisa have a (small) role in that pact, as examples of peaceful creatures that could teach lessons to a handful of exceptional humans - those that are open and willing enough to learn the ways of peace.

Fletcher has an adaptable personality (you wouldn't say that, from the first traits he shows :)) and I for one would be really interested to glimpse him in other merchanter novels :)

A beautiful novel, style and imagination in one, a work of art! This one is for keeps!

I have never read any of Cherrhy's Merchanter Series. However thanks to Cherryh's detailed and absorbing story telling, this handicap does not deter me from enjoying Finity's End. There is no over the tops space battle or fight to the end scenes in Finity's End. Finity End is about a young man's struggle to find himself, male bonding and meanings of the words "family" and "peace". All this is told against an intelligently conceived universe where men seems to have conquer all the stars and, sadly, sharing this large universe with only one other type of living being besides himself. Finity's End is one of Cherryh's best even though the ending needs finer editing. Thank you Cherryh for such a beautifully written and compelling story.

I have been a fan of Ms Cherryh for many years but from the moment I read Finity's end I knew it was something else, even for her.

The story is about a young boy who's had a rough childhood with his mom suiciding and having to spend his life in one foster-home after another. All the while, his "real" family of the space-ship "Finity's End" are trying to get him back and making an even bigger mess of his life in the process.

All the characters in the book are so real you feel that you know them after a very short time. They become friends and so this book is among the select few that I reread over and over again. The experiences as well as the characters can be found in most people's lives and childhoods and that is what makes me love this book.

A terrific read whether you are a teenager or over fifty. Cherryh's ship family books are well done, her characters well developed and her ability to present teenagers as enjoyable characters superb. Enjoyable, smooth and fast reading.

"Finity's End", the latest in C.J.Cherryh's merchenter universe series grabbed my interest from the begining, and never let it go. Coming at theend of the Company wars, the novel describes a system in transition, a universe plauged by smugglers and the ever present threat of war fleets hanging at the edge of civilized space. Thrown into the mix is Fletcher Neihart, refugee from Pell, a child grown to manhood among strangers, more at home with the primitive natives of Downbelow, than with his fellow humans. I found this to be one of the best sci/fi books I have read in years.

Orphaned and run afoul of the legal system on Pell Station, Fletcher Neihart believes he has found his place working with the one other intelligent species in human space. That is suddenly torn from him when "Finity's End", his dead mother's ship, bargains for his return to the ship.

Fletcher embarks on a journey across known space against his will. Physically he is more mature than the other "juniors" on the ship, but he lacks some basic knowledge that they have grown up with.

Fletcher also embarks on an inner journey. His struggle to find where he fits in, along with Finity's End's struggle to establish peace, makes for very absorbing reading. I had a little trouble following some of the political maneuvering going on, but the sheer humanness of the characters kept me up late at night reading. There is no fairy tale ending to Fletcher's story, just a hard won sense of finally finding a place to belong.