Customer Reviews

The faded sun, Kesrith

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4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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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').

Some years ago this was the first time I read Cherryh. She is still a bit raw around the edges in this series, and some bits don't hang together as well as they ought, but I rate the series in the first 50 of the 100 best sci-fi/fantasy books. For any fan of sci-fi, space adventure, fantasy - this is a must read. It shows all the promise later to be fulfilled in her space opera series, and yet is so full of energy, it surpasses them. Don't hang around for it to go out of print, get it now. You won't be disappointed.

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

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

C.J. Cherryh's "Faded Sun" trilogy, set in her Merchanters/Union Universe, between wars, is a beautifully developed character study of a young man caught in a situation not of his making, and driven by his conscience. He becomes involved in a struggle to help an alien race that should be his sworn enemies, and on three different worlds the saga reaches a fascinating climax. Cherryh's ability to create believable characters and believable alien societies, and at the same time tell a compelling story, is a great gift to the sf field. The "Faded Sun" books are destined to be classics.

More so than most of Cherryh's work, this is very much the first volume of a trilogy, quite unable to stand on its own. You'll have to be prepared to read straight through the 750+ pages of the three volumes. It starts out with the end of a forty-year war between humans and the regul, an unpleasant but socially very complicated species, a war the regul -- or, at least, the war-making faction -- having signed a peace treaty. The regul, not being physically or psychologically capable of making war themselves, have for two thousand years made use of another, more human-like species, the mri, as their surrogates. The warrior caste of the mri, which is all that humans (or even most regul) have had experience with, are notably unyielding, uninterested in outsiders, unwilling even to consider change from their customs. They will suicide at the drop of a dishonorable gesture, they don't take prisoners, they don't understand mass-warfare, and even a single mri warrior is very, very dangerous. And now the species is nearly extinct. Sten Duncan comes to Kesrith, home world of the mri and a colonial resource of the regul, as aide to the new human governor and gets caught up in affairs beyond his understanding. The mri are his lifelong enemy, but he becomes closely acquainted with a young warrior in desperate circumstances and witnesses a genocide that changes him profoundly. That's most of the plot of the first volume, right there. But, of course, this being Cherryh, the book is far more than that. The most fascinating aspect is the reader's experience of each of the three species involved from the perspective of each of the other two. This author, like Le Guin, can be masterful when it comes to complex alien psychology, and there's a great deal here to think about before you start on the second volume.

Really enjoyed the "Faded Sun" series. Kill to get it. This foreshawdows some of the deep political thinking that goes on in the Chanur series.

This book is really deep, it captures the essence of the characters. It is basically about two alien races(very well developed) and humans one human joins the race of mri. It is not light reading, it is very complex, but I am only 14 and consider it easy enough to read. It is really a great book and very interesting. If you buy one you will be so caught up in it you will have to buy the other two. It can be slow at times but there is much action polotics and honor. You can't go wrong with this trilogy.

On an alien world, the militant Mri co-exist with Regul in an arrangement of servitude, hiring as mercenaries for Regul protection and Regul wars.

The fiercely honour based Mri society is failing, as Regul claim too many of their numbers in precipitous war against Humans.

When Regul ceed Kesrith (Mri Homeworld)in the peace treaty, Mri future is jeopardized and they must contrive to somehow preserve their culture & species.

The enclave at Kesrith has dwindled to 13 Mri, with only two young people left - brother and sister, Niun & Melein. Both have trained as Kel, superb warriors, but now Melein is elevated to leader.

While Niun emerges from his adolescent dreaming and resentments, Melein must craft a future that can contain the Mri or obliterate them beyond reach of their enemies.

A smooth beginning and slow unveiling of plot and motivations until in the last quarter, the tale picks up pace and hurtles along.

The faded sun trilogy portrays two convincing & fascinating races locked with humans as the unpredictable element in a struggle for the stars and for mri, a struggle against extintion.

It's great to read a book where the author doesn't hoard her characters, and I have no assurance that the people I'm getting attached to aren't going to die untimely. It has no reassuring exploring the galaxy with Star Trek feel (don't get me wrong I am a trekkie sans t'shirt), and the characters are volatile and violent.

A word to the wise: buy all three at once, because the cliff-hanger endings will leave your stomach in knots.

Strongly urged reading!

Kotori - ojadis@yahoo.com

If something had actually happened, I'm sure it would have been a great book. Well, I'm probably exaggerating a bit. But, for the first 170 pages of this 250 page book, absolutely nothing happens. It's essentially the background social, political, and military information of all the major players. Around page 170 and for the next 80 pages, lots of really interesting things happen. Unfortunately, they don't really end. This book is merely the prologue for its sequels. I have no problem with book trilogies. But, there has to be SOME kind of closure in each of the books. This book just gets going and then stops. Highly frustrating.