Customer Reviews

hunter of Worlds

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

CJ Cherryh is one of the more prolific Science Fiction/ Fantasy writers of this decade. As her later books appear in print, earlier works get pushed to the back of shelf, are no longer sold and subsequently go out of print. This is a shame when one of the works is Hunter of Worlds. Set in a distant part of the galaxy, it is a story which fascinates due to the interplay of the various races which populate that far off region. As a whole, Hunter of Worlds shows off one of Ms. Cherryh's greatest talents; the ability to create thoroughly believable, fascinating alien cultures, with their morals, viewpoints, religions and especially in the case of this book, their own languages. In so doing, Cherryh avoids creating facile morality tales whereby she uses the alien cultures as Aesop used his fables, to teach us; rather, after permitting us to enter into the alien world view we see ourselves as the aliens see us, with all our strengths and weaknesses. I read Hunter of Worlds early on in my reading of Cherryh's works, and it remains one of the bench marks whereby I judge other works by other authors. As a result of this novel and her "Faded Sun" series, Cherryh is the ONLY Science Fiction author that I will buy off the rack, without a reference. Find a copy of this book, read it and enjoy. Sorry. You can't have mine

I have read this book first time some more than year ago ( I borrowed it in library, english is not my native language)
I found universe where story happens more intresting than plot itself. In short: idvue, kaila and amaut coexist together (in same starcluster ), with stable relations for at least last 7000 years, when they contact (in unpeaceful way) the aliens (humans), who are in different aspects quite alike to each of three races. Idvue, kaila and humans, except for colors, even look very similar (enough to have sex on occasion). Kaila form society which look very alike human, but are almost completly unagresive, and focus themsleves on industry and wealth. Amaut tend to hide their litle of agresivenes, their society is basing on family and focus themseves mainly on mining, farming and settling. Both of these two races do not show much regard for personal freedom. Idvue are agresive (every one tries to improve their position in the "pack" all the time, differen "packs" are very competitive) and very honor bound, high tech and take freedom in very direct way: whole population packed on huge ships and travels around starcluster. Each of these ships is independent and houses its own clan (pack). Idvue are also able of direct exchage of thoughts, are very unemotinal and their language is structured very diferently.
About plot: Chimele, who has recently came to head of one of most influntal of idvue clans, wants to get the man of her dreams, who has been exiled and escaped to human space. There is also the interference of rival clans, which reduced size of human fleet, which prevented, till then, amaut to oversettle...

Aiela Lyailleue is abducted by the dreaded iduve, enslaved, and mentally joined with two strangers: Isande, a beautiful woman who doesn't understand his rebellion, and Daniel Fitzhugh, an abused and terrified human. And that's just the beginning of his problems.

This is possibly my favorite Cherryh book (which means it's one of my favorite books of all time). It was one of the first ones she wrote, but it already displays her trademark strengths. She creates not one but three distinct alien races here, each with its own language, values, and culture. (If you find the alien languages difficult to follow, there's a glossary in back.) It has everything I've come to expect from a Cherryh novel: the immersion in an alien culture, the Byzantine politics, strong female characters, and most of all the charismatic characters and intense relationships. Probably if she had written this story later in her career, it would be a multi-volume series, like Chanur or Foreigner. But there's something to be said for brevity. Hunter of Worlds is in many ways more accessible than her later works. It's pared to the essentials - concentrated Cherryh. Though the book deals with many of the same themes Cherryh dealt with in later works, I found this one more daring than her usual "getting to know you" books about aliens. When you get right down to it, the iduve are slavers. That's about as unsympathetic as you can get. It's theoretically possible for a murderer to have a worthy motivation, but how can you possibly justify enslaving other intelligent, sentient beings? Yet somehow, she manages to show the iduve as merely alien, not evil.

Aiela, a member of the kalliran race, is an appealing character who has interesting relationships with several characters in the book. But the most compelling is his bond with Daniel. They are forcibly mindlinked by the iduve - so mentally entwined that one of them can be disciplined by torturing the other. Daniel, being rather more fractious than any kallia would be, proves quite a trial for poor Aiela.

Also interesting is his relationship with Chimele, the ruler of the iduve. While kallia evolved from herd-like prey animals, iduve evolved from predators. Chimele is rather cat-like. Not in looks, but in personality. I've heard that she was inspired by C'Mell, from Cordwainer Smith's "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell." Only instead of being a lowly girly-girl, she's the leader of a natural master race!

Hunter of Worlds is out of print as a standalone, but used copies are readily available. Also, it's half of an omnibus called At The Edge Of Space.

Very reminiscent of Heart of Darkness - but not as readable. When Aiela Lyailleue, a Kallian technician, is ordered to report for service to the spaceship Ashanome at Kartos Station, he knows his life is likely forfeit to the terrifying star lords. He awakes to find that a device has been implanted in his brain which links him psychically to a beautiful ship-bred Kallian female, Isande, and a strange, dirty, alien creature called Daniel; a human!

Why has this been done? Chimele, the iduve (indigo skinned, dark-haired) ruler of the spaceship, has been ordered to track down and bring back the rebel Tejef, who has betrayed the Orinthain ways and is living with humans. Her plan is to use the two Kallians (blue-skinned, fair-haired) to control Daniel, so that he can infiltrate Tejef's outpost on Priamos.

While I admire Cherryh's creation of entire societies of alien races, each with their own language, it was VERY hard to read. After about 150 pages, the gloves come off and every fourth or fifth word is alien. (I was constantly flipping back and forth to the index - very annoying) And the alien races have a very non-human outlook, but disturbingly human physiology - to the extent of having cross-species romances.

I read this book in junior high. I didn't really understand it then, but now as an adult, I have a chance to read it again. I am so happy I've been able to find it again via Amazon Marketplace.

Plotwise, the beginning is confusion and flicking between locations until around page seventy when the characters are introduced to each other. None of the characters resonated as heroic; rather 'Hunter of Worlds' is more about being incomprehensible than storytelling. This device is used to enchance the alienness of four separate cultures working together, yet only served to distance me from the story and bore me.

Story lacked setting descriptions. Could not picture the characters in my mind, to the point where my enjoyment of the novel became limited.

Dramatically, the 'Hunter of Worlds' had introduction, build-up and resolution. Writing from a third person point of view, the story suffered from covering too many characters in a shallow fashion. This is compounded by 'snerk disease,' whereby the author believes it is more sci-fi to rename dozens of common concepts into arcane made-up words. Revenge is 'vaikka,' unborn children 'sra' and so on. I found after finishing the work, a listing of ten pages devoted to language glossary and pronunciation. This would have helped a lot if it were in the front of the novel.

As someone who reads a lot, I'd give this a pass if I had a choice. The excerpt on the cover sounds interesting, but the shown story is really about the 'men' press-ganged into Iduve service trying to understand Iduve motivations and actions while trying not to die from Iduve displeasure (because they are fitted with instant-kill bondage pain bracelets, courtesy of Iduve science). Evidenced 'Stockholm Syndrome' behavior, where abused prisoners begin to love their captors.

Hunter of Worlds is a story about the interaction of four species. The iduve, the most technologically advanced, are a predatory species. Their strength allows them to force their will on other species. The amaut and the kalliran do whatever is necessary to avoid the anger of the iduve, including giving up their own citizens to the iduve. The iduve control the amaut and kalliran whom they take on board their ships by mind-linking pairs of same species and fitting each with a bracelet through which the iduve can administer pain.

The iduve, who had been gone for 500 years, have returned. In the time they were gone, the amaut wandered from one of their home planets, Priamos, and humans moved in. The amaut started a war with the humans, one which the humans are destined to lose. It was an exiled iduve who had taken up residency on the planet who lent the amaut the strength to fight the war. His residency is the reason for the return of the iduve. He is being hunted. The iduve who hunt him will destroy the entire planet of Priamos to get him. Enter an unprecedented mind linkage between an abducted human and world bound kalliran, and a kalliran who has spent her entire life in the service of the iduve. What happens when these three are linked to serve the iduve will surprise all.

This adventure is thought provoking. It would be excellent were it not for Cherryh's persistent use of her created iduve language. When a created language is used sparingly, it can add another dimension to a story. However, in this story, Cherryh's use is excessive. It mars the story. How about a re-write of the story, using Cherryh's now wonderfully honed story telling techniques?

I have heard of C J Cherryh, but this was the first book of hers that I read. It was definitely very different from any other fantasy books that I have read. It had a lot of details about the various races that play a part in the story and some how the descriptions made them very real. I usually am skeptical about alien race descriptions, but the way CJC put it, it was extra-ordinarily spell binding. I later on learnt that it was an earlier work and it had only trace of her characteristics in it, neverthless, Im glad I started with that book

Hunter of Worlds (1977) is the second SF novel of the Hanun Rebellion subseries in the Alliance-Union universe. The iduve raised the kallian and the amaut from primitive societies to the metrosi (spacefaring civilization). For the past five hundred years, however, the iduve have wandered far from Kej, their home star, only to return to local space within the past seven years.

While the iduve were away, the amaut drifted elsewhere and humans moved into metrosi space. When the amaut returned, they drove the humans off their former worlds and evacuated a mere portion to human space. Some few humans remained, but were reduced to almost mindless slaves under the amaut.

In this novel, the Orithain craft Ashanome has come to Kartos Station looking for two persons, a human indentured slave on the amaut ship Konut and a kallian. Noi kame -- shipbred kallians -- take Daniel Fitzhugh off the Konut. Other noi kame search the station files and select Aiela Lyailleue, a young ship commander, as the kallian choice. Both have chiabres implanted within their brains to allow them to exchange thoughts. Aiela is awakened first to adjust to the thoughts of the shipbred Isande, a servant of the Orithain. After two days of practice, Isande is sedated and Daniel is awakened to begin exchanging thoughts with Aiela. Now all three are asuthe, interconnected through Aiela's brain.

Chimele, Orithain of the people of Ashanome, is searching for Tejef, the rejected son of her father and an outcast from her nasul. Under the ruling of the Orithanhe, the only authority higher than the Orithaini, Tejef was given a Kej year and three days to run. Then Ashanome was given twice that interval to find him and do whatever they wished with him.

Daniel was originally taken by the amaut from human space. The iduve had learned about such excursions and sought a knowledgeable informant. From Daniel's statements, they deduced the presence of Tejef and then extorted from the Orithain of the Chaganokh, a minor iduve nasul, the name of the planet where Tejef left their ship.

Standing off Priamos, Ashanome sends Daniel down to infiltrate the human mercenaries working for Tejef. Landing some of their own troops on the planet, they apply pressure on Tejef's operation. Then Daniel comes across a ten year old human refugee and abandons his assumed role to rescue her.

In this novel, these kamethi -- bond servants of the nasul -- selected by Chimele greatly disturb the iduve by their strange thinking and emotions. The iduve are predators and have inbred reactions to prey. While they have dealt with shipbred kallians and amaut for millennia, the planetbred Aiela does not habitually avoid provoking such reactions from Chimele. And if Aiela irritates Chimele, Daniel is even worse. However, Chimele restrains her reactions and becomes interested in the differences in behavior of these foreign species.

Chimele and her nasithi-katasakke -- siblings -- experience odd glimpses of other possible bases for the behavior of humans. Such thoughts cause them to rethink the ways of the kallians and amaut as well. Then they question the basis for their own behavior and try new experiences. The Ashanome iduve become even more unpredictable.

Highly recommended for Cherryh fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of personal experiences within exotic cultures.

-Arthur W. Jordin

You can tell this is a very early C.J. Cherryh novel. The text is nowhere near as riveting as her later works. You can see where her later style comes from in this work, but it's really not fully present here. In general, it's an ok story. But, you never really buy into it fully. It's like you pick up in the middle of something and then put it away after something happens. You get an inkling of what the various races are like, how they behave, and what they're capable of, but it never really meshes into a consistent whole. You know that the races are different, but you really don't feel it in your bones about WHY they're different. I'm glad I read the book, but it's merely a shadow of Cherryh's later works.