Which C.J. Cherryh book have you read first? Good Choice?

>From: Lesley Grant <lgrant@maths.tcd.ie>
>Subject: cherryhlist -- first time readers? 
>Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 8:29:15 BST

Now that we've all recovered from the weekend, i thought I'd ask what everyone's first-read book by Cherryh was, and was it really something accessible to someone who hadn't read her before? I first read _Brothers of Earth_. It didn't make me want to rush out and buy every book of hers I could find though, and when I'd read more, it sort of puzzled me as to where/when the action was taking place (Union/Alliance is there sort of, but in a hazy, primitive sort of way -- Alliance is named, but the 'baddies', the Hanan, although integrated into the chronology as an Alliance group that splinters away in 3187 [back of _Angel with the Sword_], appear to 'really' be the precursors in Cherryh's mind of the stereotypical Union army).
I think this was probably a bad choice to start off with. It was about 2 years later that I actually read another book by her (not that they were available here, anyhow). The next one I read was the "Chronicles of Morgaine" series, and after that there was no stopping me.

				Lesley

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>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 12:48:44 +0100
>From: Matthew Jude Brown <mjb@doc.ic.ac.uk>

> Now that we've all recovered from the weekend, i thought I'd ask what
> everyone's first-read book by Cherryh was, and was it really something
> accessible to someone who hadn't read her before?

_Gate of Ivrel_ and its sequels (in the _Chronicles of Morgaine_ collected edition -- *eek* what an awful title ...). I absolutely loved them, and must have read them about 20 times since (the old book is getting rather battered, and the cover won't last much longer ...) _Gate of Ivrel_ is truly amazing when you realise it was Cherryh's first published novel.

After that I read _Downbelow Station_ next -- found Signy Mallory delightfully interesting. Then it was the turn of such of the Chanur books as were then available ... after that, I didn't have a chance!

-Morven

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>From: nancy ott <ott@ansoft.com>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 8:30:44 EDT

(...)

The first Cherryh novel I *started* was "Downbelow Station" back in high school (1982). I remember being really confused about what was going on, and gave up on it after about three chapters. The first one I actually *completed* was "Gate of Ivrel" about a year later. I was still kind of confused, but not as much as before. Shortly after that, I picked up "Downbelow" again and this time made it all the way through. Once I figured out how Cherryh set up the story, the book (a) made sense and (b) was an interesting read. That was the point at which I started actively looking for and reading her books.

If I were recommending Cherryh novels to someone who hadn't read her before, I'd go with either the Morgaine novels or the Chanur novels (depending on whether they liked fantasy or SF better). These two series (seria?) seem to be the most accessible things she's done. I wouldn't recommend books like "40,000 in Gehenna," "Brothers of Earth," or "Wave without a Shore."

nancy ott (...)

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>From: Ken Shrum <shrum@hpfcswq.fc.hp.com>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 7:25:23 MDT

The first book by Cherryh that I read was "Kesrith". That would've been in about 1981, and a friend of mine rushed up to me and said "you have to read these books!" I'm not certain in what order I read the rest of her then-published work, but I can vividly recall being in a bookstore and seeing "Chanur's Venture" on the shelves and doing a huge doubletake, reading it immediately, and then discovering that it was the first third of a larger work.

Since then I've ordered all of her work that I can find, including "Glass and Amber", which has some very nice comments on how she develops her work. I'm to the point now of buying her new work in hardback sight unseen, and upgrading my paperbacks to hardback as possible.

(...)

    Ken Shrum

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>Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 11:51:58 -0700
>From: rcrowley@zso.dec.com (Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley)
>Subject: Re:  C. J. Cherryh List

I read _Pride of Chanur_ first. I borrowed it with a huge stack of what was, in retrospect, some pretty cheesy sf from an older cousin (I vaguely recall a bunch of Piers Anthony -- Xanth and Adept -- novels, a few Zelazney and one of the Stainless Steel Rat books). I really liked it, and when I spotted the first sequel a year or so later, I snapped it up, along with my own copy of Pride. Since I then had to wait for the next one, I haunted used bookstores for a while, reading, I think, _Merchanter's Luck_, and _Wave Without a Shore_ next. For some reason, Wave made a pretty big impression on me, and I've been reading Cherryh steadily since (but I still haven't read any of the Morgaine).

There's been a pretty substantial thread on r.a.sf.w about having trouble getting into Cherryh, particularly with _Downbelow Station_. I confess to finding myself unable to get into that myself.

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>Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1993 08:02:22 EDT
>From: davis@licre.ludwig.edu.au
>Subject: RE: C. J. Cherryh List

(...)

I had never heard of Cherryh until I heard Stephen Donaldson describe her as his favourite author. I then went out and found the Chanur series, closely followed by the Chronicles of Morgaine. I think I had a better experience than you did, Lesley!

Ian.

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>Subject: Cherryh mailing list (cherryhlist)
>Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 8:59:33 CES
>From: Onno Meyer <Onno.Meyer@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de>

When I started reading Cherryh, I must have been 17 years old or younger. My first books have been the Chanur books (in a german translation), and I think I enjoyed them because of the interesting aliens (compared to the usual bug-eyed-monsters) and because of the action (desperate starships racing from star to star...). If _Heavy Time_ had been my first Cherryh book, it might have been the last. Some pages about a rescue in space, then a long time in hospital and in bars, and at the end some pages of riot and spaceflight. You have to be older to read it. :-)

(...)

Onno Meyer (...)