Nanoreviews: Alliance Unbound, Nuclear War, Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear

Alliance Unbound, by C.J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher

Follow up to 2019’s Alliance Rising (my review) and only the second Alliance / Union novel published in the last fifteen years, which is far too long for my taste which is a statement I’ll make while ignoring the ten plus Alliance / Union novels I have yet to read. Alliance Unbound jumps right into the action of the previous novel with Ross Monahan having taken refuge on Finity’s End, a top of the line and incredibly powerful merchant ship following the takeover of his family’s ship, The Galway, during the conclusion of Alliance Rising.

It’s a little difficult to talk about Alliance Unbound without talking about the larger galactic politics and how this book fits into the larger series of generally connected novels because the actions with both Alliance Rising and Alliance Unbound center around the founding of the titular alliance between merchant ships to counter the encroaching power of the Earth Company as a border and buffer against the Union of other worlds and space stations. It’s both incredibly important for understanding the underlying landscape (spacescape?) of Alliance Unbound and not at all important because with very limited exceptions across some thirty novels, these books can be read and enjoyed in any order.

The core of Alliance Unbound is the founding of the Merchanter’s Alliance and my favorite bits of the novel are the ones that are dealing with the minutiae of interstellar politics and the issues merchant ships have with Earth Company (and it’s projected power of the home planet against ships and stations it views as their property even when years can pass between possible communication). The Neihart family of Finity’s End is compelling, though certainly a bit heavy handed as the rich / powerful merchant family, as they work on getting the last two family run ships signed on to the Alliance and discover a possible Earth Company

It’s not just the devil being in the details, it’s what the novel hangs on. Fans of Cherryh will find a lot to like here, especially if Cyteen was a hit though Alliance Unbound is shorter and moves around more than that novel but it has some of the same delightful awkwardness and power politics of Cyteen.

Nuclear War: A Scenario, by Annie Jacobson

The most truly frightening book I’ve read in a long time is Annie Jacobson’s Nuclear War: A Scenario. The “A Scenario” part is incredibly important here because Nuclear War isn’t a novel though part of it is fiction and it’s not a non-fiction work even though a significant portion of Nuclear War is deeply researched history and background detail for how Annie Jacobson knows what she knows and how she is building this scenario of what a nuclear war would actually look like with a minute by minute (and sometimes second by second) explanation of what would happen if…

In Nuclear War Jacobson takes us from the second a surprise attack from North Korea is launched against the United States. Jacobson walks readers through how quickly detection occurs, how information gets relayed from the detection points through military commands to the President, what potential barriers to communication and decisions are in place, what policies are in place to guide those decisions, how little time there really is make those world altering decisions, what can go wrong, and what little hope there really is for the rest of us if there is a nuclear launch.

Nuclear War is part fiction. Unless we all live in a simulation that is continually reset, this hasn’t happened. Nuclear War isn’t a novel, though. It’s a thought experiment wrapped in deep and intensive research about how this all works with more information than we might have imagined is out there (but with so much more still so deeply classified that the only way out is via a deathbed confession, which, according to Jacobson, is functionally how some of the policy detailed in this book did come out).

Nuclear War isn’t science fiction and it’s not even the “five minutes in the future” sort of storytelling that bleeds into the genre but I can’t help but think of Nuclear War: A Scenario as being tangentially related in the sense of what writers could take from this book to build off onto their own terrifying futures. Clearly being riveted to Annie Jacobson’s incredible creative nonfiction and being terrified out of my gourd as to how little we’ll know until it’s too late (and hoping that somehow Nuclear War can be a warning call to today’s global leaders) wasn’t enough that I needed to start thinking about how this book could impact genre fiction as well.

That was almost how I began writing about Nuclear War, actually. I wanted to make an argument about how Nuclear War could fit into genre awards as a nonfiction work or a “Related Work” as the Hugo Awards go. This isn’t a genre work and is only genre adjacent in the sense that science fiction has a long history of thinking about how nuclear war could impact the world, the future, and everything around it. And yet - Nuclear War is so immediate that it seems to be a part of everything. Want to know what the future could look like? Read Nuclear War. Want an underpinning to the next decade of near future science fiction? Read Nuclear War. I don’t know. Nuclear War feels right as being genre adjacent, but I also look at a lot of things through a genre adjacent lens.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear, by Seanan McGuire

It’s taken ten novellas, but Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is the first miss for me in the Wayward Children series. It’s worth noting, as a well established fan of Seanan McGuire that this “miss” in this instance means that I enjoyed it fine but my level of expectation is significantly higher for this series and its emotional resonance than it is for other stories.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is the tenth novella in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series which began in 2016 with the practically perfect Every Heart a Doorway (my review). The general concept is that some children who don’t quite belong in whatever life situation they are in will find a doorway with the words “Be Sure” written above and when they pass through they are dropped in a weirdly magical world where the rules are all quite different but the child in question finds a place in which they truly belong. The series as a whole is about belonging, and the books alternate between the worlds through the doorway and the kids who come back home again and are very much not the same person they were before going through.

This is one of the through the doorway stories and features Nadya, her life in a Russian orphanage, her adoption into the United States, and her journey through a doorway. Nadya was previously seen in Beneath the Sugar Sky (my review) and frankly, at this point I don’t remember a thing about Nadya’s prior appearance or how she interacted with Eleanor West’s.

To that point, Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear felt somewhat more disconnected from the wider series (perfectly reasonable in a through the doorway story) but possibly more importantly Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear doesn’t *seem* to add much to the series / world beyond where it will certainly connect with other readers far more than it did with me. Coming off of the two Antsy books which had a truly compelling lead character and a new take on the wider universe (multiverse?), Nadya’s journey into the drowned world was lacking something.

Seanan McGuire is historically very good at layering her series work and seeding little bits that will pay off in big ways later, so I’m more than willing to be absolutely wrong in another three books about how this is secretly the second best Wayward Children book. I don’t expect that because despite the giant turtles, immigration, and physical disability, Nadya’s story is much less immediate and feels like it has been told before.

All of this sounds far more negative than I intend it to be and that’s one hundred percent tied to how much I love Every Heart a Doorway and how successful most of the Wayward Children novellas are. A novella that is absolutely fine and lovely only pales in comparison to those stories that shine as bright as so many from this series. It’s good. It’s doesn’t reach the heights of the rest of the series.


Joe Sherry - Senior Editor of Nerds of a Feather, Hugo and Ignyte Award Winner. Minnesotan.

The Hugo Initiative: Cyteen (1989, Best Novel)

 Dossier: Cherryh, C.J. Cyteen [Warner, 1988]

Filetype: Novel

Executive Summary: Cyteen is set in C. J. Cherryh’s Alliance / Union Universe, a future expansionist history of humanity in the stars. The opening pages of Cyteen provides a full background of the colonization and political history of that universe and how the various factions got started. It takes all of four pages and is perfectly fascinating on its own. Then Cherryh rolls into the story and introduced Ariane Emory, an aging scientist potentially nearing the end of her life. Emory is a member of the Union governing Council of Nine and the founder of Reseune, the leading science laboratories in the universe. Emory is known as a brilliant woman (she is one of very few certified as a Special), though also a difficult woman. The reader is given all of this introduction, which Cherryh quite naturally handled far better than I am right now, and it serves to create a sense of the political and social landscape of Reseune. Cherryh reveals the Reseune plans to clone and recreate Specials so the Special brilliance is not lost when they die. There is one notable previous attempt and failure. 

When Ariane Emory is murdered early in the novel there are several major developments put into play. First, another Special at Reseune is implicated – Jordan Warrick. Warrick and Emory had a once close professional (and personal) relationship which strained. Emory, shortly before her murder, began a relationship with Jordan’s son Justin – except the relationship was not an equal one, it was a very dominant one on the part of Emory. The second major development is that the cloning program goes forward – only with a particular change. Because Reseune needed Ariane so badly, they cloned her and attempted to recreate as much of her upbringing as possible in order to bring out the exact genius that was Ariane Emory. It is a long term strategy. 

That’s the background and set up of Cyteen. Cyteen spans perhaps fifteen to twenty years and provides two major viewpoints during that time: Justin Warrick and young Ariane Emory (the clone). Justin’s storyline is that of survival, of trying to fit in at Reseune with all of the political drama and upheaval caused by Emory’s death AND by his father’s confession. Note: the reader never sees the murder occur, so what we don’t know is if Jordan Warrick told the truth with his confession. We assume not, but can be wrong. Emory’s storyline is of a young and isolated genius child growing up and figuring out her place and potential power.

Legacy: Cyteen won the 1989 Hugo Award for Best Novel and it is regarded as one of Cherryh’s best novels. Cyteen has loomed large in my reading history as it was the first novel I read from C.J. Cherryh after years of avoiding her work for no good reason that I can come up with. Cherryh’s Hugo Award win for Cyteen was her third Hugo Award, following a Short Story Hugo for “Cassandra” in 1979 and Best Novel for Downbelow Station in 1982. The most significant aspect of Cyteen may be the bolstering to Cherryh’s reputation in the genre, which has always been strong – but being a two time winner for Best Novel puts her in elite company. Cyteen remains a major novel in Cherryh’s oeuvre and is a major novel by anybody’s standard, though it doesn’t get discussed nearly as much as Downbelow Station. Cyteen may be her strongest and most accomplished novel, it is Downbelow Station which has had the longer reach and conversation. Perhaps it is because Cyteen is so tightly compacted onto the station and the politics of Union and Downbelow Station looks at Union from the outside and deals with clashing cultures, but we’re much more likely to see references to Downbelow Station than Cyteen, yet Cyteen is the novel I’d recommend first.


In Retrospect: Cyteen starts out strong, but the novel only improves at the story progresses and the reader meets Ariane Emory as an incredibly precocious teenager – one who is led, in part, by the writings the older Ariane Emory left for her clone. Cyteen is many things at once – political drama, social commentary, coming of age (for both characters, really), science fiction, a story of morality, and probably a handful of other things I can’t quite work out on the first read. 

Cherryh quietly and subtly asks questions about morality in terms of artificially created humans called “azi”. Azi have few rights and are property of Reseune. They are grown / born to do a particular job and are raised to spec and taught by “tape”, a method of deep teaching that programs (in a sense) learning and behavior. Cherryh looks at the responsibilities of those with power over azi and a bit on the morality of such a workforce. 

Cyteen is a big novel that hints at an even larger universe with references to conflicts and debates outside of the scope of the novel. It is an excellent place to begin one’s reading of C. J. Cherryh. Published thirty years ago, Cyteen holds up extraordinarily well (though the references to “tape” still make me pause). After finishing Cyteen I immediately bought more of Cherryh’s novels. That’s my ultimate recommendation – Cyteen was good enough to make me spend more money. I was completely sold on C. J. Cherryh. From one novel. From this novel.


Analytics

For its time: 5/5
Read today: 5/5.
Gernsback Quotient: 10/10

[Note: this dossier has been adapted from an earlier review.]


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 3x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan.

Mircoreview [book]: Alliance Rising, by C.J. Cherryh and Jane Fancher

Loyalty, family, trade deals, and interstellar politics.

Alliance Rising marks the return of C.J. Cherryh to her Alliance-Union Universe. It's been ten years since the publication of Regenesis, and since then she's published nine more Foreigner novels, but it's been a long wait for Alliance-Union fans. Alliance Rising is the earliest novel set in the timeline. Set on the cusp of the Company Wars, there are plenty of references for long time Cherryh readers: Pell Station, Cyteen, the azi and the Emorys, the ship Finity's End and its captain JR Neihart. Put together, the novel is grounded in a particular time and the edges of a setting that many readers are well familiar with even though no prior knowledge is required.

This may be an odd comparison to make, but the experience reading Alliance Rising put me into mind of reading L.E. Modesitt, Jr.  There is a certain comfort to returning to her universe, but the primary reason is how Alliance Rising is structured.  Alliance Rising is a long, slow burn of a novel with set up piled on top of set up and wrapped around some characterization and garnished with some more set up. It's not that dry, but much of the novel is a combination of local politics mixed with the implications of galactic politics on the verge of hitting home hard. A very significant portion of the novel is tied into building those political blocks into a tinderbox on the verge of an explosion. It's only the last act of the novel that races into that explosion and the fallout. That's a description that, with the change of one or two details, describes the plot of structure of Modesitt's fantasy epics.

The difference, of course, is that Alliance Rising is very hard science fiction and not an epic fantasy, but here that means the scale is galactic.

Alpha Station was the first station created by Earth / Sol before Pell and Cyteen basically founded themselves and splintered off. This is a station and a setting with lots of rivalries and lots of bad feelings and mistrust between stations and even towards Sol.

The early going of the novel focuses on both the politics of Alpha Station as well as the merchant ships which form the lifeblood of Alpha. Station politics is such that the massive faster than light ship being built is viewed as either being vital to the future of Sol and Earth Company or a giant suck on the resources and culture of the station. The surprise arrival of Finity's End, a legendary faster than light ship crewed by one of the oldest of merchant families, has the station in an uproar. Is this the first step of an incursion from Pell and Cyteen, an opportunity for Alpha, a strike against Sol, something else?

Alliance Rising is all about trade deals and, not to lean too heavily on the title of the novel, alliance building. Finity's End is on Alpha station to build an alliance of merchant ships into an intergalactic force (this may be a small spoiler to readers new to Cherryh, but it is also a central point to an ongoing series some forty years in). From the Stationmaster of Alpha to the captains of the Galway, Finity's End, Firenze, and every other ship on station, everyone is looking to make the best deal to protect their own future, and firmly in the middle of all that is the Earth Company built ship The Rights of Man.

It is very likely I'm not conveying this well at all, but in the hands of Cherryh and Fancher, this is gripping stuff. More than half of the novel is spent settling in, giving the reader an opportunity to live on Alpha, to really get to know Ross Monahan from Galway and, as much as possible, Jen Neihart from Finity's End. Through that younger generation readers see the absolutely loyalty of crew to their ships because the ship and the crew are family in truth. Family is the beating heart of the novel.

Alliance Rising serves to whet the appetite, not just for the second novel in the Hinder Stars sub-series but also to visit and re-visit the full Alliance-Union backlist of novels.


The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for the details of ship history, legends, and the trading of patches

Penalties: -1 because the novel can be a touch dry at times

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10, "a mostly enjoyable experience" See more about our scoring system here.


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 & 2018 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan.