While I only actively disliked a few moments in this book, I can honestly say that I didn't enjoy a single page.

This book has some of the worst writing that I have ever read. Particularly aggravating was Cherryh's tendency to write long but bizarrely elliptical, clipped sentences. For instance: "The Pride came in, sluggish, nightmare arrival, pulsed out and in again, a flickering of jump-distorted instruments which showed them far out on the Urtur range, not close enough to pick up more than an indication of a stellar mass." Or, "And finally a distant whine and thump announced the breaching of the freighter's hatch, first in procedure: station reciprocated, and the mahe crew escorted off four hani, exhausted hani, one with an arm bandaged and bound to her chest, all of them looking as if they were doing well to be walking at all." There's really no reason for Cherryh to adopt this style (it wouldn't hurt to put in more subjects, indefinite pronouns, and prepositions), and her failure to write more clearly makes the book nearly unreadable at times.

The obscurity of the prose also makes the narrative even more confusing than it already is. The problem with Cherryh's storyline is that there are far too many aliens, with far too many motives and cultures, and far too little exposition; after a while I was mixing up my mahendo'sat with my stsho and knnn. Furthermore, Cherryh premises a lot of her story on the particular features of each alien race, especially the politics that each one follows. As the cast of characters and motivations grew longer, the comprehensibility (and interest) of the storyline degenerated accordingly.

In contrast to her confusingly complex universe, Cherryh's characters are fairly one-sided. The hani crew that serves as the main protagonists of the book are only partially fleshed out; very little served to distinguish different members of the crew from one another. Pyanfar is a fairly well-realized character, but even she seems simple. And the villains are almost caricatures: the kif (aka, The Bad Guys) are dark, cloaked, and gravelly voiced. Give me a break.

Finally, although this book is firmly esconced in the subgenre of space opera, it lacks the grand sweep and feel that the best of that subgenre possesses. In large part this is because Cherryh fails to give any truly stirring descriptions. The Pride can pass by a star, or a station, and that's all we'll know about it. Sure, sometimes the star is "large" or "yellow"--woohoo. This book also lacks many of the cool ideas that often make up for the otherwise thin characters that populate space opera.

I have to admit that I didn't finish the book: I read up to chapter 11 and then stopped, three-quarters of the way through. But I simply couldn't stomach continuing with it. It's not the worst book I've ever read, and there are parts that are actually quite exciting, and even well-written (chapter 5 is a good example). But I don't think that I'll be reading the rest of the Chanur saga unless somebody somehow convinces me that it'll be worth it.

Copyright © 2002 Steven Wu