Rating: 
Summary: First Book is Slow, But After That it's Great
Review: The title for my review pretty much says it all: the first book of this trilogy is SLOW, but after that, Cherryh picks it right up and produces an excellent trilogy. Well worth reading. I've included my individual reviews of each title in the book, below:"If something had actually happened in "Kesrith," 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." "Shon'jir, the 2nd book in the "Faded Sun" trilogy, is much better than Kesrith (the 1st book). It's not a matter of writing styles or ability (which are the same in both books: very good). It's just that in Shon'jir something actually happens. It even ends at a reasonable point (for the 2nd book in a trilogy). In the 1st book, Cherryh basically introduces the mri and the main characters. In this book, she brings us through Duncan's journey (in all senses) towards the mri. A very good, very interesting book." "Kutath, the final book in the "Faded Sun" series, picks up where the 2nd book, "Shon'jir," leaves off. In this book, Duncan has completed his journey towards the mri and Cherryh takes us towards a final resolution of the mri/human/regul relationship. The book is just as well-written and interesting as "Shon'jir." About the only negative I can come up with is the somewhat drawn-out initial tableau involving walking across the desert: it gets a bit tedious after a while. A very good book."
Rating: 
Summary: Vintage Cherryh
Review: This book combines the series of Faded Sun books into one. Cherryh is at her best here, able to project what goes through the mind of a human character under incredible strain and pressure as captive of an alien (but somewhat human-like) race. In each of Cherryh's best works, it feels like you are touching a live wire in the protagonist's brain. If it grabs you, it is an emotional experience that gives you a real sense of the gulfs and leaps in communication between different species and the emotional lows and highs that go with it. Cherryh is not big on high tech, but tremendous on human (and non-human) dimensions. This is not space opera, but rather psychological thriller. Well worth the read.
Rating: 
Summary: Like trying to fight the tide.
Review: This book has such a wonderful premise, the last of a dying race search for there home planet with the aid of an enemy who could not bear to commit genocide. Woo hoo... The wonderfully detailed charcters are still two dimensional after Cherryh spends chapters detailing every little nuance of there lives. The book gets bogged down in meaningless detail and turned out to be a very hard read.
Rating:
Summary: Sublime
Review: This book is fabulous! I particularly like character development in a book. This one manages to develop an incredible number of distinct, contrasting characters, including alien characters of four species, with depth and believability. Perhaps Faded Sun qualifies as a typical women's book, because between moments of action there are long, intense periods of examination of the feelings of the various characters. It is totally different from many science fiction books, such as the Star Wars spinoffs. The latter flit from one incident of hand to hand combat to another, with only a hint of plot thread in between serving as an excuse for the combat, just the opposite of Faded Sun where combat is a link between the looking inside of heads. Well, I'm a woman and not ashamed to prefer a woman's book, if that's what this is. I was particularly glad to see strong female characters in leadership roles. While Faded Sun does have many incidents of extreme violence, it nevertheless retains a basic orientation toward peacemaking. Primarily it is a study of people struggling to understand aliens and vice versa, while each tries to preserve the interests of his or her own group. Since I was a high school exchange student in a foreign country, I particularly empathized with those human characters who tried to immerse themselves in alien cultures and thereby enhance interspecies communication. The ability of the humans to so immerse becomes their unique strength in the quest for peace. The perspective on humans expressed in Faded Sun is remarkably uplifting. All of the humans seem to be unusually sensible and self-sacrificing. Perhaps this is not realistic, but it is very nice to see a book that does not have any true villains. Even the most repulsive aliens are portrayed with remarkable sympathy. The death and destruction that occur in this work all stem out of the characters' conflicting world views, not from inherent wickedness. I like this, because I think this is the way conflict really arises in our own world. In short, this book is real literature, not just pulp science fiction. I treasured every moment of this long trilogy. I cannot imagine how the sub-books could have been published individually, because they seem to hang together so much better as one. I would definitely not recommend buying the individual sub-books separately, because the first two have very unsatisfying, cliff-hanging endings; while the trilogy has a good, strong ending. Still, there is enough suspense left that there could be sequels. I hope so, if they're as good as this.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: This book is simply amazing. I began reading this book about a year ago and continued to read off and on. I would have read it continuosly but I had a very busy year and time was against me. The story is one of epic proportions. It keeps you locked in and really lets you feel for the characters. The writing holds a very high level of quality and the setting is a very believable future. All in all I would reccomend this book to any fans of the genre that enjoy long reads.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing...
Review: This book was an impulse buy for me. I prefer Sci-Fi humor or fantasy combined with Sci-Fi. I tend to stay away from hard core Sci-Fi for my own reasons... but this book really surprised me. Cherryh does an excellent job of describing emotions and thoughts, being an important part of the story. Careful forming of characters was done as well as the story itself, which was intriguing. Definate must buy on my list. Oh, and the cover art is really nice as well.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This is my introduction to C. J. Cherryh's work, and what an intro it is--full of complex characters and convoluted intrigues. I at times wanted to smack pretty much all the characters and found myself liking each of them at others. Truly an entralling story, and the end left me saying, "What? That's it? I want more!" while still being quite satisfying. The last time I remember that reaction was after my first time reading THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is without a doubt one of the best sci-fi books I've ever read. Full of intriguing characters and twisting(though coherent) plots, "The Faded Sun" is simply a great read. Technically it isn't perfect, having quite a few gramatically awkward areas and a somewhat slow pace, but the underlying richness of it makes one quickly forget such trivial complaints. I most hardily recommend this title, and believe even those who aren't particular fans of the genre will find it rewarding. P.S. If I had read it in its original form my review might have been different. I can hardly see it as a trilogy, and would, most likely, have found the sudden and unrewarding endings between titles irritating. Thankfully, I won't ever have to deal with that.
Rating:
Summary: Must read the full trilogy!!!
Review: This series starts out very mysterious and gives details and clues to the nature of the Mri over the entire trilogy. Reading one book will not satisfy the story line. The concept of the entire race and their extremely ancient history... is one of the more unique story lines. This is slightly similar to the Invader series but the feel of the storyline is very different. I enjoyed both and can fully appreciate what the other was achieving in both even though some of the base concepts may be similar. I find that few of Cherryh's books leave anything lacking and I will continue to read this author's books as long as they are written. Having read many thousands of books, Cherryh is always Good solid adventure and insight!
Rating:
Summary: A compelling story of a Warrior Culture
Review: This spellbinding story explores a cuture of perfect warriors (The Mri)In an fascinating mix of Samuri, Celtic Warior, and maybe a bit of Bedouin cultures, a race of perfect wariors from an unknown world (even to themselves). An Earth special forces marine (Duncan) unknowingly becomes involved in genocide against these beautiful warriors, the story is his journey to reclaim his honor and self respect. If you liked the movie "the Last Samuri", you will love this book. Of course, then you will guess something about the movie.
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