Alternate Realities: Port Eternity/Voyager in Night/Wave Without a Shore

Rating:
Summary: Alternate Realities
Review: An Execelent combination of 3 Sci-fi books by an execelent author. Great for those who like to read something that they can think about.

Rating:
Summary: Weird, but good
Review: I really loved this volume. It was a combination of three books having a common theme. In each book, human beings find themselves in an alien or sci-fi environment that has a profound effect on their thinking, making them alien, too. The author is excellent at helping you enter the minds of these strange, altered people.

These are profoundly intellectual books, examining thought processes in great detail. Sometimes not too much happens, except an examination of what the characters are thinking, perhaps a tiny bit reminiscent of "Waiting for Godot". I found this fascinating, but I wouldn't expect that it would be very interesting for children, for instance.

In the first book, two sets of people are trapped together on a space ship. One set are normal, born people. The other set were made in a lab and conditioned to serve the first group. Most of the book takes place inside the head of one of these lab born servants and looks at how she experiences people and events around her.

In the second book, a group of people end up in the clutches of an alien computer, who plays strange games with them, copying and combining them.

In the third book, a group of human colonists lives on a planet with an alien race, but somehow convinces themselves that they don't see the aliens right in front of their faces. The story examines the bizarre thought patterns they go through in rationalizing their denial of the aliens.

It's hard in summarizing these books to capture a feeling of what the stories are really like. They all move at a good clip and keep up suspense, so you keep wanting to read on, despite the fact that the approach is so intellectual.

Cherryh is an incredibly creative writer. Her work is totally different from any other science fiction that I have read. It is true science fiction from the old school (rather than fantasy) and yet also has an approach somewhat like a romance novel in the detailed look at people's internal lives.

I am definitely getting more books by this author.

Rating:
Summary: Weird, but good
Review: I really loved this volume. It was a combination of three books having a common theme. In each book, human beings find themselves in an alien or sci-fi environment that has a profound effect on their thinking, making them alien, too. The author is excellent at helping you enter the minds of these strange, altered people.

These are profoundly intellectual books, examining thought processes in great detail. Sometimes not too much happens, except an examination of what the characters are thinking, perhaps a tiny bit reminiscent of "Waiting for Godot". I found this fascinating, but I wouldn't expect that it would be very interesting for children, for instance.

In the first book, two sets of people are trapped together on a space ship. One set are normal, born people. The other set were made in a lab and conditioned to serve the first group. Most of the book takes place inside the head of one of these lab born servants and looks at how she experiences people and events around her.

In the second book, a group of people end up in the clutches of an alien computer, who plays strange games with them, copying and combining them.

In the third book, a group of human colonists lives on a planet with an alien race, but somehow convinces themselves that they don't see the aliens right in front of their faces. The story examines the bizarre thought patterns they go through in rationalizing their denial of the aliens.

It's hard in summarizing these books to capture a feeling of what the stories are really like. They all move at a good clip and keep up suspense, so you keep wanting to read on, despite the fact that the approach is so intellectual.

Cherryh is an incredibly creative writer. Her work is totally different from any other science fiction that I have read. It is true science fiction from the old school (rather than fantasy) and yet also has an approach somewhat like a romance novel in the detailed look at people's internal lives.

I am definitely getting more books by this author.

Rating:
Summary: An Execelent collection of books
Review: Port Eternity is a well written book, (they are not androids, they are 'Made' people, clones) and brings out some very intresting concepts. Voyager In Night is the weirdest of the three, dealing with life and death in a very intresting way. This is the only book I have read where one the main characters askes 'Am I dead?' The conflicts are also unique, as are the names. Wave Without a Shore was my favorite of the three, for it deals with the most intelegent man on the planet, an artist powerfull enough to capture change in stone. Only in the end does he realize that reality is not just what he makes it.

Rating:
Summary: stimulating
Review: These books really caught me off guard. I've been a fan of CJ for many years and I find her to be one of the best, but these books really made me think. This is a must read for anyone of intellegence.

Rating:
Summary: A chore to read
Review: This book is a collection of three novels by C.J.Cherryh.

As one of the other reviewers below notes, this collection is very heavy on philosophy, and as such some readers may find this volume boring. I could not agree more. This volume is incredibly dull and slow paced, and is without a doubt a volume that is not for everyone.

Port Eternity is the first story of the collection and revolves around a group of humans and "made" people who get lost in another dimension. There is a lot of food for thought regarding "made" people being less than born people, as well as ideas of identity. The author builds tension well with the mysterious Modred and the banging on the hull. It all moves along well until, it seems, the author realised she was well short of a novel. What follows is repititious drudgery that goes nowhere, seemingly just to fill pages. The banging begins. The banging stops. Elaine looks after her Lady. The banging begins again, the characters have the same conversation as before, the banging stops, etc.

The second story in the book, Voyager in the Night is just weird. Yes, there are lots of good points to ponder on the idea of identity and death, and the story itself is very unique, but it is not strong enough to base a novel around. Again, this is a repititious work and is even duller than the first.

To be honest, I never did finish reading the third story, Wave Without a Shore. I got 70 pages in, nothing had happened and I was quite over Cherryh's dull writing. I read for enjoyment, this was a chore to read. Believe me, I did try, but 3 slow, boring novels in a row is too much to take.

Overall I would have to say that while this volume contains some clever and thought provoking concepts, but the stories themselves should have been restricted to short stories. This volume may be deep, but it is also extremely dull.

Recommended only for people who like slow, thought provoking stories.

Rating:
Summary: A compilation of three excellent, bizarre novels
Review: This is a compilation of three of Cherryh's older and stranger books. Port Eternity is Arthurian in space, but is much better than that would normally imply. Wave without a Shore is philosophical, concept-driven SF which reminds me somewhat of LeGuin in a similar mode, though perhaps less self-righteous. I enjoyed it a great deal but readers who are put off by heavy philosophy may be bored. Voyager in Night is the weirdest of the bunch -- it reminds me of an SRL video. It's nominally an Alliance/Union story about a ship which gets kidnapped by an unknown alien; it's also about identity both personal and species. Overall, this is a compilation which makes sense and I'd highly recommend it.