Rider at the Gate

Rating:
Summary: Scary, Suspenseful, Original
Review: What a great story! Imagine you are a colonist to America in the 16th century, and that bears can make themselves invisible. Every time you step outside you could be eaten and you'd never know until it started. That is what this snowy world is like. Another believable planet and another amazingly logically built culture that fits the enviornment. A wonderful story about courage ,honor and love. Ms. Cherryh also shows again her love for horses.

Rating:
Summary: Telepathic animals boring? Think again
Review: Yeah, telepathic critters are old hat in science fiction - way old hat. But I'm telling you, this one's different! This book's full of all the best C.J. Cherryh has to offer; tight plotting, excellent characterization and a page-turning sense of immediacy that really makes this book stand out. I haven't had so much fun reading a "horse" story since I was a kid.

Rating:
Summary: Typically Cherryh, and typically well written
Review: [I rate this 4.5 stars.]

C.J. Cherryh's writing, like Mozart's music, has a consistent feel that easily identifies the author after a few brief passages. In Cherryh's case there's always external conflict that's amplifying the internal conflict in the characters' minds. Anguished thoughts bouncing around inside the protagonist's skulls and inadequate words failing to bridge the gaps separating their different viewpoints are a hallmark of her novels. Usually there are mundane reasons for the communication failures such as different backgrounds, ages, and levels of maturity. In "Rider at the Gate" Cherryh provides a more intrinsic reason to throttle understanding between the people involved.

On the unnamed planet where the story is set the native fauna are telepathic. Predators sniff out the mental odor of their prey. The higher up the food chain you go, the more telepathic tricks the animals employ. At the top of the chain are the nighthorses. who can project their presence where they're not, or fabricate a completely different landscape from the one your eyes perceive. When they first encountered human colonists the nighthorses were delighted to be around humans' higher-level though processes; telepathically, humans just smelled good. And while their inability to cope with telepathic local animals quickly knocked the bulk of the colonists back to scattered fortified settlements and circa-1900 technology, those who bonded with nighthorses were able to move through the wilderness relatively easily.

The bond with nighthorses comes with a price, of course. Because humans can't transmit telepathically themselves, their nighthorse-mediated communication is filtered through the alien mindsets of their telepathic companions. Lacking much concern for past or future in their conceptual framework, the nighthorses use their human riders to remember such things and give the nighhorses a broader perspective. And while the riders have greatly improved survival prospects, they struggle to communicate with other humans. To keep from spooking the horses the riders constantly damp down their emotions, and keep their concentration strictly on present concerns. The mental conditioning that makes for a good rider also results in a human who doesn't play well with others.

"Rider at the Gate" begins with a message of great emotional impact: a rider and her horse have been killed, spooked by a rogue nighthorse. Just this single message, amplified by a camp of nighthorses, is enough to lead to near-riot conditions in the large town of Shamesey. Danny Fisher, a local boy newly bonded with a horse named Cloud, is both part of the cause and one of the victims of this panic. Feeling he has a debt to pay, Danny volunteers to help hunt down the rogue nighthorse.

I won't go into greater detail and spoil the story (which continues with "Cloud's Rider", although "Rider at the Gate" stands on its own just fine). It's a story of understanding attained with great effort and personal sacfifice -- the typical finely crafted novel that's typically Cherryh.