#cj cherryh

[eightopals]

News About C.J. Cherryh

She posted this on her Facebook Saturday evening, April 25, 2026:

"Dear readers and friends. The unhappy fact is---the numerous bouts of anaesthetic I've had have made it pretty well impossible for me to write. I drop stitches. Not many. No problems with daily life or doing creative stuff or enjoying life in general. But the ability to control narrative is just not what it was, and it's just not going to be there. I've accepted that, painful as it is. I thank all of you who've stood by me patiently. The body of work is what it is, and I am lastingly grateful to my publisher, Betsy Wollheim, who has given me every extension of time and resource. And of course to Jane, who is all things."

[Jane Fancher has been her companion and co-author for many years, and more recently her wife as well.]

Her stories have occupied my mind for decades now, ever since a university classmate introduced me to The Faded Sun series. Large parts of my heart are owned by Pyanfar Chanur and her clan and associates as well as by the Hellburner Four and their long-suffering program officer Jurgen Graff.

It's the end of an era.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Every month or so I am reminded of the funniest thing to ever happen in Cherryh's Alliance-Union Universe, which was when Earth, having soundly lost control over the interstellar human trade network, is like "well then we'll just explore in the OTHER direction and form our OWN network! With blackjack, and hookers!" only to immediately run into a thriving universe full of various aliens with complex production and transport and trade system that were just. Right there the whole time. And then humanity bungles first contact so colossally that they're politely but firmly told to fuck off back to their own territory and never talk to any of the aliens again.

It wasn't even their fault they just walked into an absolute shitstorm and everyone was like "we already have enough chaos to be getting on with, thank you. Back to your loser planet, no trade with you for the rest of time."

[whumpofalltime]

Whump Book of All Time: Preliminary Match Up #2

HMS Surprise by Patrick O'Brian vs Heavy Time by C.J. Cherryh

HMS Surprise

Heavy Time

Voting ended onNov 15, 2025

Propaganda under the cut!

New propaganda will be added and reblogged, and will follow the winning entry into the next round. Positive propaganda only, please.

Preliminary rounds are open for one week.

HMS Surprise:

Anon says: (Note: While HMS is technically the third book in a series, it can be read by itself. This book is what the movie Master and Commander was based on.)

Unhinged brilliant doctor-spy Stephen gets captured, tortured, rescued, angsts over a young patient he can't save, gets marooned and survives on bird blood (!!?), gets shot and has to perform self-surgery...just incredible quality and amount of whump. Somewhat difficult prose if you're not used to the style and some uncomfortable British being British in India in the second half of the book, but Stephen really goes through it in this book and the relationship between him and Capt Aubrey drives people insane. If you're a kirk/spock shipper and also like Jane Austen you're gonna eat this UP.

Heavy Time:

Anon says, "Paul Dekker is an asteroid miner found drifting in space nearly dead. He's rescued and spends most of the book recovering mentally and physically. He has amnesia about what happened, and gets traumatizing flashbacks. He also gets gaslighted because what he begins to remember is really bad for some powerful people. His rescuer hates his guts but the other characters try to give him comfort. Dekker's story continues in the sequel Hellburner, and he gets whumped a lot there too, but Heavy Time is a self-contained story and can be read alone. CJ Cherryh is amazing at whump and this is my top book from her whump-wise."

[buggy-about-town]

Let’s play cars with Alien Uncle!

[babischlong-six]

[themisstakenidentity]

Having now devoured 15 books in the Foreigner series, I have two major questions:

1) Where the hell am I going to put all these books?

2) Why the hell are copies of the Mass Market Paperback edition of Visitor going for $20?

[authorkims]

[oldschoolfrp]

Dueling a dragon -- Alan Craddock's cover art on White Dwarf 44, August 1983, was previously used on a 1982 Methuen edition of CJ Cherryh's Fires of Azeroth. This issue's credits incorrectly list Jim Burns as cover artist, omitting Craddock's name.