please talk about cj cherryh. if you would.
Dear anon; kind, friendly anon. Indeed I would.
CJ Cherryh is not my favorite science fiction author, but she wrote my favorite science fiction book. That book is Cyteen. If I ever write a book as incisive, multi-angled, philosophical, and tightly plotted as Cyteen, I will hang up my writer's hat in thankful accomplishment and consider my place in heaven assured. Cyteen is nominally about a young woman named Ariane Emory, and her efforts to claim power and agency in a dystopic, claustrophobic mindfuck of a future. What it's actually about is the responsibility of one human to the entire human species, and the question of what is ethically permitted when your considerations are species-wide.
This is not a spoiler: that young woman is a mind-clone of one of the most well-written magnificent bastards in literature, Ariane Emory I, who in the first three chapters of Cyteen commits profoundly evil acts. One of the chief questions of Cyteen is whether those evil acts were justified, or justifiable; how responsible Ari II is for them and their consequences; and whether there are ever good reasons for removing agency from human beings.
These are huge questions, difficult philosophical questions. Cherryh integrates them gorgeously into a deeply intricate plot which is both macro- and micro-political. She's also a master of the internal psychological monologue as a plot point. The inside of her characters' heads is never a safe space. In Cyteen, where mind control and personality manipulation is a central plot device and a major thematic concern, characters are never sure whether their thoughts are natural, safe, or innocent.
Cyteen is not an easy book. I recommend it highly, but I recommend it with the following caveats for tumblr followers who might be concerned: I would smack giant trigger warnings for rape, abuse, slavery, and psychologicosocial coersion all over it. Also regular warnings for people who prefer their scifi with more space opera and less intricate political maneuvering and decades-slow pace.
Why do I like Cherryh, though.
Because she writes about acculturation. Because she writes the most exciting politics I've ever read -- there's a scene in one of her other books, Explorer (the 6th in the Foreigner series) in which nothing happens but an interpreter trying to talk to some aliens on the bridge of his starship, and my heart was in my throat the entire time. Because I fall for her characters even when they're horrible people. Because she makes horrible people explicable, if not okay.
Because I overidentify with Ari II and Bren Cameron. Because she explained the black space no echo problem, and because she wrote about what it feels like to desperately try to learn another language in a high-stakes full-immersion situation. Because there's never anything easy about her books.
I love her work and I want to write like her, basically.
(The sequel to Cyteen, however, is awful, and I have eighty thousand issues with it. But everyone has to fuck up once.)
