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CJ Cherryh
Carolyn Janice Cherry was born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 1, 1942 and grew up mainly in Lawton, Oklahoma.
She is a writer of speculative fiction, and has written numerous books since the mid-seventies, including “Downbelow Station” and “Cyteen”, which both won Hugo Awards, which are each set in her Alliance-Union universe, and her Foreigner Universe. “Cassandra”, a short story, also is a Hugo Award winner. “Cyteen” also won a Locus Award.
CJ is known for world building, depicting fictional realms with such great realism support by vast research in archaeology, psychology, history, and language.
CJ started writing stories when she was ten when she was frustrated with “Flash Gordon”, her favorite TV show, getting canceled.
Carolyn got her Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin from the University of Oklahoma (Phi Beta Kappa), with academic specializations in mythology, archaeology, and the history of engineering, in 1964. She got her Masters of Arts degree in classics from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where she was a Woodrow Wilson fellow in 1965.
After she graduated, Cherry taught Ancient Greek, Latin, the classics, and ancient history at John Marshall High School in the Oklahoma City public school system. Even though her job was to teach Latin, her passion was the religion, history, and culture of Ancient Greece and Rome. During her summers she would conduct student tours of the ancient ruins in Italy, Spain, France, and England.
During her spare time, she’d write, using the mythology of Greece and Rome as plots for her stories on the future. Cherryh didn’t follow the professional path of science fiction authors at the time, which was to publish short stories in science fiction and fantasy magazines first before progressing to novels. She never even considered writing short stories until she’d already had many novels published.
CJ wrote novels during her spare time from teaching and submitted these manuscripts to get published, meeting with little success, initially. Various publishers lost her manuscripts, which forced her to retype them entirely, using her carbon copies, time-consuming to do, yet was cheaper than paying for photocopying.
She appended a silent “h” to her real name since her first editor (Donald A. Wolheim) felt that “Cherry” sounded much too much like a romance author. She used her initials in order to disguise the fact that she was a female at a time when the vast majority of science fiction writers were men.
Her big break came in the year 1975 when Donald bought the two manuscripts she’d submitted to DAW Books, “Gate of Ivrel” and “Brothers of Earth”, with each getting published in 1976. These books earned her immediate recognition and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in the year 1977.
“Brothers of Earth” was the first time a book of hers found an ending and truly worked, since she had made contact with Donald at DAW, found he was interested, and was able to write for a specific editor whose body of work and sort of story that she knew. This was a good match. These were characters that she had invented when she was around thirteen years old. So it was a long time favorite of her untold stories, and wound up being the first in print.
In the year 1979, “Cassandra” won the Best Short Story Hugo, and she quit her teaching job in order to write full time.
Her writing has encompassed all kinds of science fiction and fantasy subgenres and includes just a few shorter works of non-fiction. Her novels have been translated into Hungarian, French, Lithuanian, German, Czech, Japanese, Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Latvian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Slovak. She’s also translated several published works of fiction from French into English.
Her protagonists typically try to uphold existing social norms and institutions in the service of the greater good as the antagonists typically try to subvert, radically alter, or exploit the predominant social order for their own selfish gain. She uses the theme of the outsider finding his (or her) own place in society and how different individuals interact with The Other.
A number of Cherryh’s works focus on political and military themes. An underlying theme in her work is an exploration of gender roles. Her characters reveal both weaknesses and strengths regardless of what their gender is, although her female protagonists are depicted as being especially determined and capable, and many of her male characters are shown to be abused, damaged, or otherwise vulnerable in someway.
She lives with science fiction and fantasy writer and artist Jane Fancher, near Spokane, Washington. She enjoys traveling, skating, and regularly making appearances at science fiction conventions. Other hobbies include photography, pond-building for koi (she runs a marine tank and can plumb just about anything), planetary geology, and physics. David A. Cherry, her brother, is a science fiction and fantasy artist.
“Foreigner” is the first novel in the “Foreigner” series and was released in 1994. The groundbreaking book which launched Cherryh’s eponymous space opera series about first contact and all its consequences.
It’d been close to five centuries since the starship Phoenix, which was lost in space and desperately trying to locate for the closest G5 star, and had encountered the planet of the atevi. Law was kept by the use of registered assassination, war became inevitable after humans and a faction of atevi established a working relationship, and alliances were defined by individual loyalties and not geographical borders, on this planet. It was a war which humans didn’t have any chance of winning on this planet so many lightyears from home.
Now, almost two hundred years after this conflict, humanity’s traded its advanced tech for peace and some island refuge which no atevi are ever going to visit. Then the only human that the treaty allows into atevi society gets marked for a hitman’s bullet. The work of a single isolated lunatic? The interests of some particular faction? Or is this the consequence of a human’s fondness for a species that has got fourteen different words for betrayal and none for love?
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10 Responses to “C.J. Cherryh”
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My encounter with Merchanter’s Luck over 40 years ago set me on a wild chase to devour everything I could find of yours. I live in a state of continual bated breath awaiting your next treasure drop. Thank you so much! You write for those who love to think.
I was in my local bookshop in Falmouth, Cornwall, looking for a new author, desperate to find something that didn’t follow the usual bland, formulaic wallpaper style that so many other writers seemed hell bent on producing. Pride of Chanur was at that time only just recently published and on display in the shop’s sci-fi and fantasy section. The cover artwork was of a cat-like creature with a spacecraft in its mouth. I saw this and thought the worst, despite reading the blurb on the back, so I put the book back, but then thought a moment more and decided not to do the book/cover/judge routine. I turned to the first page, first chapter, first paragraph. By the time Pyanfar Chanur was partway down the docking access tube and unexpectedly meeting Tully coming the other way, I was hooked. I was hooked on her style of writing; the way the characters and their surroundings grew and became so easily real and believable and the effortless way Cherryh seemed to transport me to that place and that moment. Before I knew it I’d read most of the first chapter before I’d even thought to pay for the book.
C.J.Cherryh has been my absolute favourite author ever since, whose work I have now had the pleasure of reading for over 40 years. I still get the exact same massive buzz of excitement when I find out a new book of hers is on its way. My everlasting thanks to C.J. Cherryh for the pure joy she has brought with her writing.
Ms. Cherryh, I discovered your work in 1978 or ‘79, The Faded Sun trilogy and have been hooked since. For more than 40 years, you’ve been my favorite author and I’ve read most of what you’ve written. I’m reading the Faded Sun for the third time and find them just as impactful. Thank you for decades of enjoyment!
I was first introduced to CJ Cherryh when I purchased “Wave Without a Shore” at a yard sale for 10c 40 years ago. After consuming it, I went to the library to search for more and found the Chanur series. (I am ashamed to say how long it took me to figure out what “gfi” was!) I waited YEARS for her books to come out in audio and now own 38 of them. If you haven’t started reading them yet, just DO IT!
In my long life I have read thousands of books. Of all those books, my favortie authors are you, Robert A Heinlein and Andre Norton. On that select list you are #1. Your imaginative and thoughtful stories have filled my life with joy, sorrow, thrills, eager anticipation and wonder. You are simply amazing and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking me on so many incredible adventures.
You deserve every accolade you received. My favorites are the Foreigner and Change series. I am an older retired and disabled military adult and I sincerely ask you to not only continue those series but to also ensure that audio books are made available for those of us that need that type of media in order to fully enjoy your work. Also, there are many of us who were socially isolated due to health issues long before the Covid-19 outbreak and it’s books both written and particularly audio books that provide any enjoyment or escape from chronic pain or loneliness. God bless you for caring about your readership.
Please ignore Dal Allen regarding his/her comment about your fabulous “Foreigner” series having peaked!!! I own them all in 1st Edition Hardbound and cannot wait for the 22nd one to get here!!! When do you think it will be out? Incidentally, I just noticed you were born in St. Louis, Missouri. I lived in St. Louis from Christmas break of my 6th grade year until 1972 when I was transferred business-wise to Omaha, Nebraska. My wife, Sharon, and I were married in St. Louis and had our first house and first baby there. Love your work…PLEASE KEEP IT GOING!!! I BUY EVERYTHING YOU PUBLISH!!!
Love you C.J. ! Gate of Ivrel blew my mind &
been a admirer ever since.Loved the Foreigner series but think it’s time to move on, after rebuilding the station & traveling to meet other races it seems to have peaked( like to see you revisit Chanur world.How do you “enjoy dinosaurs”?
Spokane is in Washington, the state, not Washington DC.
When is the next Foreigner book coming out. Loved all your books but the Foreigner series is my favorite.