1. Heavy Time (1991) and Hell Burner (1992) are contained in the omnibus Devil in the Belt. These are the only two books in the sprawling Alliance-Union series that are set in the Sol system. They introduce the growing difference between stationers, Sol Station Corporation (the Earth Company) and the asteroid miners. Earth wants to keep complete control of stations and miners. Hell Burner concentrates on the development of the Earth Company Fleet that is to be deployed against Union forces in the upcoming war. Both these books develop several characters that demonstrate the difference that has grown among the various factions. We also begin to understand the power of the Fleet.
2. Downbelow Station (1981). Pell Station is one in a series of stations built as stepping stones to space because of lack of planets suitable for colonization. Pell Station orbits Pell, a world containing a sentient species, the Hisa, a gentle non-technical species. Downbelow Station is the small human colony on the planet. Earth is more and more out of touch with the reality of the stations, and the Earth Company Fleet is meant to enforce Earth’s will. This leads to the prolonged Company War with the breakaway Union, based at Cyteen, another hospitable world. This book demonstrates the further differences among stationers, merchanters and the Earth Company. It also demonstrates the growing divide between the Earth Company and the Fleet, led by Mazian. Mazian continues to fight Union against Earth’s wishes, despite being reduced to seven ships. At the same time the merchanters are meeting to develop their alliance. Mallory, one of the Fleet captains, is the only captain to decide to defend the stations and the merchanter alliance, who want to trade with both Earth and Union stations. Pell becomes the dividing line between the two powers.
3. Merchanter’s Luck (1982) also contained in the omnibus Alliance Space. This book follows the life of a trader, Sandor, who is the sole remaining owner of a decrepit freighter and tries to run it either by himself or with a hire-on at the Union stations where he trades. This book illustrates the problem that has arisen with the renegade fleet led by Mazian, now called Mazianni. Sandor gets entangled with a family that is interested in getting involved in the possibility of a revived earth trade. Most of this book involves the situation between established merchanter family culture, station culture and the Mazianni who rob freighters of freight and personnel.
4. Rimrunners (1989). Here we find a spacer left by mistake on Pell Station and her desperate search for a position on a ship. We see more clearly the difference between spacers and stationers. We also see the debilitating result to small stepping-stone stations with the discovery of FTL capability. The war between Earth and Union is over although Mazianni are still in action. Our protagonist, Bet, gets into considerable trouble before she ends up as crew on a merchanter ship which, unusually, is not a family ship.
5. Tripoint (1994). First, it must be explained that Tripoint is a system of three “dark” masses orbiting each other. Tripoint serves as a staging jump-point on some of the commercial station-to-station hops, for example, Pell-Viking and Pell-Mariner. This book illustrates the problems that can arise between merchanter ship families. One of the families drops goods at a place at Tripoint for the Mazianni and picks up other goods, while the second ship is trying to catch them at something illegal. Unfortunately, our protagonist is caught in the middle of the fight between the families. Here we get more insight into what the jump or FTL flight is like.
6. Finity’s End (1997). This book involves an eighteen-year-old son of a Finity’s End woman who had been left at Pell to give birth during the war, and who finally committed suicide when war did not allow her family to retrieve her. The boy,Fletcher, who had been raised by the stationer court system, finally found a place working with the Hisa on Pell, but was removed when his family came back to get him. Problems ensue. This book looks at the cultural difference of stationers, merchanter families and those who love planet life. It also goes into the problem of smugglers and the black market, from which the Mazianni resupply themselves. Work is going forward, under Finity’s End, to have merchanters, Union and stationmasters cooperate to stop the smuggling to be able to transition to peacetime and legitimate trade. This is also a coming of age book, following Fletcher from an angry youth to a responsible adult. It also delves into an understanding of Hisa as opposed to humans. I found this book particlularly well-done in developing several of the characters.

1. Alliance Rising written with Jane S. Fancher (2019) This book follows on to "Finity's End" published 22 years later. Even though I read that book many years ago, it all came back. In this book we are on Alpha Station, the only station with some non-FTL communication with Earth. Earth is still feeling superior, and Alpha Station is deteriorating because all goods from Earth are going to build a large FTL ship based on stolen plans of the ship "Finity's End." However, the plans were the original flawed plans so the ship can't fly properly and just sits there, eating up resources. The Earth based persons who came to build it are attempting to take over Alpha Station when the original Finity's End shows up with a proposal to unite all merchant families. Tensions ensue. The Alpha Station Director Abrezio, no friend of the Earth persons who are attempting to take over, has come into possession of an FTL point near Earth and is trying to decide what to do with the information. This is the typical Cherryh dilemma of a good person trying to make decisions when there seem to be no good ones. I only hope the next book in what I presume is a series, comes soon.

1. Cuckoo’s Egg (1985) also published in the omnibus The Deep Beyond. An interesting book that takes place on a planet inhabited by the shonun. The two main characters are Duun, shonun, and Haras (Thorn), human. Most of the book involves the development of Haras on an isolated country estate under the guidance of Duun, who is a martial arts master (or its equivalent). Haras is the only human on the planet so the discipline Duun teaches him helps him survive meeting other shonun. We only find out near the end of the book where he comes from. This book develops the agony a person goes through as he discovers he is different from everyone around him.
2. Serpent’s Reach (1980) also published in the omnibus The Deep Beyond. The story takes place in the (Serpent’s) Reach, which is a group of planets quarantined by humans because of the insectoid sapients called the majat. However, humans have lived there for 700 years, developing very differently than the rest of alliance space. The humans in the Reach are divided into three kinds: the dominant long-lived Kontrin; the normal life span Beta, who had been programmed to obey the Kontrin, and the azi, who are lab-made and tape-taught with a 40 year life span. (This limited life span was not the norm among azi on other Cyteen planets.) This story is that of Raen, a Kontrin whose family were designated mediators with the majat, but were killed in a takeover by another Kontrin family. She only survived because the majat hid her. In her long voyage toward revenge, she begins to realize that perhaps not all is well in the hierarchal arrangement of the Reach. She also realizes there are changes taking place among the four majat hives. We get to know more about the azi, who have only been referred to in other books as a horrible Cyteen product.
3. Forty Thousand in Gehenna (1983) also contained in the omnibus Alliance Space. This story of the settling of the planet Gehenna II gives us further insight into the azi mind. Most of the settlers were azi, and when the Cyteen ship never comes back with supplies, the settlers devolve into a more primitive lifestyle. The azi have children, who are not limited by the azi lab tapes that develop personalities and abilities. Many of the children learn to communicate with the indigenous beings, the calibans. Only after the original settlers have all died do any outsiders come back to the planet, and these are not Cyteen personnel, but rather from the Alliance. This is a very interesting story of how humans come to understand another way of thinking, and an acceptance by these humans of persons who mentally become more caliban than human. There is also the dichotomy, in the last part of the book, of the war-like and the peaceful humans and how the calibans relate to this.
4. Cyteen (1988). It is best to read this book after having read Forty Thousand in Gehenna. References are made to Gehenna although it is not central to the book. This book goes into the development of Cyteen and especially Reseune, the science independent territory on Cyteen that had developed the azi (and citizen) birthlabs and rejuvenation, extending the human life by several decades. This book is specifically about the life of Ariane Emory, the major scientist involved in the development of azis. It also follows the first 18 years of her replicate, of the same name. We are introduced to the internal politics of Cyteen and Reseune. We learn much more about the minds of azi and the citizens they are contracted to. There is more psychological analysis discussed than I ever wanted to know, but I plowed through it in order to understand the development of the various characters. This book gives us the Cyteen viewpoint after having read the Alliance viewpoint in all the previous books. Cyteen citizens weren’t necessarily bad; they just had a different viewpoint than did Earth or the Alliance.
5. Regenesis (2009). This book continues the story of Reseune and the politics of Cyteen. It starts a couple of weeks after Cyteen ends. It has two voices, that of the second Ariane (Ari) and that of Justin Warrick, the very sensitive and conflicted son of the person accused of killing the first Ariane. It was known he was not guilty, but it was all politics and ego. There is analysis, especially by Ari Two into the whole nature/nurture issue, which is long in development but still interesting. There is also a very tense standoff between Reseune and the military—and within the military. I wonder if the author plans to go on with this story, as there are some interesting possibilities concerning the second Giraud (the first had been the uncle of Ari Two.

These were the first books of C.J. Cherryh’s that I read, and I was hooked. Although this is part of the Alliance-Union universe, there is little reference to that universe and these can be read completely separately. The mri are a proud warrior race who have acted as mercenaries for the regul for thousands of years and for others before the regul. When the regul went to war with humans, the mri lost because of the different way of fighting. The regul gave the mri homeworld, Kesrith, to the humans, and eventually turned on the mri, attempting to destroy them. Two surviving mri, Niun and Melein, are thrown into a very tense association with a human soldier, Duncan. Together the three of them embark on a quest to explore the origins of the nomadic mri in hopes of saving the species from both regul and humans. I have always found fascinating books set in a desert setting, facing all the difficulties of this kind of climate. This and The Gene Wars universe were both set in this kind of situation. However, the real interest for me in this series is the at first reluctant decision by the human, Duncan, to become mri and his struggle to live this decision and the calm that eventually came with living the mri life. This is a theme that also runs through the Foreigner series, but this trilogy is so much more concentrated. I cannot recommend this trilogy enough.

1. Port Eternity (1982) - also published in the Alternate Realities (2000) omnibus. This novela takes place in subspace, where usually people were on trank to endure the FTL or subspace travel. The spaceship, The Maid, was pulled into this space-time continuum without trank. The owner of the ship, Lady Dela, had purchased all the azi crewing and staffing the ship. They had been made, through tape, into characters from the Camelot story. She and her lover Griffin were the only non-azi on the ship. The story follows their development and eventual rendevous with a large station existing in this continuum. In this story we see more clearly some of the misuse (or not?) of azi.
2. Voyager in Night (1984) - also published in the Alternate Realities (2000) omnibus. A small starship used for ore prospecting with a crew of three humans collides with an ancient alien ship. The crew of the alien ship are long dead but the ship's computers have been collecting beings of various species, replicating them (often multiple times) and these replications live and fight and die on the ship. This story follows the three humans and their various iterations.
3. Wave without a Shore (1981) - also published in Alternate Realities (2000) omnibus. An interesting story that takes place on an Alliance-side planet shared by humans and the alien Ahnit race. The humans have developed a belief system which doesn't even recognize the existence of the Ahnit, and furthermore, they don't even see them. There are even humans, those without jobs, who become figuratively invisible. If a person admits to seeing them, that person also become invisible. This is obviously an allegory of race, class and caste relations in our society. When space pirates burn the capital, the protaganist, Master Law, who has become invisible, manages to save the city, bringing reality back to the residents.

1. Brothers of Earth (1976) - also published in the At the Edge of Space (2003) omnibus. Kurt Morgan's ship is destroyed in a space battle with Hanan forces. He evacuates the ship and lands on an alien planet, home of the Nemet race. Morgan is rescued by one faction of the Nemet and becomes a part of their political and military struggles. He encounters a female human castaway who has become an important political figure in the society, but who has sided with those who would eradicate the nemet who aided Kurt. Lots of fighting and emotion.
2. Hunter of Worlds (1977) - also published in the At the Edge of Space (2003) omnibus. The story involves the dominant space-faring Iduve who live on huge space ships. On their space ship they have as servants/residents many Kallian (blue skinned) and Amaut (squat gray skinned). However, they bring on to their ship an outsider Kallian, Aiela, and a human, Daniel, for a project of their own. The story is mostly from the viewpoint of Aiela and is in itself quite good, comparing and contrasting four alien life views (including human) through mind-link. The one problem I had was the use of Iduve vocabulary (with a glossary), making it difficult for me to read. There must be a better way!

These take place in the opposite direction from Earth as the Alliance-Union worlds. Cherryh is at her best, in my opinion, developing the understanding of the linguistic and psychological barriers among the various non-human and human groups. As the characters are exposed to different cultures, they are pushed to probe other ways of thinking, making these books of particular interest to me. The Chanur are a spacefaring people that resemble lions, but only the females go into space. Human space borders Kif and Knnn territory, respectively aggressive and enigmatic species who trade with the Chanur. First contact with humans takes place when an ambitious Kif hakkikt (prince) captures a human exploration ship. The last surviving crew member, Tully, escapes while the Kif ship is docked at a station and winds up on The Pride of Chanur, and the series develops from this.

1. The Chanur Saga (2000) (“The Pride of Chanur”, “Chanur’s Venture” and “The Kif Strike Back”)
2. Chanur’s Homecoming (2001)
3. Chanur’s Legacy: A Novel of Compact Space (2001)

1. Trilogy arc 1: Foreigner (1994), Invader (1995), Inheritor (1996)
2. Trilogy arc 2: Precursor (1999), Defender (2001), Explorer (2003)
3. Trilogy arc 3: Destroyer (2005), Pretender (2006), Deliverer (2007)
4. Trilogy arc 4: Conspirator (2009), Deceiver (2010), Betrayer (2011)
5. Trilogy arc 5: Intruder (2012), Protector (2013), Peacemaker (2015)
6. Trilogy arc 6: Tracker (2015), Visitor (2016), Convergence (2017)
7. Trilogy arc 7: Emergence (2018), Resergence (2020), Divergence (TBP)

1. Hammerfall (2002)
2. Forge of Heaven (2004)