CJ Cherryh's cats in space.
4 stars
CJ Cherryh has been insanely prolific throughout her career and as a result I never really got round to either the Chanur or Foreigner books, despite having read most everything else. I dived into this with no preconceptions but I can't give an honest review without a brief disquisition on portraying alien races in fiction. Whilst I understand that the author has to give referents that readers can relate to, making aliens just be anthromorphised animals is a tad trite. In this case, the book is told from the viewpoint of a feline analogue (Decision at Doona has so much to answer for) and the only planetary biome described is suspiciously Terran like. This knocks me out of my willing suspension of disbelief as the odds of this are just astronomically against. I say this, accepting that this might just be a me thing. Apart from that, I enjoyed this. …
CJ Cherryh has been insanely prolific throughout her career and as a result I never really got round to either the Chanur or Foreigner books, despite having read most everything else. I dived into this with no preconceptions but I can't give an honest review without a brief disquisition on portraying alien races in fiction. Whilst I understand that the author has to give referents that readers can relate to, making aliens just be anthromorphised animals is a tad trite. In this case, the book is told from the viewpoint of a feline analogue (Decision at Doona has so much to answer for) and the only planetary biome described is suspiciously Terran like. This knocks me out of my willing suspension of disbelief as the odds of this are just astronomically against. I say this, accepting that this might just be a me thing. Apart from that, I enjoyed this. It had all the usual Cherryh motifs and tropes allied to a good story that pulled you along nicely. I will definitely be reading the rest so its a recommend. I will just have to deal with occasionally rolling my eyes at the cat people.
