• (Meetpoint) Brothers of Earth by C J Cherryh

    From James Nicoll@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jan 7 14:12:27 2025
    Brothers of Earth (Hanan Rebellion, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

    Castaway Kurt Morgan will live the rest of his life among the humanoid
    nemet. The rest of Morgan's life might not be long. Nemet know humans
    as would-be conquerors and brutes. Why trust Morgan?

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/when-the-rains-came-tumbling-down
    --
    My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
    My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
    My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
    My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

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  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to James Nicoll on Tue Jan 7 08:49:33 2025
    On 7 Jan 2025 14:12:27 -0000, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:


    Brothers of Earth (Hanan Rebellion, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

    Castaway Kurt Morgan will live the rest of his life among the humanoid >nemet. The rest of Morgan's life might not be long. Nemet know humans
    as would-be conquerors and brutes. Why trust Morgan?

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/when-the-rains-came-tumbling-down

    Although /some/ of her series make sense and might even be
    intentionally set in the same future, I suspect that others are the
    result of the publisher's wanting every book to be in a Series.

    I don't recall /ever/ believing that /Brothers of Earth/ and /Hunter
    of Worlds/ had anything in common except the author.

    A lot of mine were SFBC editions, some quite early. Indeed, my first
    CJ Cherryh was a genuine series: The Faded Sun. After that, anything
    she wrote was a mandatory purchase/read.

    Being this tight with SFBC may or may not have affected availability.
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don_from_AZ@21:1/5 to Paul S Person on Tue Jan 7 21:35:28 2025
    Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:

    On 7 Jan 2025 14:12:27 -0000, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:


    Brothers of Earth (Hanan Rebellion, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

    Castaway Kurt Morgan will live the rest of his life among the humanoid >>nemet. The rest of Morgan's life might not be long. Nemet know humans
    as would-be conquerors and brutes. Why trust Morgan?

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/when-the-rains-came-tumbling-down

    Although /some/ of her series make sense and might even be
    intentionally set in the same future, I suspect that others are the
    result of the publisher's wanting every book to be in a Series.

    I don't recall /ever/ believing that /Brothers of Earth/ and /Hunter
    of Worlds/ had anything in common except the author.

    A lot of mine were SFBC editions, some quite early. Indeed, my first
    CJ Cherryh was a genuine series: The Faded Sun. After that, anything
    she wrote was a mandatory purchase/read.

    Being this tight with SFBC may or may not have affected availability.

    The only thing I have read of Cherryh's was many years ago. I started
    "The Faded Sun: Kesrith" I think it was, and kind of bounced off it. The "Mri"(?) seemed like Fremen or jihadists in robes and swords, and I just couldn't get into it. But as I say, it was many years ago, and I may be mis-remembering. She has been around a long time and written many books,
    and seems to be popular still, so maybe I should try something of hers
    again.

    --
    -Don_from_AZ-

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid on Wed Jan 8 08:46:44 2025
    On Tue, 07 Jan 2025 21:35:28 -0700, Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> wrote:

    Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:

    On 7 Jan 2025 14:12:27 -0000, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:


    Brothers of Earth (Hanan Rebellion, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

    Castaway Kurt Morgan will live the rest of his life among the humanoid >>>nemet. The rest of Morgan's life might not be long. Nemet know humans
    as would-be conquerors and brutes. Why trust Morgan?

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/when-the-rains-came-tumbling-down

    Although /some/ of her series make sense and might even be
    intentionally set in the same future, I suspect that others are the
    result of the publisher's wanting every book to be in a Series.

    I don't recall /ever/ believing that /Brothers of Earth/ and /Hunter
    of Worlds/ had anything in common except the author.

    A lot of mine were SFBC editions, some quite early. Indeed, my first
    CJ Cherryh was a genuine series: The Faded Sun. After that, anything
    she wrote was a mandatory purchase/read.

    Being this tight with SFBC may or may not have affected availability.

    The only thing I have read of Cherryh's was many years ago. I started
    "The Faded Sun: Kesrith" I think it was, and kind of bounced off it. The >"Mri"(?) seemed like Fremen or jihadists in robes and swords, and I just >couldn't get into it. But as I say, it was many years ago, and I may be >mis-remembering. She has been around a long time and written many books,
    and seems to be popular still, so maybe I should try something of hers
    again.

    IIRC, that one ends with the remaining specimen's escape, aided by a
    human [1]. The second deals with their return to their home world, in
    which the human is trained to be mri and introduces the regul. And the
    effect that seeing burned-out world after burned-out world as the mri
    retrace their ancestral path has on the humans accompanying the regul.
    The third deals with the final confrontation, when regul/humans attack
    the home world itself. A home world which has long been in stagnant
    decline.

    That said, "fremen" isn't that far off as an analogy, for they, too,
    have a history (they spent time on Salusa Secundus, from whence the
    Sardaukar come). But "ninja warrior" would probably be closer, at
    least for the male.

    [1] The Wikipedia summary suggests I may be mis-remembering. And I may
    be misrembering a lot of it, if the summary is correct. Perhaps a
    re-read would not be a bad idea.

    As if I needed an excuse to re-read CJ Cherryh!
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chris Buckley@21:1/5 to Paul S Person on Fri Jan 10 15:03:17 2025
    On 2025-01-07, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    On 7 Jan 2025 14:12:27 -0000, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:


    Brothers of Earth (Hanan Rebellion, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

    Castaway Kurt Morgan will live the rest of his life among the humanoid >>nemet. The rest of Morgan's life might not be long. Nemet know humans
    as would-be conquerors and brutes. Why trust Morgan?

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/when-the-rains-came-tumbling-down

    Although /some/ of her series make sense and might even be
    intentionally set in the same future, I suspect that others are the
    result of the publisher's wanting every book to be in a Series.

    I don't recall /ever/ believing that /Brothers of Earth/ and /Hunter
    of Worlds/ had anything in common except the author.

    A lot of mine were SFBC editions, some quite early. Indeed, my first
    CJ Cherryh was a genuine series: The Faded Sun. After that, anything
    she wrote was a mandatory purchase/read.

    Being this tight with SFBC may or may not have affected availability.

    I agree, I never saw any relationship between her first two novels and
    I don't think she did either at the time. I met Cherryh at the only
    SF convention I ever attended, just after _Hunter of Worlds_ was
    published. She talked about her upcoming series and a common
    technological background that she wanted to work with, but not that
    everything was the same universe.

    Cherryh is probably my favorite author, with many more of her books on
    my Favorite bookcase than any other author (though neither of the
    first two is there). I think I have all of her books except her
    translations. Even with that background, though, I wonder how James
    is going to get through this project. I really don't see that the 22
    books of the _Foreigner_ series is worth the effort of
    reading/rereading and writing a review for each book. A
    bit of a waste of James' talents. The series as a whole may be worth
    several reviews, but the theme doesn't change throughout, just
    incremental developments. Still, James is managing to review Japanese
    manga with much the same problem, so perhaps...

    Chris

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From James Nicoll@21:1/5 to alan@sabir.com on Fri Jan 10 16:42:39 2025
    In article <lucr5lF9316U2@mid.individual.net>,
    Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:
    On 2025-01-07, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    On 7 Jan 2025 14:12:27 -0000, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:


    Brothers of Earth (Hanan Rebellion, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

    Castaway Kurt Morgan will live the rest of his life among the humanoid >>>nemet. The rest of Morgan's life might not be long. Nemet know humans
    as would-be conquerors and brutes. Why trust Morgan?

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/when-the-rains-came-tumbling-down

    Although /some/ of her series make sense and might even be
    intentionally set in the same future, I suspect that others are the
    result of the publisher's wanting every book to be in a Series.

    I don't recall /ever/ believing that /Brothers of Earth/ and /Hunter
    of Worlds/ had anything in common except the author.

    A lot of mine were SFBC editions, some quite early. Indeed, my first
    CJ Cherryh was a genuine series: The Faded Sun. After that, anything
    she wrote was a mandatory purchase/read.

    Being this tight with SFBC may or may not have affected availability.

    I agree, I never saw any relationship between her first two novels and
    I don't think she did either at the time. I met Cherryh at the only
    SF convention I ever attended, just after _Hunter of Worlds_ was
    published. She talked about her upcoming series and a common
    technological background that she wanted to work with, but not that >everything was the same universe.

    Cherryh is probably my favorite author, with many more of her books on
    my Favorite bookcase than any other author (though neither of the
    first two is there). I think I have all of her books except her
    translations. Even with that background, though, I wonder how James
    is going to get through this project. I really don't see that the 22
    books of the _Foreigner_ series is worth the effort of
    reading/rereading and writing a review for each book. A
    bit of a waste of James' talents. The series as a whole may be worth
    several reviews, but the theme doesn't change throughout, just
    incremental developments. Still, James is managing to review Japanese
    manga with much the same problem, so perhaps...

    I thought I'd sample some of the Foreigners but not review all of them.
    If I do one Cherryh a month, it will probably take me over a year to
    get to them....



    --
    My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
    My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
    My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
    My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to Chris Buckley on Fri Jan 10 08:59:36 2025
    On 10 Jan 2025 15:03:17 GMT, Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:

    On 2025-01-07, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    On 7 Jan 2025 14:12:27 -0000, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:


    Brothers of Earth (Hanan Rebellion, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

    Castaway Kurt Morgan will live the rest of his life among the humanoid >>>nemet. The rest of Morgan's life might not be long. Nemet know humans
    as would-be conquerors and brutes. Why trust Morgan?

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/when-the-rains-came-tumbling-down

    Although /some/ of her series make sense and might even be
    intentionally set in the same future, I suspect that others are the
    result of the publisher's wanting every book to be in a Series.

    I don't recall /ever/ believing that /Brothers of Earth/ and /Hunter
    of Worlds/ had anything in common except the author.

    A lot of mine were SFBC editions, some quite early. Indeed, my first
    CJ Cherryh was a genuine series: The Faded Sun. After that, anything
    she wrote was a mandatory purchase/read.

    Being this tight with SFBC may or may not have affected availability.

    I agree, I never saw any relationship between her first two novels and
    I don't think she did either at the time. I met Cherryh at the only
    SF convention I ever attended, just after _Hunter of Worlds_ was
    published. She talked about her upcoming series and a common
    technological background that she wanted to work with, but not that >everything was the same universe.

    Cherryh is probably my favorite author, with many more of her books on
    my Favorite bookcase than any other author (though neither of the
    first two is there). I think I have all of her books except her
    translations. Even with that background, though, I wonder how James
    is going to get through this project. I really don't see that the 22
    books of the _Foreigner_ series is worth the effort of
    reading/rereading and writing a review for each book. A
    bit of a waste of James' talents. The series as a whole may be worth
    several reviews, but the theme doesn't change throughout, just
    incremental developments. Still, James is managing to review Japanese
    manga with much the same problem, so perhaps...

    The _Foreigner_ series is, basically, a soap opera. There is no
    conclusion possible (except to just stop). Well, short of having the
    Humans show up and vaporize the planet, anyway.

    But even without them, there are a /lot/ of novels. An interesting
    idea might be to trace the concept of the Azi from, say, /Serpent's
    Reach/ to /Regenesis/. There are quite a few books, listed in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azi_(clone)]. This page exhibits a lot
    of doubt as to whether or not it should exist, but just ignore that
    and keep scrolling down.
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From James Nicoll@21:1/5 to psperson@old.netcom.invalid on Fri Jan 10 17:04:03 2025
    In article <4oj2ojlu1lbm3iacgkdvjrtk1kdggqkkl4@4ax.com>,
    Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    On 10 Jan 2025 15:03:17 GMT, Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:

    On 2025-01-07, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    On 7 Jan 2025 14:12:27 -0000, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:


    Brothers of Earth (Hanan Rebellion, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

    Castaway Kurt Morgan will live the rest of his life among the humanoid >>>>nemet. The rest of Morgan's life might not be long. Nemet know humans >>>>as would-be conquerors and brutes. Why trust Morgan?

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/when-the-rains-came-tumbling-down

    Although /some/ of her series make sense and might even be
    intentionally set in the same future, I suspect that others are the
    result of the publisher's wanting every book to be in a Series.

    I don't recall /ever/ believing that /Brothers of Earth/ and /Hunter
    of Worlds/ had anything in common except the author.

    A lot of mine were SFBC editions, some quite early. Indeed, my first
    CJ Cherryh was a genuine series: The Faded Sun. After that, anything
    she wrote was a mandatory purchase/read.

    Being this tight with SFBC may or may not have affected availability.

    I agree, I never saw any relationship between her first two novels and
    I don't think she did either at the time. I met Cherryh at the only
    SF convention I ever attended, just after _Hunter of Worlds_ was
    published. She talked about her upcoming series and a common
    technological background that she wanted to work with, but not that >>everything was the same universe.

    Cherryh is probably my favorite author, with many more of her books on
    my Favorite bookcase than any other author (though neither of the
    first two is there). I think I have all of her books except her >>translations. Even with that background, though, I wonder how James
    is going to get through this project. I really don't see that the 22
    books of the _Foreigner_ series is worth the effort of
    reading/rereading and writing a review for each book. A
    bit of a waste of James' talents. The series as a whole may be worth >>several reviews, but the theme doesn't change throughout, just
    incremental developments. Still, James is managing to review Japanese >>manga with much the same problem, so perhaps...

    The _Foreigner_ series is, basically, a soap opera. There is no
    conclusion possible (except to just stop). Well, short of having the
    Humans show up and vaporize the planet, anyway.

    But even without them, there are a /lot/ of novels. An interesting
    idea might be to trace the concept of the Azi from, say, /Serpent's
    Reach/ to /Regenesis/. There are quite a few books, listed in >[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azi_(clone)]. This page exhibits a lot
    of doubt as to whether or not it should exist, but just ignore that
    and keep scrolling down.

    I am going to mostly stick to chrono order, which is a bit interesting
    where the Azi are concerned. In Cyteen, the idea seems to have been
    that the azi were a temporary measure, a peculiar institution that
    would surely whither away as the economy and population matured. But
    Serpents Reach, which predates Cyteen by a decade, makes it clear
    that's never going to happen. Slaves to order are just too convenient.



    --
    My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
    My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
    My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
    My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to Nicoll on Sat Jan 11 08:45:36 2025
    On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 17:04:03 -0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James
    Nicoll) wrote:

    In article <4oj2ojlu1lbm3iacgkdvjrtk1kdggqkkl4@4ax.com>,
    Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    On 10 Jan 2025 15:03:17 GMT, Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:

    On 2025-01-07, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    On 7 Jan 2025 14:12:27 -0000, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote: >>>>

    Brothers of Earth (Hanan Rebellion, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

    Castaway Kurt Morgan will live the rest of his life among the humanoid >>>>>nemet. The rest of Morgan's life might not be long. Nemet know humans >>>>>as would-be conquerors and brutes. Why trust Morgan?
    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/when-the-rains-came-tumbling-down

    Although /some/ of her series make sense and might even be
    intentionally set in the same future, I suspect that others are the
    result of the publisher's wanting every book to be in a Series.

    I don't recall /ever/ believing that /Brothers of Earth/ and /Hunter
    of Worlds/ had anything in common except the author.

    A lot of mine were SFBC editions, some quite early. Indeed, my first
    CJ Cherryh was a genuine series: The Faded Sun. After that, anything
    she wrote was a mandatory purchase/read.

    Being this tight with SFBC may or may not have affected availability.

    I agree, I never saw any relationship between her first two novels and
    I don't think she did either at the time. I met Cherryh at the only
    SF convention I ever attended, just after _Hunter of Worlds_ was >>>published. She talked about her upcoming series and a common >>>technological background that she wanted to work with, but not that >>>everything was the same universe.

    Cherryh is probably my favorite author, with many more of her books on
    my Favorite bookcase than any other author (though neither of the
    first two is there). I think I have all of her books except her >>>translations. Even with that background, though, I wonder how James
    is going to get through this project. I really don't see that the 22 >>>books of the _Foreigner_ series is worth the effort of
    reading/rereading and writing a review for each book. A
    bit of a waste of James' talents. The series as a whole may be worth >>>several reviews, but the theme doesn't change throughout, just >>>incremental developments. Still, James is managing to review Japanese >>>manga with much the same problem, so perhaps...

    The _Foreigner_ series is, basically, a soap opera. There is no
    conclusion possible (except to just stop). Well, short of having the
    Humans show up and vaporize the planet, anyway.

    But even without them, there are a /lot/ of novels. An interesting
    idea might be to trace the concept of the Azi from, say, /Serpent's
    Reach/ to /Regenesis/. There are quite a few books, listed in >>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azi_(clone)]. This page exhibits a lot
    of doubt as to whether or not it should exist, but just ignore that
    and keep scrolling down.

    I am going to mostly stick to chrono order, which is a bit interesting
    where the Azi are concerned. In Cyteen, the idea seems to have been
    that the azi were a temporary measure, a peculiar institution that
    would surely whither away as the economy and population matured. But
    Serpents Reach, which predates Cyteen by a decade, makes it clear
    that's never going to happen. Slaves to order are just too convenient.

    Which is the sort of thing I had in mind: the slow revelation that the
    Azi are, in fact, fully human, just controlled by Tapes.

    /Serpent's Reach/ instead focuses on genetic engineering, with the
    slaves have shorter lives than the "normal humans", but both being
    engineered. Only the People in Charge are actual humans with an
    indeterminate lifespan.

    In /Port Eternity/ they are playthings of the Rich and Self-Indulgent
    -- doomed to be put down at 30 (not just die from genetic
    programming), when they are no longer beautiful. But then something
    strange happens.

    And so on, until /Cyteen/ finally reveals the Awful Truth: that they
    are as human as anyone else; it is the Tapes that make the difference.

    /Forty Thousand in Gehenna/ had a major clue that that was the case,
    BTW.
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chris Buckley@21:1/5 to Paul S Person on Sat Jan 11 23:38:54 2025
    On 2025-01-11, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 17:04:03 -0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James
    Nicoll) wrote:

    In article <4oj2ojlu1lbm3iacgkdvjrtk1kdggqkkl4@4ax.com>,
    Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    On 10 Jan 2025 15:03:17 GMT, Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:

    On 2025-01-07, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    On 7 Jan 2025 14:12:27 -0000, jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote: >>>>>

    Brothers of Earth (Hanan Rebellion, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

    Castaway Kurt Morgan will live the rest of his life among the humanoid >>>>>>nemet. The rest of Morgan's life might not be long. Nemet know humans >>>>>>as would-be conquerors and brutes. Why trust Morgan?
    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/when-the-rains-came-tumbling-down >>>>>
    Although /some/ of her series make sense and might even be
    intentionally set in the same future, I suspect that others are the
    result of the publisher's wanting every book to be in a Series.

    I don't recall /ever/ believing that /Brothers of Earth/ and /Hunter >>>>> of Worlds/ had anything in common except the author.

    A lot of mine were SFBC editions, some quite early. Indeed, my first >>>>> CJ Cherryh was a genuine series: The Faded Sun. After that, anything >>>>> she wrote was a mandatory purchase/read.

    Being this tight with SFBC may or may not have affected availability. >>>>
    I agree, I never saw any relationship between her first two novels and >>>>I don't think she did either at the time. I met Cherryh at the only
    SF convention I ever attended, just after _Hunter of Worlds_ was >>>>published. She talked about her upcoming series and a common >>>>technological background that she wanted to work with, but not that >>>>everything was the same universe.

    Cherryh is probably my favorite author, with many more of her books on >>>>my Favorite bookcase than any other author (though neither of the
    first two is there). I think I have all of her books except her >>>>translations. Even with that background, though, I wonder how James
    is going to get through this project. I really don't see that the 22 >>>>books of the _Foreigner_ series is worth the effort of >>>>reading/rereading and writing a review for each book. A
    bit of a waste of James' talents. The series as a whole may be worth >>>>several reviews, but the theme doesn't change throughout, just >>>>incremental developments. Still, James is managing to review Japanese >>>>manga with much the same problem, so perhaps...

    The _Foreigner_ series is, basically, a soap opera. There is no >>>conclusion possible (except to just stop). Well, short of having the >>>Humans show up and vaporize the planet, anyway.

    But even without them, there are a /lot/ of novels. An interesting
    idea might be to trace the concept of the Azi from, say, /Serpent's >>>Reach/ to /Regenesis/. There are quite a few books, listed in >>>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azi_(clone)]. This page exhibits a lot
    of doubt as to whether or not it should exist, but just ignore that
    and keep scrolling down.

    I am going to mostly stick to chrono order, which is a bit interesting >>where the Azi are concerned. In Cyteen, the idea seems to have been
    that the azi were a temporary measure, a peculiar institution that
    would surely whither away as the economy and population matured. But >>Serpents Reach, which predates Cyteen by a decade, makes it clear
    that's never going to happen. Slaves to order are just too convenient.

    Which is the sort of thing I had in mind: the slow revelation that the
    Azi are, in fact, fully human, just controlled by Tapes.

    /Serpent's Reach/ instead focuses on genetic engineering, with the
    slaves have shorter lives than the "normal humans", but both being engineered. Only the People in Charge are actual humans with an
    indeterminate lifespan.

    In /Port Eternity/ they are playthings of the Rich and Self-Indulgent
    -- doomed to be put down at 30 (not just die from genetic
    programming), when they are no longer beautiful. But then something
    strange happens.

    And so on, until /Cyteen/ finally reveals the Awful Truth: that they
    are as human as anyone else; it is the Tapes that make the difference.

    /Forty Thousand in Gehenna/ had a major clue that that was the case,
    BTW.

    James, Paul, a reminder that you need to be very careful when discussing
    the history of the azi and including _Serpent's Reach_. As you perhaps
    know, the blurbs from the XenBureau that appear before the text of
    _Serpent's Reach_ are crude fakes and not reliable at all.

    Like all reasonable fakes, they contain a lot of truthful information.
    But there are a lot of inconsistencies with reality, with the dates
    being the most glaring example - they're off by hundreds of years!
    Another Union colony predating FTL??? It's even internally
    inconsistent, it being stated the colony government has been stable
    for hundreds of years while the planet was discovered less than 100
    years previously.

    It is theorized that Alliance espionage folks concocted the fake
    blurbs to reinforce an original claim to the Hydri Reach system for the Alliance, which they obviously didn't have. How the Alliance spies
    managed to get their fake blocs of text to precede the actual text of
    Cherryh's manuscript as it moved between her and her publisher is
    unknown, but it was quite an accomplishment!

    Luckily Cherryh clarified the situation in the ending material of
    _Angel with the Sword_ (1985). In the course of giving the background for
    the shared world of Merovingen, she gave a timeline which filled in
    some of the background for the Mri wars and then _Serpent's Reach_.

    The Mri wars started in 2703. The Mri managed to capture the capital
    of the Alliance in 2730. That was Haven, where the forces founded by
    Signy Mallory moved it after taking over Pell and the Alliance earlier.
    The war ended in 2743 after Haven was retaken, with the Konstantine constitution government being restored 6 years later.

    The Hydri Reach system was first discovered in 2623 according to the
    timeline, though it's not clear when word made it back to
    Union/Alliance since that crew was eaten. The events of _Serpent's
    Reach_ began in 3141 with the fall of the Meth-Marans.

    I noticed a minor inconsistency still remains. Raen tells an azi that the
    azi have existed there for 700 years: I don't see how that fits any time line, since it puts colony establishment in the mid 2400's. Perhaps she was wrong.

    In any case, when talking about azi history, the establishment of the
    permanent azi of Hydri come from a time 200-400 years after _Cyteen_.
    So the "temporary" status of azi in the early years including _Cyteen_
    had gradually changed into a permanent feature; they were too useful.

    Although I might note that it is perhaps wrong to attribute the
    permanence of azi in Hydri to Union as a whole. Cherryh has said in this
    time frame Union was extremely fragmented. The central Union
    government was interested only in what went into or out of star
    systems - what went on inside was up to the system. Since Hydri
    probably started as an illegal Union offshoot settlement (later ceded
    to the Alliance), the colony probably could get away with anything.

    Chris

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