An Old Star

Sep 2022
Alliance Rising – C.J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher – Daw Books, 2019
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Here's a mildly depressing fact: the Alliance-Union universe, one of my favourite SF settings, is now over 40 years old. I first came to it through the Chanur quartet, a first contact story told from the perspective of cat-like aliens. It was fun but I enjoyed the grittier SF psychodramas that followed - Downbelow Station, Cyteen, and particularly Rimrunners and Hellburner - rather more. These books dotted around the history of the rise of the Merchanter Alliance and its conflicts with the technically advanced but quasi-Nazi Union without ever resolving it one way or the other; this unfinished quality is clearly intended by the author as being closer to the messiness of true history than the neat narratives of epic fantasy or space opera, but is a little frustrating for the reader, who just wants to know what happens next. Sadly, this book, the first Merchanter-Alliance novel for many years, will not tell you.
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