At the Edge of Space

by C.J. Cherryh

Brothers of
The leader of the Hana was a Priestess-Ruler in a world of humanoid aliens. Yet she was more closely related to her human prisoner, Kurt Morgan, though their star nations had been bitter enemies for two thousand years. She granted Kurt Moragn his lfie, but for a that he remain indebted to his captors, immersed in an alien environment which threatened to drive him mad. Beset with doubts, Kurt accepted the terms of his capture and despite his misgivings became intrigued with his life.
 
For he shared something unique with his captor—both of them had survived the destruction of their worlds. And then they realized that the world on which they now lived was on the brink of a devastating war, and they were perhaps the only two sentient beings there who understood the ultimate sacrifice that might come from such a conflict. Could they save this world, or would they die with their adopted planet, humanity’s orphans at the edge of space
 
Hunter of
The Iduve were the most advanced spacefaring race in the galaxy. They traveled where they pleased in giant city-sized vessels, engrossed with their own affairs. The Iduve were humanoid, but they differed from Earth’s own humans in one significant they were pure predators incapable of human emotion.
 
Aiela was a world-survey officer who found himself abducted to serve the Iduve clanship Ashanome . Forcibly mind-linked with two other captives, life for Aiela became wholly dedicated to the service of his captors.
 
But then the Ashanome came to the world of Priamos, a war-torn planet caught in a struggle between humans and the alien race known as the amaut. When she discovered that her fugitive brother was hiding there, Chimele, leader of the Ashanome , was willing to sacrifice this entire world to destroy him. And Priamos’ only hope for survival lay with Aiela and his fellow captives…

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space Opera, Aliens

544 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 2, 2003

About the author

Currently resident in Spokane, Washington, C.J. Cherryh has won four Hugos and is one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed authors in the science fiction and fantasy field. She is the author of more than forty novels. Her hobbies include travel, photography, reef culture, Mariners baseball, and, a late passion, figure skating: she intends to compete in the adult USFSA track. She began with the modest ambition to learn to skate backwards and now is working on jumps. She sketches, occasionally, cooks fairly well, and hates house work; she loves the outdoors, animals wild and tame, is a hobbyist geologist, adores dinosaurs, and has academic specialties in Roman constitutional law and bronze age Greek ethnography. She has written science fiction since she was ten, spent ten years of her life teaching Latin and Ancient History on the high school level, before retiring to full time writing, and now does not have enough hours in the day to pursue all her interests. Her studies include planetary geology, weather systems, and natural and man-made catastrophes, civilizations, and cosmology…in fact, there's very little that doesn't interest her. A loom is gathering dust and needs rethreading, a wooden ship model awaits construction, and the cats demand their own time much more urgently. She works constantly, researches mostly on the internet, and has books stacked up and waiting to be written.

Reviews

[astaliegurec · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.0 out of 5 stars
Two Very Early Cherryh Stories in One
November 2, 2003

The two stories in this volume are totally independent of each other. In the forward, Cherryh tries to paper over this by saying in the vast reaches of human space, totally different things can be happening at the same time. In reality, these stories just have nothing to do with each other. Outside of being some of Cherryh's very earliest work, they have no business being in the same book. HOWEVER, from the point-of-view of price and of getting these books back in print, I think the publisher had a good idea in doing this. Each of the stories is interesting and about equally well done. If you haven't read these books, then this volume is a good way to get them both. Here are my individual ratings:
"Brothers of Earth" is Cherryh's first novel. It's an interesting book, but bears no resemblence to her later books. It's a fairly well written book that explores some interesting concepts. Unfortunately, the book doesn't really go anywhere. Specifically, the main character isn't pushing towards some kind of solution. He's essentially along for the ride. The end result is that things just happen and then the book ends. It's not a very satisfactory ending at all. If you're a die-hard Cherryh fan, I'd say you should read this book just because it's her first. It's not bad, but it's also not that good.
You can tell "Hunter of Worlds" is a very early C.J. Cherryh novel. The text is nowhere near as riveting as her later works. You can see where her later style comes from in this work, but it's really not fully present here. In general, it's an ok story. But, you never really buy into it fully. It's like you pick up in the middle of something and then put it away after something happens. You get an inkling of what the various races are like, how they behave, and what they're capable of, but it never really meshes into a consistent whole. You know that the races are different, but you really don't feel it in your bones about WHY they're different. I'm glad I read the book, but it's merely a shadow of Cherryh's later works.

[Rebeccah Leiby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This (Brothers of Earth) is Cherryh's first book, so its philosophical and political parables are perhaps more heavy-handed than they end up being in later works. But the world-building, character development, and quality of prose is equal to those in her more sophisticated / later works.

Ultimately, Brothers of Earth is a better story than Hunter of Worlds, in my opinion. But I think we get to see here the development of Cherryh as an early career writing: trying new things, experimenting with new methods of world building. BoE is fairly straightforward when it comes to the culture and language of its subjects; HoW is dramatically not. Its alien characters are beset by moral and ethical dilemmae confusing (intentionally so) to necessarily human readers; the reliance upon built language is so extreme that in some passages, every other word is alien. A full glossary of the tangled vernacular of three separate alien races lurks in the back of the book, and even a casual reader must refer to it constantly if there is to be any hope of comprehension. But I think this is more endearing than frustrating. In BoE, Cherryh plays largely with political and philosophical themes that have a clear direction; in HoW, she takes on much greater risk, makes bolder moves, delights in the intricacies of language- and world-building.

And I love the palpable joy she takes in compiling such a glossary (replete with pronunciations, declensions, exceptions, notes).

[Shi-Hsia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brothers of Earth is pretty good for a first novel (well, it's Cherryh's first novel...) The plot and the setting are pretty straightforward. Just an enjoyable read. Hunter of Worlds is edgier - the dominant characters in it are not the point-of-view character nor the human character but their iduve mistress. The iduve are a humanoid but ferocious species, stringent in their rituals and honour that barely keep them from ripping each other apart. Some other reviewers apparently found the use of made-up words annoying, but my experience was that it added to the sense of the iduve's alienness. My only problem is that the POV character himself comes across as just wimpy and chicken rather than a full person but with truly alien mindset and values.

[Chuck Mccarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked both stories, but the "Hunter of Worlds" is very dark, and the "Brothers of Earth" isn't too much better. But liked her style and the fact that she's established a believable culture for both stories.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the Edge of Space is a convenient package for two early C. J. Cherryh novels, Brothers of Earth (1976) and Hunter of Worlds (1977). Both are so far down the Alliance-Universe they almost fall out of it altogether. They are not as polished and efficient as her later work, but the essential elements of her world-building, character development, and style are already in place.

In Brothers of Earth, Kurt Morgan, the communications officer of a dying warship escapes to a planet inhabited by two indigenous humanoid races, one human from Kurt’s enemy culture, and several tribes of feral humans descended from previous refugees. To survive he must negotiate a complex and violent political environment. Even in this debut novel, Cherryh is adept at her trademark shifting 3rd-person narrative point of view.

In Hunter of Worlds, we meet the iduve. Descended from predators, they are Cherryh’s most chillingly alien species. They speak a language so strange that translation is impossible, so loose paraphrase is the only alternative. They have no word for concepts like love, hate, or friendship. If you do something right in their eyes, the best you can hope for is to be left alone.

Translation difficulties are at the heart of the novel. The iduve Chimele plans to take over a human world and needs to understand the inhabitants. He uses technology to link the mind of one of his client races to a human prisoner. No one enjoys the process, not even the iduve.

I would not be surprised to learn that the James S. A. Corey team had Hunter of Worlds somewhere in its collective subconscious when conceiving The Mercy of the Gods.

[Stephen Antczak · Rating 1 out of 5]

I almost gave up on the first book in this omnibus edition, but decided to forge ahead. However, the second book proved too much for me, and I found myself simply glancing at the pages as I turned them rapidly one after the other to get to the end. Finally, I skipped the last 2 chapters and read the last two pages so I could move on to something. else.

[Mely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought to reread since my copy of Brothers of Earth began falling apart the first time I read it. Yay for improvements in bookbinding technology!

[Lindig · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very obviously her early work.