C. J. Cherryh

The Hugo Award-winning classic sci-fi novel, now available in a trade edition. The Beyond started with the Stations orbiting the stars nearest Earth. The Great Circle the interstellar freighters traveled was long, but not unmanageable, and the early Stations were emotionally and politically dependent on Mother Earth. The Earth Company which ran this immense operation reaped incalculable profits and influenced the affairs of nations. Then came Pell, the first station centered around a newly discovered living planet. The discovery of Pell's World forever altered the power balance of the Beyond. Earth was no longer the anchor which kept this vast empire from coming adrift, the one living mote in a sterile universe. But Pell was just the first living planet. Then came Cyteen, and later others, and a new and frighteningly different society grew in the farther reaches of space. The importance of Earth faded and the Company reaped ever smaller profits as the economic focus of space turned outward. But the powerful Earth Fleet was sitll a presence in the Beyond, and Pell Station was to become the last stronghold in a titanic struggle between the vast, dynamic forces of the rebel Union and those who defended Earth's last, desperate grasp for the stars.

While the world of the atevi fragments into two antagonistic political camps, eight-year-old Cajeiri, the heir of Tabini-aiji--and the first atevi to have an understanding of the humans--becomes a target for those who oppose his father's rule, in the ninth volume in the Foreigner series. Reprint.

Two surprising allies have emerged to aid the embattled ruler in a struggle he must win: Cefwyn's two young sons. Aewyn Marhanen is the prince destined to rule. Aewyn's half-brother, Elfwyn Aswydd-the bastard son of the king and the sorceress Tarien Aswydd-has spent years unaware of his parentage, yet now it is his time to emerge and claim the gifted birthright he's been denied for so long. But a dark, sinister magic has crept close to the young man and seized hold of the kingdom. Nothing is as it seems, as the bonds of family strain against the powerful forces that would see them undone-and the battle is joined to unmask and destroy the malevolence that threatens to unhinge the king's peaceful and fragile reign.

The eighth novel in Cherryh's Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences... Exhausted from a two-year rescue mission in space, the crew of the starship Phoenix return home to find disaster: civil war has broken out, the powerful Western Association has been overthrown, and Tabini-aiji, its forceful leader, is missing. In a desperate move, paidhi Bren Cameron and Tabini's grandmother Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager, along with with Cajeiri, Tabini's eight-year-old heir, make planetfall and succeed in reaching the mainland. The brilliant and forceful Ilisidi seeks refuge at the estate of an old ally, and Tabini-aiji arrives at the door. As word of Tabini's whereabouts circulates, clans allied with Tabini descend upon the estate, providing a huge civilian presence that everyone involved hopes will deter impending attacks by the usurpers. But as more and more supporting clans arrive, Bren finds himself increasingly isolated, and it becomes clear that both his extremely important report of alien contact in space, and even his life, rest on the shoulders of only two allies: Ilisidi and Cajeiri. Can one elderly ateva and and eight-year-old boy--himself a prime target for assassination--protect Bren, a lone human involved in a civil war that most atevi believe he caused? The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Pretender is the 8th Foreigner novel, and the 2nd book in the third subtrilogy.

Two hundred years after a group of humans had lost a war to the atevi, Bren Cameron, the only human allowed into the atevi society, realizes that he must forge a bond between the two seemingly incompatible species. Reprint. PW. K.

This omnibus contains the first three novels in C. J. Cherryh's Chanur series: Pride of Chanur, Chanur's Venture, and The Kif Strike Back. This classic adventure series features interstellar politics, a spacefaring fugitive, and first contact with a strange race known as "humans." No one at Meetpoint Station had ever seen a creature like the Outsider. Naked-hided, blunt toothed and blunt-fingered, Tully was the sole surviving member of his company of humans―a communicative, spacefaring species hitherto unknown―and he was a prisoner of his discoverers and captors―the sadistic, treacherous kif―until his escape onto the hani ship The Pride of Chanur. Little did Tully know when he threw himself on the mercy of the crew of The Pride that he put the entire hani species in jeopardy and imperiled the peace of the Compact itself. This seemingly defenseless fugitive held information which could prove the ruin or glory of any species at Meetpoint Station, and whomever Tully allied with would stand to gain power and riches beyond imagining. For with Tully came the key to opening trade with a previously unknown sector of space -- a sector of space controlled by a race called "humans". And what began as a simple rescue attempt would soon blossom into a dangerous game of interstellar politics where today's ally could become tomorrow's executioner, and where methane breathers become volatile wild cards playing for stakes no oxy breather could even begin to understand....

Stranded on a distant planet that abounds with fertile farmland, human colonists appear to be in paradise. But all the native animals communicate by telepathy, projecting images that drive humans mad. Only Nighthorses stand between civilization and madness. When a flare of human emotion spreads to all the horses, chaos erupts.

The Hugo Award-winning SF saga is now available in one complete trade paperback edition, containing Cyteen: The Betrayal, The Rebirth and The Vindication. "A psychological novel, a murder mystery and an examination of power on a grand scale, encompassing light years and outsize lifetimes."--Locus.

A futuristic tale of governmental coverups, betrayal, and murder follows the belter Pollard as he tries to determine if his partner's space flight training accident was a mishap or attempted murder.

Asteroid miners Bird and Ben encounter an adrift ship in an asteroid belt that's inhabited by a half-crazy spacer named Dekker. When they tow the ship, they find their livelihoods--and their lives--in deadly danger. Proves that high-tech science fiction need not sacrifice literary values.--Publishers Weekly.