Port Eternity by CJ Cherryh

This horror novel by CJ Cherryh deals with the crew and owner of a spaceship getting drawn into a parallel dimension unexpectedly. There, they face a new reality outside their context, and attempt to come to terms with both it and themselves. But this situation makes extreme this daily need to fit into new situations. Partly inspired by Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, in the Arthurian tradition of English literature, Cherryh shows humans both choosing and being forced to overcome their nature. The setting is a 50-50 blend of science fiction and fantasy, with the ship and its inhabitants forced by the ship-owner’s fancy to rely upon swords and spears for defense, but all while wearing a spacesuit and worrying about their life support.

The thing out there in the dark, the chaos waiting whenever we might grow confused enough to let our senses slip back into the old way of seeing⁠—this living with death so close to us, was that different than our lives ever were? And didn't born-men themselves live that way, when they deliberately took chances?

Cherryh establishes the horror tone through three methods: the context of the environment, the situation the ship finds itself in, and the reactions of the characters. The unfamiliarity of the environment, where time and space is distorted, sets up the mind-states of the characters. Their usual modes of reference and perception do not apply here, and that understandably makes them edgy and unsure and scared. Especially for the Azi characters—all but two on the spaceship. But even the born-men, Dela and Griffin, are unable to integrate these new experiences using past experiences, so they too are off-kilter. Second, as soon as they arrive, their technology doesn’t work, and something starts banging on the walls, trying to get in. What a great horror setup—a small group of people trapped in a spaceship outside of time and place, and something is trying to get in. But the reactions of the characters seals the tone of the story by their fright. They react to every new impetus with surety that all is bad. They gather decorative swords and spears for the coming battle. They plan defensive tactics. And the situation, from their perception, keeps going from bad to worse. Unexpected entrance into an FTL jump state, trapped against a huge object in same space, key technologies not working in same space, knowing they will die once they run out of food or air, something trying to get in, then trying harder to get in. And their personal struggles also go from bad to worse as the Azi tape-training frays and their psych-sets—the blueprints for an Azi’s reactions and priorities—shift out of whack. While the overall plot shows people trapped in the unknown with the unknown trying to break in, the chapter-by-chapter scenes show the characters unravelling through rivalries, thefts, conflicts, and misunderstandings.

If this was death, I kept thinking, remembering my lady's mad hypothesis, if this was death, I could wish we had not tangled some other creature up in our dying dream. But I believed now it was no dream, because I could never have imagined that sound out of my direst nightmares.

Cherryh doesn’t use traditional horror language though, or does so very sparingly. And that strong technique does two things: it gives those words power when they do come, and it doesn't show the monster, it let’s the readers themselves come to grips with the tone, let’s them create the worst possible situation from the sketchy context that Cherryh’s brilliant, narrow, third person voice achieves. Cherryh only mentions what the characters see, know, and imagine, instead of letting the narrator fill in some blanks. This serves to keep the mystery fresh and intense, and gives the reader plenty of room to imagine for themselves. This doesn’t read like Lovecraft, where I sometimes feel like he’s talking directly to the reader trying to convince them that what he is writing is really horror—Lovecraft seems to tell way more than he shows, and he’s not the greatest at telling. Rather, Cherryh shows the characters’ mind-states and let’s the reader draw their own conclusions.

Terror had acquired a kind of mundanity, had become an atmosphere, a medium in which we just went on functioning, and did what we were supposed to do until somehow our Death would get to us. I reckoned that tired as I was it might not even hurt much.

But two things intrude on this effective horror tone: Cherryh’s other works, and the title. The title implies that there is some port, some space station, known to somebody as Port Eternity. It turns out in the book that this is more Flying Dutchman or Avalon than Port Mahon or Port Angeles. So, the whole time that the characters are struggling to come to grips with their new location snugged up against this giant torus stuck in jump-space, I’m thinking, “This must be Port Eternity.” And it is. So, the tone is subverted somewhat by the title. But also, Cherryh’s other works always contain some optimism. As she says herself about her own writing, “I am an overall optimist. I believe that if there’s something broke, we can fix it, we just have to apply ourselves to that problem. And that is the attitude behind my writing.” So, while the writing seemed to try and convince me that everybody was going to die, I thought that Cherryh wasn’t likely to do that. Rather than waiting to see if some of the characters were going to survive, I was waiting to see how they would. And that’s a big difference.

Old was not a territory I had mapped out for myself.

The Azi: these Cyteen-produced humans are second class slaves in Cherryh’s universe, killed at 40 as their personalities start to fray. And the common conception of their soullessness keeps the novel firmly in the realm of science fiction. Their struggles to adapt are made more poignant by the context of their built-men status, instead of being born. Most of the ship are Azi and are made for one specific purpose—friendly encouragement, sex, accounting, and ship’s crew. When the ship stops working, and the mistress takes a lover, and they’re stuck in a place where accounts no longer matter, these Azi are stripped of their purpose. And the book is from the point of view of one of the Azi, her voice guides the reader throughout. Elaine is the focus. So their struggle lies front and center of the narrative. I’ve wanted an Azi-centric book since reading Cyteen, but by reading the Merchanter books first, I missed out on this one and regret that. This book gives me understanding about them, but transcends fan-service by the deep discussion of the theme of this book—humans overcome and adapt.

When I thought of it, I couldn't answer why we tried. For our born-men, that was very simple, and not so simple, if there was no hope. It was not in our tapes⁠—to fight. But here was even Vivien, clutching a spear across her knees, when I knew her tapes were hardly set that way. They made us out of born-man material, and perhaps, the thought occurred to me, that somewhere at base they and we were not so different⁠—that born-men would do things because it leapt into their minds to do them, like instincts inherent in the flesh. Or the tapes we had stolen had muddled us beyond recall.

The theme here explores whether the Azi are human or not, and it comes down firmly on the side of human. All of the characters, but especially the Azi, are pushed and prodded out of their comfort zones, are forced to change, are forced to grow. Vivien, the one who has the most pride in her work, is the last to grow, but even she does. The Azi and the born-men both overcome their natures. And this is something that is relatable—the Azi were created for specific purposes, yet their new situation subverts some of those purposes. From being drug- and tape-addicted, stable humans, they grow into an independence that the reader watches happen, with all the awkward growing pains of adolescence along the way. Some of these changes they choose—love, fighting, new tasks to complete. And some are forced on them—creativity, tactical thinking, the natures of the people they were named after from Arthurian legend, and desperate struggles for life and death. To some extent, that’s an explanation of life—a series of changes to our psychology, some forced on us and some chosen. In the end, these Azi subvert their tape-training, their psych-sets, and start identifying themselves as human. The born-men also overcome their natures, but due to the focus of both the novel and Cherryh’s voice being on the Azi, the two born-men characters’ changes occur on the outskirts of the story.

She struggled to be more than she was and narrow as she was, it threatened her sanity.

One thing she does brilliantly here is bait and double hook. For instance, the crisis of Mordred is baited when all the other Azi react to learning the Arthurian legends they are based off of, but Mordred seems not to. When he sends communications to the outsiders, expressly against orders, like he’s been asking to do for the whole book up to that point, this causes conflict on the ship. So I was baited and hooked. But wait, there’s more, says Cherryh as the crisis of the unknown trying to gain entry comes to a head at the same moment. This rapid shift in focus works better than a cliffhanger when done well, and Cherryh does it well here.

In one part of my mind⁠—I think it was listening to the wrong kind of tapes⁠—I was glad of a chance like that, that we might do some terrible damage to our attackers and maybe put a hole in the side of the wheel that they would remember, all those scaly bodies going hurtling out among our fragments. But in the saner part of my mind I did not want to die. And oh, if they should get their hands on us. Hands. If they had hands at all. If they thought anything close to what we thought. If, if, and if. Bang. Thump.

Cherryh’s effective foreshadowing shows another strength here. Sticking with the same crisis of Mordred, the existence of the tape shows the possibility well before he views it. The changes evident in the other Azi who viewed it show that change in him is likely. Then his insistence on attempting communication throughout shows the possibility of his going off the rails in that way. Foreshadowing allows his actions to be unsurprising—I mean, it’s surprising that he sends the message against orders, but it’s not a surprise from completely outside the realm of possibility. Then, his beliefs about the unknown outsiders are hinted at throughout the novel, so when the outsiders show up and some are not the horrific beasts the characters have been dreading, it doesn’t come off like a deus ex machina, rather it comes off like a misunderstanding. This is brilliantly summed up by Griffin, the warhawk, turning to Mordred, who advocated for communication and diplomacy throughout, and simply stating, “You were right.” That statement, supported by Cherryh showing that the actions of the unknown invaders do not line up with pirates bent on murder, allows the whole switch at the end from horror to happily-ever-after epilogue to be read as well within the realm of possibility. This isn’t deus ex machina, just a long-term misunderstanding on the part of stressed-out characters taken well outside their comfort zones with no means to immediately communicate to the unknown outsiders.

I knew my lady Dela, that she had high purposes, and she meant to be good, but as with her lovers and her hopes, sometimes she and her high purposes had fallings-out.

So is this a great book? Yes and no. It certainly shows Cherryh effectively trying something new in her writing—horror—and has a deep applicable theme that I appreciate immensely. But at the same time, Cherryh’s tendency to have the context affect and be affected by the characters of her story shows up mostly at the end, and the setting of this cut-off society out in an alternate universe seals this whole story up into a sort of not mattering. Maybe it’s that I didn’t care about these characters as much as some others, but I’m left thinking that this was a fun experiment, successful at what it tried to do, but I appreciate Cherryh’s writing more when she’s talking more directly about humans in a large society, not this small society of nine people. Is that me or her? I’m not sure. But I’ll keep reading her works and try to find out.

Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov

Foundation’s Edge is the first novel in the series that started with short stories, then progressed into novellas. This is one of those books where the author relies upon the conclusion. I mean Trevize travels around, a master of intuition, and the thrust of the travels changes over time: go to Trantor, locate the Second Foundation, find Earth, find Gaia. And then, at the end, it’s all revealed to be a ruse as Gaia has been guiding his path all along, towards itself. This is a dangerous tactic—it can easily leave the reader feeling like the story missed the point and started way too late in the book, like the earlier chapters are a waste of time. Yet here, I don’t feel that way. I feel that Asimov knows where the story is going, and guided it there in a meandering but intentional path. Though the destination remains hidden, the amount of foreshadowing taking place makes me think Asimov had a firm grip on the overall tale, if not all of the details.

The foreshadowing mostly pertains to three aspects: Trevize’s gift of intuition, the Second Foundation’s manipulation, and the two mysteries slowly revealing themselves as the same mystery—the Second Foundation’s conundrum and Gaia. These aspects are brought up consistently, with the reader clearly knowing more than the characters, leading the reader to understand that something is going to happen with these foreshadowings. It creates a sense of anticipation, a kind of wondering how Asimov is going to tie all these together—although the flip side is wondering how in the world these three relate at all. Yet, a little trust in the author leads to an interesting, if far-fetched conclusion.

The conclusion clearly lays out three options. The novel already laid out these three options, though the purpose of laying them out is unknown until the decision point comes.
—First, the Foundation and “normal” parts of the Galaxy. Seldon’s Plan is to allow the Foundation to take over the galaxy, to establish a Galactic Empire, to shorten the period of dark age warring between the first and second Empires. Trevize, Pelorat, Gendibal, and Branno start the book off, and they clearly explain the Foundation, its goals, the negatives of its current state, and the early drive of the book—a belief in the existence of the Second Foundation leading two of the four desperately trying to search for it. They then travel off to explore part of the Galaxy outside of, but still related to, the Foundation, which shows the context of the issue at hand.
-—Second, the chapters of the Second Foundation show the complacency, lack of drive, and factional infighting of the Second Foundation. Instead of this almost all-powerful guardian deus ex machina—like they were portrayed in the earlier books—the Second Foundation is revealed to be breaking down. With no real crises to struggle against, their energy turns against themselves. However, their underlying beliefs show them becoming masters of the First Foundation when the time is ripe, a sort of mental aristocracy that can guide the ship of the war-born Empire.
—Third, when Pelorat and Trevize finally reach Gaia, the third option is fully explored. The planet Gaia is a hive-consciousness composed of animate and inanimate beings, all contributing to the sentience of the whole. Two avatars of Gaia drive this exploration through Asimov’s typical explanatory dialogue: Bliss and Dom. Gaia abhors early death. Since everything is a part of Gaia, the necessary death of things provides the necessary sustenance of everything else. In other words, Bliss may die, but her death and burial will feed the micro-organisms that compose the super-organism of Gaia. Her eating the plant life of Gaia is a sort of reincarnation of that plant life because it is already a part of Gaia, as is she, so it’s a transformation more than a death. This hyper-spiritualism, ecological consciousness, and hive-mindedness is the third option. Gaia’s goal is to transform into Galaxia, or a similar super-organism spanning the whole Galaxy.

By the time the decision point comes, I understand that the issue under discussion is the future of humanity. More Empire of force, a new Empire of the mind, or a wholistic embracing of all life, animate or inanimate, as a part of a larger whole wholeness. And that’s a bit farfetched, not only in the equating of the “lifespan” of rocks with rocks having a “life”. What themes can I draw out of this for my day-to-day life? This question still rolls around in my mind. Biographically, this is about the time Asimov was becoming an advocate for ecological issues facing Earth, and the book is a call to ecological action to prevent catastrophe. But the inbred intuitive superpower Trevize has is still slightly weak, and tends to undercut this ecological theme a bit (as well as the simply strange aside about the Eternals?). Trevize himself doesn’t understand why he chooses Gaia as the path forward for humanity (hence the next book in the series, of course). He’s the intuitive master of the Galaxy, which is explained in-world as “he has mysterious mental powers that would have been Second Foundation worthy.” And sure, maybe that works for some people, but it is a little weak to me, and in a book that relies so much on the conclusion, a little dissatisfaction with the conclusion magnifies across the whole novel. The future of humanity is a strong theme, but of the three options given, only one could really come to pass as far as we know—mentalist mind powers and super-organistic hive-minds are unknown at this time, in terms of human experience.

But I don’t want to belittle this book too much. I liked it. That opening is sensationally good. Trevize and Branno facing off over the question of the Second Foundation, the mayor in her moment of triumph, the councilman in his quest to question the nature of reality. Both are conflicted characters who are misunderstanding each other—and this is fairly rare for Asimov, who relies on same-sounding characters whose conflict comes from without. Here the conflict comes from within and it’s even explored a little. This is a better Asimov than anything I’ve read. It still has the conspiracies, the wild logical leaps, the backfilling of information, and the political intrigue, but by trying to work with actual characters, it all works better because I understand them more.

The feeling I have throughout isn’t, “where is Asimov going with this mess?” but, “I wonder what happens next?” And I think this feeling comes from the effective fore-shadowing, and strong chapters that are almost self-reliant. In a way, each chapter is a short story and this novel is a linked series of inter-related short stories telling an overarching story, like a pulp fiction novel. It’s a strong tactic that Asimov uses to its strengths here: he doesn’t even mention what the overall story is until everybody arrives at Gaia to let Trevize choose. That technique of telling three distinct stories that are all coming closer together in each chapter is one that I have enjoyed in Iain M Banks’ works, and Asimov does it well here too. So, I think the two main reasons Asimov’s novel doesn’t fail through a disconnect between the overall story and what’s actually on the page through most of the book are these: each chapter excites—especially that first one—in its own right; the foreshadowing is effective and consistent; and the reader can see the characters growing ever closer together physically and can easily sense that some showdown is coming. I think Asimov mainly avoids the dangers of these types of tales through these three techniques.

In all, this is a good book. Almost great, but the late switch to this far-fetched future of humanity through hyper-spiritualistic environmental consciousness is a bit too jarring because the switch is predicated on Trevize Intuition Man, the superhero. Intuition being an aspect that is mentioned consistently in service of foreshadowing the story, but never really explored. However, after “The Mule” and “Search by the Foundation” were such strong stories, this strong story made me genuinely excited to hit the next book in the series. Asimov has gotten better as a storyteller, and he was already strong to begin with. As a writer, well, he still leaves a lot to be desired. But for pulp fiction, he actually tackles some interesting themes and ideas. So I’m happy I’ve read this novel.

Merchanter's Luck by CJ Cherryh

1. This short, 208 page novel resembles none of the other three Cherryh novels that I have read so far—Downbelow Station, Cyteen, and Regenesis—but it also sort of does resemble them.
—This is an adventure novel. It’s a straightforward narrative with rising tension and a resolution after the crisis. It’s almost pulp fiction and can certainly be read and enjoyed as such. However, being Cherryh, it still delves deeply into the psychology of Sandor and Allison. They’re both merchanters, the smallest and biggest sort, respectively. Sandor has lost his family and is alone on his ship, going crazy in the blackness of space from: the stress of no job prospects, mounting debt, less and less friendly places being open to him, the constant threat of pirates or Mazianni, his past haunting him, and, most of all, simple loneliness and paranoia—some of which is justified throughout the novel. Allison is under different stresses: overcrowding, lack of advancement opportunities, self-doubt through knowing she is untested, and routine boredom. Cherryh focuses on the most applicable psychological stresses: loneliness and self-doubt. That psychological focus and discussion matches the amount of adventure in here, making the whole as literary as it is all tied into that pulp plot and pacing.
—No intro-info-dump accosts the reader’s first lines. And this absence makes me really happy because I was worried that all of Cherryh’s books would feature that oh so awkward of openings. But here, she fills in the backstories of the main and minor characters skillfully throughout the novel—taking moments when they are alone with their thoughts to reflect on how their situation now differs from their past lives. For instance, the whole story of Sandor/Ed’s dead family is not fully revealed until the last chapter, but most of it is revealed early and revisited throughout with additions to the story every time it comes up. It’s a great tactic to show Sandor as a character really well: he keeps reliving the horror of his past, and as it comes up again and again, with more detail each time, the reader is shocked and sympathetic to this character who is actually quite unlikable. He’s understandable, and his reactions are logical from his screwed up base, but I wouldn’t want to hang out with him—until maybe the end, that is.
—In these two ways, and others like them, I see Cherryh as both writing to her strengths and trying new things in this book. It adheres to Cherryh’s typical storytelling, but also deviates from it in a way that provides an appreciable variety. The new things she tries are done well, and the old things too.

2. This is a book of contrasts. Wealth and poverty are paired together in Sandor who owns his own merchantship outright and alone, but has no money to speak of. Skill and inexperience pair in Allison who is trained and practiced in simulations, but untested in reality. The main characters cross the Line between Union and Alliance, and then Alliance and Mazianni. Through these contrasting points, the novel is able to show how some contrasts strengthen the whole, some weaken them, and most do both. This theme feels complex enough to support a longer story than Cherryh chose to tell, but even in this short length she creates some interesting conclusions that got my mind working.

3. The writing here is great. I’ve already praised the storytelling tactic of revisiting Sandor’s family’s death—a tactic engrossing to both Sandor and the reader. But I think it works so well because the writing is a retelling where each retelling adds details and wrinkles the repetition to make the whole story more and more horrifying. It echoes itself throughout the novel and it’s a relief when the resolution hints that Sandor can start a new family. I like repetition in poetry—Yeats does it so well—and this is repetition in prose done right. It’s not a direct repetition, but a re-explanation, like when a teacher restates something the students don’t understand at first. I fully intend to steal this writing.

4. One thing I didn’t enjoy is the stupendous achievement Sandor makes in time from Viking to Pell. After it’s done, Cherryh explains how impressive a feat it is. But before that, I didn’t understand how impressive. Cherryh could have done more to explain during the journey what is so unusual about the action: but with the worldbuilding not setting the stage appropriately and her voice, that tight third person narrative (explained in point three of my notes on Regenesis), she is backed into a corner here because Sandor is tranquilized during the speed run, so he isn’t quite able to make sense to the reader. We also have not yet seen a normal journey of this length, so it’s unclear what makes this one unusual until it's over. I thought maybe this was how all journeys went when a ship had a solo crewmember. She does a good job of explaining it later, especially with the journalists' and Reillys' responses, but some more foreshadowing would’ve helped here.

5. However, Cherryh's use of her voice is not a mistake in the rest of the novel. For instance, when Sandor is on the dock at the start, there isn't that much description given because he isn't thinking about it—at least not until he chases Allison into an unfamiliar, expensive bar the likes of which he has never seen. But then, when he gets back on his ship, the intricate way that Sandor is shown thinking about his ship both describes it and communicates his utter love for it. Sandor's ship is a big part of the whole novel's plot: Allison wants it, Mallory wants it, Australia wants it, Sandor wants to keep it, Viking dock wants to detain it, Pell wants to shoot it out of the sky, etc. And Cherryh has foreshadowed the importance of the ship itself through this contrast in description at the very start. By the time Allison gets her idea, I've well understood the importance of the ship and Cherryh doesn't need to explain it to me. Wonderful stuff.

6. I enjoy this novel a lot. It’s a quick read, an exciting adventure, but there’s still some political backstabbing, interesting psychological discussion, and enough intrigue to prove that this is a Cherryh novel. It’s solid and engaging. It taught me that repetition in prose can be a really strong tactic to build characters and stories around.