I found the book to have very
entertaining storytelling.
The premise is that
interstellar trade is active in (at least) this corner of the galaxy. A number
of different species from various worlds participate. One species, the Kif,
are more unsavory in their activities. A Kif starship happens to encounter a
human spacecraft. Humans are unknown to the interstellar community (and humans
have been unaware of other species). The Kif think it is to their advantage to
corner the market on trade with this new species (or perhaps to dominate the
new species). The Kif seize the human crew and attempt to coerce the humans
into teaching the Kif the human language, so the Kif can begin their
exploitation of humans. While the Kif ship is at an interstellar trading space
station, one of the humans, Tully, escapes from the Kif ship and seeks refuge
on the Pride Of Chanur, a ship of the Hani species.
The captain of Pride Of
Chanur has both some inclinations to believe a sentient being such as Tully
should not be held against his will by the Kif, and also sees potential gain
for her people by establishing relations with a new species. The Kif figure
out Tully is on Pride Of Chanur and threaten them to give Tully to them. What
follows is an interstellar chase, hide and seek in the fringes of a star
system, deal-making with other species, power struggles between different clans
of the Hani, etc.
The story is from the perspective
of the Hani crew of the Pride Of Chanur. The crew is all female. The Hani
seem to have a generally humanoid shape, but with some feline features (fur,
claws, cat-like ears). But they also have “beards”. They also have a unique
culture. However, they are far from being incomprehensibly alien – they may
not be so different from genetically modified humans who have developed their
own culture on another planet in the future.
It's a different variant on a
first contact theme. First of all, it's alien races first encountering humans
- mainly from the aliens’ point of view. From the aliens' point of view it's
not the first time they've seen another intelligent species - the aliens
already have trade relations between a number of races. (However, it does seem
to be the first time humans have met aliens.) Also, the encounter is not in
the form of one of the most common first contact scenarios (a happy-from-the-start
beginning to interspecies friendship, alien invasion, or a focus on solving the
puzzle of interspecies communication.) The interspecies communications
problem is a minor part of the story. (The interstellar community already has
systems to learn new languages by having outsiders indicate their words for
what is shown to them in pictures and such.) The aliens aren’t explorers or
scientists, but traders. (It’s never made clear what the nature of the humans’
space travel was.)
What Pride Of Chanur is about
is how different races and factions within races respond to the discovery of a
new intelligent species. What do the various groups want to do with the
humans? What are they willing to do to humans and others to achieve it? How
would an interstellar confederation deal with a new race and the conflicts that
arise as a result of the new race appearing?
Stating it that way may leave
the impression the book is about politics, debates, negotiations, etc. Much of
the book is about the good Hani aliens (with their human guest) making a run
for it away from the bad Kif aliens. Trying to outrun the bad aliens through
interstellar jumps, trying to hide from them among the debris on the outskirts
of a star system, making the necessary deals with other races along the way, trying
to anticipate what the others will do, etc.
Portraying Aliens
As the saying goes, "The
thing about aliens is - they're alien." This presents an SF
writer with a paradoxical situation. If alien characters are truly unlike
humans in thought, emotion, culture, etc. - then there will be little for a
human reader to identify with or care about. Furthermore, the human reader may
find the alien character to be incomprehensible, which is OK for a minor
character whose role it is to be incomprehensible, but in the case of major
characters it can make the book as a whole confusing.
C. J. Cherryh actually
avoided explicitly anthropomorphizing the alien Hani characters, but implicitly
they walked upright on two legs, had two arms with hands, had shoulders with a
head on top of them and the head had a similar arrangement of eyes, ears, nose
and mouth. The humanoid form was modified with cat-like fur, ears and claws.
It was also unlike terrestrial humans in that the females had
"beards". Their behavior was also something a human culture might
have - especially one of various interstellar human societies of the future.
Perhaps, my misgivings resulted from a dissonance between Cherryh's efforts to
make some distinctions between humans and aliens, yet having so much in
common. As I indicated above, there is no simple solution to this issue, so I
don't mean to blame Cherryh for not solving it. I merely want to say the book
reminded me of this long-standing dilemma that we need to be aware of in order
to create the best SF we can.
.