C.J. Cherryh Books

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C. J. Cherryh is an American author that writes science fiction and fantasy. Born in 1943 in St. Louis, Missouri, her birth name is Carolyn Janice Cherry. She added an ‘H’ to her surname because her first editor thought that ‘Cherry’ had a much stronger association with romance than it did with science fiction and fantasy.

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Her decision to use initials can be attributed to the fact that science fiction was a male-dominated genre when she was starting. Cherryh attended the University of Oklahoma (Bachelor of Arts degree) and Johns Hopkins University (Master of Arts degree).

She eventually became a teacher at John Marshal High School in Oklahoma City. Her day job required Cherryh to teach Latin. But she was far more interested in history and religion.

She would indulge these passions during the summer by leading tours of ancient ruins in countries like Italy and England. She took inspiration from Roman and Greek mythology to concoct her stories.
The author was an avid writer by this point. She started telling stories at the age of ten. Cherryh was obsessed with the ‘Flash Gordon’ TV show. When the show was canceled, she responded to the loss by writing stories.

Rather than following in the footsteps of her peers, who started by writing short stories before jumping to full-length novels, Cherryh wrote several full-length novels before she turned her attention to short stories.

Initially, the publishing arena was not receptive to the author’s work. Some publishers went so far as to misplace the manuscripts she had sent to them. Back then, before computers became so common, it was cheaper to retype a manuscript from a carbon copy than it was to pay for photocopying.

Cherryh was so dedicated to her publishing dreams that she painstakingly retyped the manuscripts that had been lost and resubmitted them. Once her career took off, she became a prominent member of the DAW Books family. She has had the pleasure of publishing her novels with companies like Baen Books and Random House.

But DAW Books has a special place in her heart because of her relationship with Donald A. Wollheim, the company’s founder. When he bought her manuscripts, Cherryh felt like her books had finally reached their true destination.

Wollheim was such an important part of the author’s life that she would stay at his family home whenever she went to New York City. Among her fans, Cherryh had a reputation for creating incredibly detailed fictional settings.

Her worlds feel like real places with tangible cultures and traditions. She writes in the third person. Her narration only reveals the things the character sees.

C.J. Cherryh Awards

She has won John W. Campbell and Hugo awards. She has also been nominated for Nebula, World Fantasy, Philip K Dick, Prometheus, and British Fantasy Society Awards.

Best C.J. Cherryh Books

The author has a variety of interests, including figure skating, traveling, planetary geology, cosmology, and photography, to mention but a few. Cherryh’s best books include:

The Pride of Chanur: Tully was something new. The people of Meetpoint Station had never seen his kind before. While the other members of his company had perished, Tully had fallen prey to the sadistic kif.

But he had escaped, finding his way to The Pride of Chanur. But his relief was short-lived. Tully was no ordinary fugitive. He had a critical piece of information, the kind that could make or break the fortunes of any species that was fortunate or unfortunate enough to get their hands on it.

Invader: When the Phoenix abandoned them, a colony of humans had to forge a new life on the Atevi planet. It had taken two centuries but the colony had turned the world of the Atevi into their new home.

The return of the phoenix all these centuries later has only served to plant seeds of doubt and confusion. Bren Cameron wants to do his part to keep the peace between the humans and the Atevi. But he returned from his procedure in Mospheira too late.

Even though his government had recalled him, Bren learned, later on, that Deana Hanks had been sent in his place. Deanna hated the Atevi and Bren knew that his actions would destroy the stability they had worked so hard to establish.

His only option is to approach the phoenix, not as the human spokesman but as the representative of the Atevi, an act that could alienate him from his people.

When Does The Next C.J. Cherryh book come out?

C.J. Cherryh doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is Defiance and was released on October, 17th 2023. It is the newest book in the Foreigner Series.

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