First chapter might as well be Swahili. Keep going. This is an amazing trilogy in the end. ( )

Gets the full stars as no way I could stop reading. The humans have finally beaten the regul and as booty, get (among others) the planet Kesrith, also home to some of the mri warriors, in the employ of the regul. All three cultures struggle to comprehend one another, but most of the time the regul and humans understand one another (doesn't mean like one another) since both value rationality, logic, learning, etc even if in radically different ways. The mri are almost impossible to understand and are very misunderstood by both cultures. Enter SurTac Sten Duncan (essentially Special Forces, semi-autonomous etc) who ends up with the mri. Can't say more without spoiling. Wait, the mri have a somewhat symbiotic relationship with some semi-intelligent animals, the dusei (kinda like bears but way more complicated). The mri fit in the cherished Cherryh category with some traits that seem to fit the feline profile, but just barely in this case. Their culture is fascinating! ***** ( )

The Faded Sun trilgoy opens with volume 1: Kesrith.

This is a story of three space-faring races, (Human, Regul, and mri). In the midst of a three-pronged peace accord a lone human finds himself on the surface of a hostile planet, (Kesrith), thrown together with and imprisoned by a pair of mri that are on the run from both the treacherous Regul and their human enemies. Astonished to not be killed outright by the fierce mri warriors, and forced to accompany them as they search to escape from Kesrith, Sten Duncan begins to learn of their ways and codes. The mri, in turn, reach some small understanding of the humans who have recently brought their entire race to the brink of extinction.

This is an in-depth study of a 'Dances With Wolves' scenario. Cherryh handles it with ease, never flinching from the brutal reality of war and conflict while managing to find sympathetic harmonies even between enemies. The characters are complex and the plot convoluted but easy to follow due to the superior prose. Cherryh's ability to turn a simple phrase into a thing of beauty continues to impress. ( )

The war is over. In most cases, for most races, that would be a great news. But not for the mri of Kesrith - because the end of this war is marking the end of their species as well. Or so it looks anyway.

2202 years ago the mri had entered a contract with the regul to fight their wars - the regul cannot fight, the mri have a society that makes them the perfect soldiers. So the contracts were signed and since then, the mri had fought - against other mri or against the new treat - the humans. 43 years ago the old homeworld of the mri had been depopulated by the humans and the regul had moved their allies to Kesrith (by choice by the mri, despite it being a really bad world). And now, with the war over, this world will become human as well - which the mri are not even told until it is too late. The mri (which translates as the People) are nomads - not just in a world but amongst the skies - their homeworld is where their main she'pan and the Pana are - and it had moved more than once. Most castes are kept in the dark - just the she'pan knows the full history (and the Sen knows much but not all).

The novel opens with the end of the war. Niun, a kel'en of the mri is upset - he spent his whole life preparing for the war and now has no purpose. The novel is his story - which is also a story of a dead race and a story of a relationship going very wrong.

The wars were known as the mri wars despite the fact that the mri were there as soldiers for the regul. The regul are ready to deal with anyone - while the mri and the humans despise each other - they were the ones doing the killing and dying.

Cherryh creates two races that are so different from each other and from humanity - the slow moving, never lying, never forgetting regul and the caste-based mri. The three castes of the mri are separate to the point of not talking to each other and their society is based on honor and rules - even when the species is dying.

And from the stars are coming the humans - Stavros, the new governor of Kesrith (who had lost his world to the mri) and his aide Sten Duncan. They come with the regul and need to live amongst then (and then Duncan ends up with the mri - the usual Cherryh's way of exploring the different and the alien).

It is a slow novel, most of it is preparation and staging for the whole trilogy - and as such that is a first for Cherryh. Gate of Ivrel could be continued but was a complete story. This novel ends on a cliffhanger - and with everyone positioned where they need to be to make the story - the regul that cannot lie but can deceive, the humans just arriving and the mri on the brink of extinction. And under all that is the fact that noone really understand anyone else - the cultures are so different that any attempt to understand the rest ends up with wrong conclusions.

The world building, the races and the languages are built as well as usual - they are consistent and alien. And utterly fascinating. ( )

Long neglected on my bookshelves, The Faded Sun trilogy has been tackled, and the first book, Kesrith, completed late last night. As with most of CJ Cherryh's works, it starts slow, and builds until you suddenly realize you do not want to put it down, that you HAVE to keep reading to find out what happens.

Kesrith is a desert world inhabited by two distinct and extremely different sapient species: the mri and the regul. For thousands of years mri have served the regul, but now that the decades old war between the regul and humans has come to an end, and with the destruction of most of the mri race, the world as he has known it has come to a stunning end for young mri, Nuin. Intrigue and deception abound in Kesrith, as three races come together in what might be the extermination of one.

On to book #2...

Well written, deep, fascinating. Typical CJ Cherryh. Highly recommended. ( )