It’s time for me to admit that, at this point in my life, I’m the wrong audience for Cherryh. The stories are fantasy and sf; a series of them at the beginning involve the far future of some of today’s most famous cities, each subject to a different, mostly declining, fate. The characters are generally though not always dark and troubled; their interior lives are demonstrated mostly by actions and allusions. A constant theme is the incomprehensibility of the Other, and the Other’s similar inability to understand the things the POV character values. While I always had the sense that Cherryh knew eactly what kind of worldbuilding lay behind each story, the overall effect was exhausting. ( )

C. J. Cherryh usually writes long novels with complex characters and deep backgrounds, as she says herself in the introduction, but this collection of short fiction shows she can be just as brilliant in a shorter form.

If cities each have their own character, the Sunfall stories imagine those characters grown all-encompassing, dominating life in and around the cities.

Other stories are set anywhere from a Wales whose deep forests are homes to powerful and capricious fae, to her Union-Alliance universe, to a race of explorers on a pilgrimage lasting hundreds of thousands of years. All carry the wit and edge I have come to expect from Cherryh. ( )

(Alistair) Anyway. I don't think I read enough short fiction, in general, and since I enjoyed the Chanur series so much, this seemed like an obvious way of working towards correcting that when I saw it in the store; 28 short stories written over the course of 30 years or so. (For those cataloging at home, it reprints two prior collections: Sunfall and Visible Light, which I understand to be out of print; the remaining 16 stories are fresh.)

So. Very good indeed, as I have come to expect from C. J. Cherryh in the course of the above series. I shall take the opportunity of this booklogging to note a few of the stories which I particularly enjoyed: London's Tower still haunted in the very far future, in The Haunted Tower; politics and the carnevale unchanged in such a future's Venice, in MasKs; the well-wrought city-rogue fantasy, A Thief in Korianth; the wonderfully Celtic The Brothers, and their sidhe curse; a marvelous retelling of Sisyphos's attempt to cheat death in The Dark King; alien cultural differences, war, and sacrifice in The Scapegoat; and rescues and hazards in space, with light-lag, in The Sandman, The Tinman, and the BettyB.

Which is by no means to slight any of the others; I do not believe there is a single story in this book which was not well worth the reading, and a pause to reflect when done, too, for that matter. Distinctly recommended.

(Oh, yes, and not to forget A Much Briefer History of Time, which is one paragraph long, and made of pure-quill awesome.)

( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/cerebrate/2008/11/the_collected_short_fiction... ) ( )

My daughter Nyssa, came back from our favorite used book store with the exciting news that he had "Lots of Cherryh books!" So the Mrs and I went there, but I soon discovered that not only did I have a copy of every Cherryh book he had on the shelves, but I had a lot more than he did.

I told the shopkeep and he laughed, then he suggested that I look on the $1 shelf. I discovered one book "The collected short fiction of CJ Cherryh." Not only was the book in mint condition, but I had actually been looking for a copy and hadn't been able to find one. I snagged said copy and offered my debit card.

The shopkeep said "It would cost me more to run your card through that machine than it would be worth to sell you the book. Do you have any money?"

I said I'd be right back; I had to borrow four quarters, one nickel and three pennies from my youngest son, at home and then return. The shopkeep certainly enjoyed the humor of that situation, but I enjoyed the book more. ( )

A collection of tales written over the last 30 years or so, varying lengths and topics. Each is worthwhile and requires a pause to think about afterwards - don't rush into the next one, tempting though it is.
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after re-read.

Eminently re-readable even though I vaguely remembered many of the stories (and they are that good that they linger in the mind some five years after I last read them). Very approximately divided into three parts. The first previously published as Sunfall is a collection of tales set in Earth cities far in the future when the sun has aged and cities have sealed themselves away from the rest of the world, but still retain a lingering essence of their current nature. The 2nd part Visible Light, is a set of shorter stories interspersed with commentary from CJC in the form of dialogue between herself and a travelling companion on an interstellar jump. Here she explains just a little about the mindset of an SF author and where she gets her ideas from. The third and my favourite part is simply 'Other Stories' that she has written over the years. There is little or nothing connecting them. Some are set in other worlds she has explored in full length novels - from Alliance/Union through to Ealdwood, but most are "just" stories. All are profound.

The Sunfall stories are closer to novella in length, and all of them are somewhat slow and oblique, they are my least favourite stories of the collection and in some ways a shame that the book opens with them. The character of each city is distinct and varies with the story, but is a backdrop against which a lead character is set. the cities chosen include Paris; London; Moscow; Rome; New York; Peking and Venice, of which New York and Venice are my favourites, but London possibly the most successful in capturing the essence of the city's past links to its future state.

The Visible Light stories work better, although they are a more mixed bag. they include the postcard challenge from a conference when CJC had just 24 hrs (among all her other con duties) to write a story that fitted onto a postcard. She used a very fine pen. Also included here is her Hugo winning story Cassandra, about a prophetic girl in a time of war, although I don't much care for it as a story. There are more fantasy based stories here, featuring the Sidhe and a very short prequel to her Qual/gate stories.

The shortest story is A Much Briefer History of Time in the Other Stories section. Although the title is a nd towards the great Stephen Hawking, this story is more biologically based, looking at evolution, a theme which crops up in a couple of other stories. It is very hard in such a magnificent collection to choose a favourite but the one story that I remember most poignantly is 'The Scapegoat' about human attitudes to war, and how the Other as ever, might view such things differently. It is a superb weaving of time and viewpoints with ultimately a twistingly sad conclusion. However there are also happy stories and a few occasions where CJC's whimsical nature as been allowed free reign, something that doesn't occur in the novels.

A great collection showcasing some of CJC's talent. I had intended to just dip in and re-read a few favourites, but was drawn into reading the whole book. They are that book. If you like short story SF or are a fan of CJC then this is must have, and if you aren't either of the above this is the book that will introduce them to you. ( )