Forty Thousand in Gehenna [Paperback]

If anything this is more ambitious than Cyteen, though that novel will remain the greater one because of its scope and depth, the latter of which this novel tends to lack at times, though Cherryh is still better than most science-fiction writers. The events of this novel are referred to in Cyteen and that planet is still a big player during the course of events, but Cyteen was also a big part of Downbelow Station and you didn't need to read Cyteen to understand that one either. What you do need to understand is that this is one strange book, the basic plot is that colonists are sent to Gehenna which has these strange lizards and then they're essentially abandoned there and when people find them again this entirely odd culture that is hard to understand has grown up to live with the lizards. Most of the book is devoted to explaining the way this strange culture arrives at what it is, and that is probably the most fascinating part. The encounters between the scientists and the Gehennans are also classic moments and the characters are all well defined even if because the novel takes place over so many years they tend to pop in and out, so don't get too attached to many of them, because they don't stick around for too long. Overall definitely one of her better novels and on par with both Cyteen and Downbelow Station, it may not have the greatness of the former or the sustained intensity of the latter but in its exploration of culture and how it can be formed, Cherryh shows that she has few peers in the science-fiction world.

40,000 people are sent to begin a new Union colony on the world known as Gehenna. They think they will have support from civilised space, but in fact they are abandoned, and the native life forms are a lot more inteligent than anyone realised.... Although an interesting premise, this book isn't one of Cherryh's best, lacking the fizz and drama of some of her work. Worth reading all the same.

For some reason, this book seemed to slide below the notice of the Hugo Award voters when it was first published in 1983. But in the years since, general opinion seems to have come to the conclusion that this one should be ranked with some of the best of her works, and at the very least should be read in conjunction with her Cyteen.

It's set in her Alliance/Union universe, but very little of that conflict appears here, mainly providing the background and the main reason why the planet Gehenna was colonized in the first place, with a colonist list of about a thousand `normal' humans, and forty thousand `azi', laboratory-bred clones who receive their instructions, education, orders, and outlook on life from programming tapes. On the planet their only real problem is how to deal with the supposed highest form of life on the planet, the Calibans, who build impressive geometrically shaped mounds but are thought to not truly be intelligent.

The book has a very slow start, as the scene is set, and we are given some brief looks at the initial shaping characters for what happens over the course of several generations. However, although slow, it has far less of the abbreviated, clipped style full of acronyms that most of her other books in this universe have, and it provides a solid foundation for what happens later in the book, without leaving the reader feeling lost in a very strange room.

About one-third in, though, we settle on single group of characters: a couple of anthropologists and a few of the descendents of the original azi. From this point on we are treated to a true tour-de-force, as Cherryh develops not just a very fascinating alien race with a very different outlook on and approach to life, one so different it truly qualifies as `alien' and not just some rehash of human traits transferred to differently shaped beings, and a culture of humans that in some ways is just as alien as the Calibans. Most of this is viewed through the lens of one of the anthropologists, and her own viewpoints, contrasted with those of the other scientists studying the culture, providing quite an illuminating (and somewhat satirical) view of the high-tech, scientific mindset.

By the end of this book, the result is remarkably impressive, and by its clear image of societies and civilizations that are not based on any standard human model, provides a viewpoint from which to view our own society and some of its foibles and quirks.

In some ways, this book is kind of prequel to Cyteen, Cherryh's truly great look at the morality and consequences of the azi clone technology, with a set of answers that are not at all the same as that book's. Both of these really should be read to see the full tapestry of the questions, problems, and effects that a cloning technology could have on the human condition.

---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)