The Chanur Novels
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The series of five science fiction novels (forming three separate stories) by C. J. Cherryh. The novels in chronologic order are: The Pride of Chanur, followed by the Chanur's Venture trilogy (Chanur's Venture,The Kif Strike Back,Chanur's Homecoming) and Chanur's Legacy.
The series is set in the same universe as "Downbelow Station", but in a different location of space, occupied by a number of spacefaring civilizations bound by a set of trade treaties into a so-called Compact. The Compact is not a political organization, and has no government; it regulates only the open trade and accessibility of space stations to all civilizations, leaving them to resolve their conflicts and politics between themselves.
Human space borders the kif and knnn space, the most aggressive and the most enigmatic races of the Compact, which is why there has been no contact between the Compact and the human powers. When the contact ensues, it is in the form of an ambitious kifish pirate prince capturing a human scouting party. One last surviving crew member, Tully, escapes the kif in dock and winds up on The Pride of Chanur, hani trader vessel, which sets off the events of the first novel in the series and its three-part sequel.
The books are written as unusually realistic space opera, with much less ship-to-ship shooting than coercion, manipulation, politics, pride contests and clashing economical interests interspersed with species-to-species miscomprehension.
The realistic handling of linguistic and psychological barriers is one of the stronger sides of the books (especially compared to the genre as a whole). The character development is another, which is also closely connected to the inter-species relations. As the (usually involuntary) exposure of the characters to different culture goes on, they are pushed to probe other ways of thinking - and together with constant pressure of both economical and immediate hazard that drives them to opening new levels of themselves. Even the "enemy" side is quickly brought from the level of incomprehensible faceless danger into viewing them as formidable yet admirable opponent. The books are a metaphor of breaking mental barriers, finding oneself in adversity, and growing above petty interests towards global strategies and greatness.
The races forming the Compact
- Mahendo'sat (singular mahe), black or brown primate-like creatures, human-size, very curious and political. Mahendo'sat political system is based on the concept of Personage, a charismatic figure with a lot of social credit; a Personage's power is decided only by the amount of followers, but the follower's actions could destroy the Personages as well as promote them, if the follower's action in Personage's name proves to have bad consequences. To the outsider, this looks like the mahen agents promote multiple mutually contradicting policies at once. Mahendo'sat are idiosyncratically bad at learning other races' languages, many of them can't even master the pidgin used by Compact spacers - although they are quite eloquent in their own numerous languages. Mahendo'sat are the "glue" of the Compact, always trying to balance powers so peace is kept and no race prevails. They are in constant search of new powers, recently including humans. Homeworld: Iji.
- Stsho, minute, fragile, crested white beings (even their eyes are pearly white), xenophobic and non-aggressive. Stsho rely on wealth, trade, and alliances to keep their independence; they have devised the trade and legal procedures of the Compact. They relish in delicate pleasures and pastel colors, their speech is exceedingly ceremonial and politically correct; they do not fight themselves and their personalities are prone to change ("Phasing") under stress, which has many legal implications. They have three sexes, which can change with Phasing, and only one of which is dealing with other aliens. They permit no other oxygen-breathing races in their territory. Homeworld: Llyene.
- Tc'a, methane-breathing yellow five-eyed snakelike beings, and chi, yellow arthropod-like creatures, which are related in a way none of oxygen breathers are sure of. They are very technologically advanced and powerful; understanding them is tricky at best, though, since their brains are multi-part and their speech decodes as complex matrices of intertwined meanings. They run the methane side of most space stations.
- Kif, bare-skinned, ash-black, long-snouted bipedal hunters. They are the tallest race in the Compact, slender but fast and deadly. They are strict predators, requiring live prey; they have twin set of teeth, outer for biting and inner for chewing, and retractable claws. Their social and political [dis]organization winds about a value called sfik, which is face, authority, ferociousness - a kif that loses sfik is instantly demoted, and the followers either defect it or just kill it. Sfik is gained through combat victory, or possession of items valuable to the other side, or just respect of others: followers of strong sfik give more sfik to their leader. The side effect is that the kif are prone to change sides in any conflict at the first sign of weakness from their leader. They seem to have no other moral values; they are pirates and cannibals, and generally deemed a trouble. Occasionally, the sfik games wash a leader to considerable power of commanding a whole fleet of pirate ships; such pirate prince is called hakkikt and is a big annoyance to the mahendo'sat who view hakkiktun as destabilizing factors. Kif are very linguistically apt and adaptable. Homeworld: Akkht.
- Hani, feline-like race, maned, bearded, usually of red or tawny fur. Females are smaller than human size, males outsize them by far. They were discovered by manehdo'sat and helped into space; most of their technology is mahen style. They live in autonomous clans, which are united into amphictionies for control over scarce resources; the biggest one being their homeworld itself, governed by mahen-inspired council of clans called the han. Each clan would consist of related females and juveniles, and a single male - the male ascends to clan lordship by defeating the old lord in personal combat. (Many more males live and die in exile.) Only females come into space. Hani politics are traditionalistic, based on such concepts as allegiance, honor, blood feud, parole, and such. One of the hani languages served as the base for Compact's pidgin, because it was grammatically and phonetically easy for other races (but not as easy for humans.) Homeworld: Anuurn.
- Knnn, the third methane breathing race, multi-legged tangles of wiry black hair, the most technologically advanced of all Compact: they can maneuver in hyperspace and carry other ships with them. Only tc'a can communicate with them (or claim they can); the knnn are incomprehensible and therefore deemed dangerous by all other races, not to be provoked. They trade by snatching whatever they want and leaving whatever they deem a payment behind; it is an improvement over their prior habit of just taking trader ships apart.
The technology of the Compact
There are three main kinds of space ships in Compact's employ: surface-to-orbit shuttles, miners, and jump ships. The first and the second use only jet engines for propulsion; shuttles can land on planets while miners and jump ships need space stations to dock. Only the jump ships can cross interstellar distances by using hyperspace, which also makes them the fastest in-system transport, as they can move at sub-light speeds without entering a jump. Most of these are traders and freighters; some are heavily armed hunter-ships. The Compact ships do not enter hyperspace proper; they aim at a star and "glide" along the so-called interface between space and hyperspace until the mass at the other end of the jump goal makes them drop out. They exit at light speed and must dump it with help of the same jump engine; a ship failing to do so is doomed, and usually a high hazard. There is a limit on maximum jump distance, depending on the ship's drive power and mass; a ship overstretching a jump may "fade", never exiting it. A jump takes several weeks of objective time. Subjectively it can take hours or even several days; this tends to exhaust the body, and the crews need to take rest between jumps. Hani and mahendo'sat stay marginally conscious during jump, but unable to act; usually, they dream. Stsho must drug themselves unconscious to survive jump. Humans can survive it undrugged, but it is a terrible experience to them. No one knows what the other races feel during it.
Ships and space stations communicate by radio, which poses time-lag difficulties. To alleviate them somewhat, heavily trafficked systems usually keep buoys near the jump exit points that serve incoming ships with system-wide scan and traffic information, and also mail.
The space stations are universally built as huge doughnuts, the spin maintaining a sort of artificial gravity (the Compact has no other technology that can do it). This poses a difficulty when docking, as the ship must precisely coincide with the quickly rotating station wheel to grapple. When docked, two sets of grapples, its own and the station's, hold it in place and in mutual clinch: a ship can undock forcibly, but that is bound to damage the station and is a criminal offense. The tankers and miners dock at the central hub for materials transfer. Dockside transport is mostly electric carts and trucks of all sizes, but many people just go into docks on foot.
Different races build ships in different fashions; the methane-breather ships seem haphazardly constructed to the oxygen breathers. All jump ships have vanes, constructed of modular panels, which form the "hyperspace bubble" needed to cross the interface. For example, The Pride of Chanur begins with the dock grapples at the prow; then follows the habitat with the caroussel which rotates during inertial flight to provide gravity. The bridge is also located there. Then come the pressurized and "cold" holds with beds for cargo canisters, loading machinery and a separate cargo access hatch; then the jump drive assembly with three vanes on support columns, with wire struts; and finally, the main-engine for ballistic flight. Hunter ships have less cargo space and more weaponry and crew accommodation, and often have detachable holds.
Weapons include lasers and missile batteries for the ship; personal armaments include small beam weapons and kinetic "AP guns", and also blades. Hani and especially kif also have sharp retractile claws, and teeth.