As with all Cherry there is a lot of thinking and talking and almost mundane activity. But it builds and builds and makes you think while culminating in some very significant action. ( )

See reviews under individual titles: http://www.librarything.com/work/81214/reviews/108080028

I read Port Eternity some years back, and when I picked this up in the thrift store it was Wave Without a Shore that caught my attention, so that's where I started. I love the concept of the 'invisible' aliens, whose presence so offends humans' sensibilities that they refuse to acknowledge them no matter how inconvenient.

I just wish... hmm. So often fiction portrays this inevitable descent into murder and societal mayhem and then a convenient rebuilding and... perhaps I'm in a mood because on the one hand things don't get rebuilt so easily, and on the other it's awfully convenient to the narrative that things descend there anyway; the more mundane (in my society) reality of the dysfunction carrying on being... functionally dysfunctional is not nearly so cathartic, but I kind of want to see it being addressed sometime. Or maybe I don't really because it'd be too grim; I just want someone to come up with a solution I know doesn't really exist because I want my own society to be fixed already. So yeah, that. ( )

This is a collection of three short novels, "Port Eternity," "Wave Without a Shore," and "Voyager in Night." The first concerns a wealthy woman's pleasure ship, staffed by androids that she has named for characters from Arthurian legend. The ship becomes lost in an unknown region of space; this crisis affects both the humans and the androids, who have varying degrees of knowledge about the story their names are drawn from. This knowledge sometimes informs their actions and interactions. "Voyager in Night" concerns a small mining ship manned by a woman, her brother, and her husband; they have an encounter with an alien ship that contains intelligences both powerful and strange; their lives are changed forever. In "Wave Without a Shore," an isolated planet named Freedom is home to Herrin Law, an artist whose conception of reality is challenged by his experiences. I enjoyed the first two stories more than the third, which featured a cast of characters almost impossible to like or care about (at least until near the end, when Herrin undergoes drastic changes in his life that reshape his worldview). Though these stories are interesting and thought-provoking, ultimately they are less engaging than the bulk of Cherryh's work, and I'd be inclined to recommend almost any other of her works before this one.

Three novellas, long short stories or short novels, all nominally set in the Aliance/Union timeline but somewhat distant from the events described in the main books.

Port Eternity: Lady Dela, rich owner and descendant of founders of a new planet travels at her whim with her collection of azi. Although there is no Arthur, her servants have all been raised without their knowledge in an Authurian tradition. The story is told from the POV of the gentle maid Elaine, and takes place onboard Dela's ship as they depart with her newest lover Griffin. An accident in jump strands them at a strange location and once the azi recieve an arthurian tape, their behaviors start to become more man-born when faced with danger.

The most obviously Union based story of the three it drags a bit in places, because Elaine spends a lot of time carrying or tidying, over all I find it charming take on a future arthurian legend.

Voyager in the night: One of CJCs strangest stories! Rafe and Jillian Murray with Paul Gains are start-up merchanters around the new Endevour station. They get caught up in the deep when a bogey drops in on them, and take sides in an internal disspute amoungst the crew, is the captain, disagrees [] is agressive and ((())) is mad. ... Works remarkably well and the "names" do make sense later on. Requires some concentration but provokes deep thoughts concerning the strengths of understanding your weaknesses.

Wave without a Shore: definetly the most accessible of the tales, with little conection to Alliance/Union universe. Merrin Law is a Master of Arts, Waden Jenks a Master of Politics, on a world founded by philosophers. Who's Art is the greatest? who's reallity superceeds the other? When Outsiders arrive, the matter is put to the test, with results that shock both parties.

Altogether the stories work well exploring the weaknesses of being human in various ways, and helping they help define your strengths. not the most captivating of CJCs works but still very deep with much to think about. ( )