From audible.com:

Two Alliance-Union novels, Merchanter's Luck and Forty Thousand in Gehenna, bound in one omnibus volume for the first time!

Merchanter's Luck

His name was Sandor, and he was the owner and entire crew of a tramp star-freighter that flew the Union planets under false papers and fake names. Her name was Allison, and she was a proud but junior member of the powerful family whose mighty starship, Dublin Again, was the true queen of the spaceways. They met at Viking Station. She seeking a night's dalliance; he desperately in search of a spacer assistant. Their fateful meeting was to lead to a record-breaking race to Pell Station, thereby catching the calculating eye of the grim commander of the Alliance battlecraft Norway and a terrifying showdown at a deadly destination off the cosmic charts.

Forty Thousand in Gehenna

When 40,000 human colonists are abandoned for political reasons on a planet called Gehenna, and re-supply ships fail to arrive, collapse seems imminent. Yet over the next two centuries, the descendants of the original colonists survive despite all odds by entering a partnership with the planet's native intelligence - the lizard-like, burrowing calibans.

CHANUR'S VENTURE
Pyanfar Chanur thought she had seen the last of Tully, the lone human who had so disrupted the peace of Meetpoint Station and gained the Chanur clan the enmity of half a dozen races as well as their own. But in this striking sequel to the Hugo-nominated PRIDE OF CHANUR, Tully is back, bringing with him a priceless trade contract with human space. A contract which would mean vast power, riches, and a new hornet's nest for Pyanfar and the Pride!

This is a rousing good tale, and Cherryh's feisty hani are the most believable alien characters to come down the SF pike in a long time...  These swaggering, vain, tough-talking, hani heroines make Chewbacca look like a pussycat."
- KLIATT

"TOUR DE FORCES."
- Algis Bundrys, THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

The civil war among the alien atevi has ended.  Tabini-aiji, powerful ruler of the Western Association, along with Cajeiri, his son and heir, and his human paidhi, Bren Cameron, have returned to the Bujavid, their seat of power.  But factions that remain loyal to the opposition are still present, and the danger these rebels pose is far from over.  Since the rebellion, Bren Cameron's apartment in the capital has been occupied by an old noble family from the Southern district - the same district from which the coup was initiated.  This family now claims loyalty to Tabini, but the aiji is dubious, and dealing with these possible rebel infiltrators will require finesse on Tabini's part.  To avoid additional conflict, Bren has decided to absent himself from the Bujavid and visit Najida, his country estate on the west coast.

Tabini-aiji has once again taken over the job of training his young son in the traditional ways of the atevi, and has Cajeiri under strict supervision.  But after two years in space, surrounded by human children, Cajeiri bristles in this highly controlled and boring environment.  He misses his human associates in space, he misses the company of his wily great-grandmother, but most of all, he misses his close association with nand' Bren.  Desperate for freedom and adventure, disregarding the obvious danger, Cajeiri escapes the tightly guarded Bujavid with his young bodyguards and sets out secretly to join Bren on the coast.

Determined to insure his son's safety, Tabini recalls Ilisidi from her home in the East, asking her to find Cajeiri and secure him at Bren's estate.  But it has been a long time since Bren has been to Najida, and the war has shifted allegiances in many quarters.  A district that once was considered a safe haven might now be a trap.  And with Bren, Cajeiri, and Ilisidi all under one roof and separated from their allies, that trap is now baited.

Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the alien atevi, has taken aboard five thousand human refugees from a destroyed station in a distant sector of space.  With supplies and housing stretched to the breaking point, the refugees must be relocated down to the planet, and soon.  But not to the atevi mainland: rather to the territory reserved for humans, the island of Mospheira.

Tabini-aiji, the powerful political head of the atevi, tasks his brilliant human diplomat, Bren Cameron, to negotiate with the Mospheiran government.  In the decades Bren has served Tabini, he has become enmeshed in the atevi world in a way no human ever has before and become close to Tabini's young son and heir, Cajieri, the first atevi child ever to grow up in the presence of a human.  Bren is to inform the president of Mospheira that he is no longer his diplomat, that Mospheira must take in the refugees from Alpha, and that there is no other acceptable solution.

But the Mospheirans are not enthusiastic about welcoming these immigrants from space, for the Alpha Station refugees represent a political faction that the people of Mospheira broke from two centuries ago.

While Bren travels to Mospheira, Tabini sends Cajieri to the country to visit his uncle Tatiseigi a political gesture to shore up an old man and give the boy a well-earned vacation from the formality of the atevi court.  Tatiseigi's neighbors, however, are determined to end an old feud to their own satisfaction.... and Cajieri's presence is just the excuse they need.

CUCKOO'S EGG

They named him Thorn.  They told him he was of their people, although he was so different.  He was ugly in their eyes, strange, sleek-skinned instead of furred, clawless, different.  Yet he was of their power class: judge-warriors, the elite, the fighters, the defenders.

Thorn knew that his difference was somehow very important - but not important enough to prevent murderous conspiracies against him, against his protector, against his caste, and perhaps against the peace of the world.  But when the crunch came, when Thorn finally learned what his true role in life was to be, that on him might hang the future of two worlds, then he had to stand alone to justify his very existence.

A Science Fiction Book Club Selection.

The civil war among the alien atevi has ended.  Tabini-aiji, dynamic ruler of the Western Association, has reclaimed his former power, and once again resides in the capital.  But factions that remain loyal to the opposition are still present, and the danger these rebels pose is far from over.

Bren Cameron, the brilliant human diplomat allied with Tabini, has graciously chosen to visit Najida, his country estate on the west coast.  He feels that the political tensions in the capital might ease if he is not present, and after two years in space and his return to a planet still imperiled by revolution, he relishes the peace and tranquility his lovely coastal home affords.

But peace and tranquility are not in the cards for Bren.

Desperate for freedom and adventure, disregarding the obvious danger, Cajieri, Tabini’s young son, escapes the tightly guarded capital with his bodyguards and arrives to surprise Bren in the country.  But he is not the only surprise guest, for Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager, Tabini’s wily and powerful grandmother, has been dispatched to secure her great-grandson’s safety.

However, Najida, formerly a safe haven, is no longer the sanctuary it once was.  For a neighbor’s estate - the ancestral home of Lord Geigi, a close associate of Bren’s - has been left without strong leadership.  Lord Geigi now resides on and runs the atevi space station, and in his absence, rebel clans have infiltrated his home.  When these rebels attack Bren, Cajieri, and the dowager, they have no choice but to recall Geigi from space.

With Lord Geigi, Ilisidi, Bren, and Cajieri all under one roof, they pose an irresistible target for the enemy.  And Bren’s pastoral retreat, now swarming with bodyguards, becomes a locked-down and armed fortress.  These four individuals - three of the most powerful politicians on the planet, and the heir to the aiji - are not without their own resources.  But can they overcome their adversaries and end this guerilla war that is the last vestige of revolution?

THE POLITICS OF SPACE

It has been over two centuries since the starship Phoenix disappeared into space, leaving a colony of humans to fend for themselves on the world of the alien atevi.

Since then humans have lived in exile using a single diplomat, the paidhi, to trade bits of advanced technology for continued peace and safety.

Now the unexpected return of the Phoenix has shattered the fragile political balance of these two nearly incompatible races.  For the captains of the Phoenix offer the atevi something the planet-bound humans never could - access to the stars.  In return the captains ask for atevi manpower and supplies to rebuild their long-derelict space station and refuel their aging starship.

Nearly ten years later, the atevi have three functioning space shuttles, and teams of atevi engineers labor in orbit to renovate the space station.

But these monumental advances not only add a dangerously powerful third party to an already precarious diplomatic situation, but rouse pro- and anti-space factions in atevi society to near-incendiary levels.  To help negotiate these treacherous diplomatic waters, Tabini-aiji, the powerful head of the atevi's Western Association, has sent the only human he fully trusts into space: his own paidhi, Bren Cameron.

However the threat of possible invasion by hostile aliens who attacked Phoenix's station in a far-off sector of space hangs over them all.  And when one of the senior captains of the Phoenix confesses that this distant station was not completely destroyed, as had been previously thought - that there may be friends and family who still survive - the crew mutinies.

How can Bren hope to mediate on a station overcome by a rebellious crew intent on taking the Phoenix on a rescue mission back into hostile alien territory?

THE PRODIGY

In the aftermath of civil war, the world of the atevi is still perilously unstable.  Tabini-aiji, powerful ruler of the Western Association, along with his son and heir, and his human paidhi, Bren Cameron, have returned to their seat of power.  The usurper, Murini, has escaped to the lands of his supporters, but the danger these rebels pose is far from over.  Ilisidi, Tabini's grandmother, the aiji-dowager, has returned to her ancient castle in the East, for though she supports the rule of her grandson, she also has powerful ties in the lands of the rebels, and she seeks to muster whatever support she can from among those enemy strongholds.

In his father's heavily armed and tightly guarded headquarters, eight-year-old Cajeiri is horribly bored.  Two years on an interstellar starship surrounded by human children have left him craving excitement and the company of his peers.  But unbeknownst to this dissatisfied youngster he has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule and everything it stands for.  Though still a child, Cajeiri embodies a unique threat to the venerable, tradition-defined lifestyle of his people.  For this innocent young boy is the first atava youth to have lived in a human environment, surrounded by human children.  And after hundreds of years of fragile, tenuous atevi-human coexistence, Cajeiri may very well be the first ateva to ever truly understand the so similar yet so dangerously different aliens who share his home planet and threaten the hidebound customs of his race.

THEIR WORLD AT WAR

It has been two years since the starship Phoenix left Alpha Station on a rescue mission to a faraway sector of space where over four thousand human spacers were under attack by a hostile alien race.

Now, exhausted from their journey, with resources strained by four thousand extra mouths to feed, the crew of the Phoenix yearns for home.  But when the ship makes the final jump into atevi space, things do not seem right.  And when they make contact with Alpha, they learn the worst: that supplies to the station have been cut off; that civil war has broken out on the atevi mainland; that the powerful Western Association has been overthrown; and that Tabini-aiji, Bren Cameron's primary supporter and Ilisidi's grand-son and ally, is missing and may be dead.

With no one left to lead the Western Association, Ilisidi and Bren know that the survival of their allies lies in their hands.  And with the atevi world at war, the only safe landing strip lies on the human colony at Mosphiera.  Although there are many dangers inherent in bringing a powerful atevi leader such as Ilisidi onto human lands, Bren realizes they have no choice but to do so.

But even if they safely survive their landing, will Bren and Ilisidi together prove strong enough to muster the remaining shards of the Western Association and regain control of their planet?

The overthrow of Tabini-aiji, the atevi head of state, and the several moves of enemies even since his restoration have prompted major changes in the Assassins' Guild.  With the Assassins now rid of internal corruption, stability seems to have returned to the atevi world.

Bren Cameron, Tabini-aiji's personal representative, was ready to take a well-earned rest until Tabini's grandmother, Ilisidi, claimed his services on a train trip to the most remote of the provinces, snowy Hasjuran.  Tabini-aiji gave Bren a private instruction: protect her. Advise her.

Advise her - perhaps.  But the aiji-dowager has also invited a dangerously independent young warlord, Machigi, and a young man who may be the heir to Ajuri, a key northern province.  The question is why the dowager is taking this ill-assorted pair to Hasjuran and what she may be up to.


Protect her?  Ilisidi is hell bent on settling scores with the Shadow Guild, and her reasons for this trip and this company now become clear.  One human diplomat and his own bodyguard suddenly seem a very small force to defend her from the forces she is setting in motion.

C. J. CHERRYH'S
BLOCKBUSTER INTERPLANETARY

Pell's Star occupied the central spot in the coming conflict between Earth's tired stellar empire and the tough onslaught of its rebellious colonies.  Whoever controlled Pell's Downbelow station held the key to Earth's defensive perimeter - or the jumping off point for a Terrestrial offensive to regain the lost empire.

But Pell had always been neutral and was determined to remain so.

This is a powerful, complex and enthralling novel of interstellar conflict and ambitions.  Inrits pages you will meet and strive with the many vivid persons, human and non-human, whose futures would hang on the outcome of that titanic struggle.

Front flap:

EMERGENCE
C. J. CHERRYH

Bren Cameron, acting as the representative of the atevi's political leader, Tabini-aiji, as well as translator between humans and atevi, has undertaken a mission to the human enclave of Mospheira... and both his presence on the island and his absence from the continent have stirred old enemies to realize new opportunities.

Old hatreds.  Old grudges.  Old ambitions.

The situation has strengthened the determination of power-seekers on both sides of the strait.  Bren knows most of them very well.  But not all of them well enough.  The space station on which the world increasingly relies is desperate to get more supplies up to orbit and to get a critical over-supply of human refugees down to the world below.  Rationing is in force on the station, but the overpopulation problem has to be solved quickly - and Bren's mission on Mospheira has expanded to include preparation for that landing.

First down will be the three children to whom Tabini's son has a close connection.  But following them will be thousands of humans who have never set foot on a planet, humans descended from colonists and officers who split off from Mospheiran humans two hundred years before in a bitter parting of the ways.  There is no way the atevi, native to the world, will cede any more land to these new arrivals: they will have to share the island, and certain Mospheirans are willing to use force to prevent these refugees from settling among them.

Bren's job is as general peacemaker - but old enemies want war.  Is Bren's diplomatic acumen enough to prevent a war that both sides are prepared to wage?


Back flap:

With more than seventy books to her credit, and the winner of three Hugo Awards, C. J. Cherryh is' one of the most prolific and highly respected authors in the science fiction field, and has been named a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.  She lives in Washington state.


Back cover:

PRAISE FOR THE FOREIGNER SERIES:

"Cherryh's splendid Foreigner series remains at the top of my must-keep-up reading list after two decades."

"One of the best long-running SF series in existence... provides a riveting plot that emphasizes intense human/alien interaction....  Cherryh remains one of the most talented writers in the field." 

"A seriously probing, thoughtful, intelligent piece of work, with more insight in half a dozen pages than most authors manage in half a hundred."

"This is one of the best science fiction series currently running....  By this point, the series has turned into a complicated set of thrillers involving political and factional turmoil, as well as a close and detailed examination of the troubled interactions between human and alien cultures."

"Cherryh plays her strongest suit in this exploration of human/alien contact, producing an incisive study-in-contrast of what it means to be human in a world where trust is nonexistent."

"[Cherryh] avoids any kind of slump with a quick-moving and immediately engaging plotline, and by balancing satisfying resolutions with plenty of promises and ominous portents that are sure to keep readers' appetites whetted."

"Cherryh's forte is her handling of cross-cultural conflicts, which she does by tying her narrative to those things her point-of-view character would know, think, and feel."

THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF MORGAINE,
THE WHITE QUEEN

Here, after ten years, is the long awaited new novel about one of C.J. Cherryh's most famous and popular heroines.  Morgaine, closer of the world Gates!  Morgaine, who with her magical sword Changeling and her loyal leigeman Vanye, travels fro world to world, seeking out the Gates, deadly heritage of a long-vanished race, which could forever warp past, present. and future unless they are shut down.  Now, on a world torn by rebellion and war, Morgaine must meet her greatest challenge.  For here she will face Gault, who is both human and alien and who seeks control of the world and its Gate.  And here too Morgraine will face the true Gatemaster, a mysterious lord with a power as great - or perhaps greater than Morgaine's own!

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

It has been nearly ten years since the starship Phoenix returned to the abandoned station orbiting the world of the alien atevi.  This station, called Alpha, had been deserted for centuries following a rift between a faction of the station's inhabitants and the spacers' autocratic Pilot's Guild.  For two hundred years this splinter faction had shared a fragile coexistence with the atevi, living, in isolation on the island of Mosphiera, communicating with the brilliant but volatile atevi by the use of a single highly trained diplomat, the paidhi, and trading technological information for continued peace and safety.

The unexpected return of the Phoenix has forever changed the lives of both atevi and Mosphierans, for over the ensuing decade, the captains of the Phoenix have brought both the atevi and their human counterparts into space.  Their motivation seemed simple: Reunion Station, a human station in another sector of space, had been destroyed by aliens.

But on his deathbed, the senior captain of the Phoenix admits that he lied to the crew - that Reunion was merely damaged, not destroyed, and many people, including family and friends of the Phoenix crew may have survived.  At this disclosure, the crew rebels and forces the Phoenix to undertake a rescue mission to Reunion.

But the crew and captains do not go alone, for on board are Bren Cameron, brilliant human paidhi, now representing Tabini-aiji, the atevi ruler, and Tabini's grandmother llisidi, the aiji-dowager, a fearsome, wily, and ambitious atevi leader with an agenda of her own.

Trapped in a distant star system with very little fuel left, facing a potentially bellicose alien ship, how can Bren help to avoid inter-species war when the notoriously secretive Pilot's Guild aboard Reunion Station won't even cooperate with their own ship, and may have kept the inhabitants of their own station ignorant of their true situation?

C.J. SHERRYH

Morgaine, the closer of world gates, and her henchman Vanye, came to the land called Azeroth from drowned Shiuan.  There was a star gate in Azeroth marked by alien fires and this, too, Morgaine must seal.

But they brought to the peaceful land devastation and terror.  For the hordes of Shiuan were hot on their heels determined to conquer new lands for themselves and to avenge their lost planet upon the legendary White Queen, who was Morgaine.

In Azeroth, though, there was a new factor besides mankind.  In that third planet the pre-human qhal still reigned.  And the qhal were beyond and above human science.

FIRE OF AZEROTH is the grand climax to of the Morgaine trilogy - a novel complete in itself that tells of the Armageddon of the people of three planets.

A DAW BOOKS ORIGINAL
NEVER
BEFORE IN PAPERBACK

"CHERRYH'S GIFT FOR CONJURING BELIEVABLE ALIEN CULTURES is in full force here, and her characters... are brought to life with a sure and convincing hand." - Publishers Weekly

It had been nearly five centuries since the starship Phoenix, lost in space and desperately searching for the nearest G5 star, had encountered the planet of the atevi.  On this alien world, law was kept by the use of registered assassination, alliances were defined by individual loyalties not geographical borders, and war became inevitable once humans and one faction of atevi established a working relationship.  It was a war that humans had no chance of winning on this planet so many light-years from home.

Now, nearly two hundred years after that conflict, humanity has traded its advanted technology for peace and an island refuge that no atevi will ever visit. Then the sole human the treaty allows into atevi society is marked for an assassin's bullet.  The work of an isolated lunatic?...  The interests of a particular faction?...  Or the consequence of one human's fondness for a species which has fourteen words for betrayal and not a single word for love?

FORTY THOUSAND IN GEHENNA

"Set in the same future as the Hugo-winning Downbelow Station, but fully self-contained, this is a story on the classic theme of human underestimation of the alien.  The 40,000 colonists on Gehenna are abandoned for political reasons.  When the re-supply ships fail to arrive, the colony begins to collapse.  But the real story is yet to come.

"Over a period of 200 years, the descendants of the colonists who couldn't impose Terran conditions on Gehenna become a part of Gehennan ecology themselves, by entering a partnership with the planet's native intelligence the lizardlike, burrowing calibans.

"Cherryh tantalizes our minds with these enigmatic aliens, captures our hearts with her characters and involves us completely with her mix of broad and narrow views of a new culture's rise.  Once again, Cherryh proves herself a consistently thoughtful and entertaining writer."

- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

GATE OF
IVREL

Scattered about the galaxy were the time-space Gates of a vanished but not forgotten alien race. In their time, long before the rise of the native civilizations, they had terrorized a hundred worlds - not from villainy but from folly, from tampering with the strands that held a universe together.

Now the task was to uproot these Gates, destroy their potency for mischief, take horror out of the hands of the few who hungered for power by misuse of the Gates.

This is the story of one such Gate and one such world.  It is a novel which introduces a new literary star of the magnitude of Tolkien and Merrill.  Andre Norton makes this claim in a special introduction saying that C.J. Cherryh "has drawn an entirely believable hero on an alien and enchanting world, working in bits of customs, beliefs, and history so cleverly that is must certainly exist - somewhere...  Reading GATE OF IVREL was an exciting experience for me...."

So it will be for everyone.

- A DAW BOOKS ORIGINAL -
NEVER
BEFORE IN PAPERBACK

Two asteroid miners find a dead, drifting ship - but its pilot, Paul Dekker, is alive, insane from shock, and screaming... screaming clues to a mystery that no one
wants solved...

WHAT IS MAMA HIDING?

Paul Dekker, a kid with a dream, wakes to anightmare.  His ship is stolen, his future destroyed, his beautiful partner missing, his memory gone.  The ASTEX mining monopoly, Mama, accuses Sim, of being negligent, crazy, and foolish, as well as a cold-blooded murderer.  And only a renegade miner, Morris Bird, will help Paul learn the truth.

Because somewhere in Dekker’s mind lies a dark secret that can change the fate of worlds.

"MARVELOUSLY SKILLFUL... exactly the thing her fans will hope to find." -Philadelphia Inquirer

"SUPERBLY RENDERED... believable backdrops, complex characters, and a tense well-paced plot." - Publishers Weekly

"VINTAGE CHERRYH." -Locus

"PACKED WITH INTRIGUE." -Washington Post Bookworld

---

Ben Pollard thinks he's traded the perils of the Belt for security on Earth - until he's shanghaied to the orbital Sol II battle station.  There he's forced to help a man Ben never wanted to see again, Jinxed pilot Paul Dekker.

Now Dekker's the center of a lethal mystery, while military, political, and corporate rivals on two worlds conspire to use him and Pollard as lab animaIs in a war for humanity's soul.  And to save themselves, Pollard and Dekker must master and wield the awesome power of Earth's most secret weapon...

HELLBURNER

"Cherryh remains near the top of the field in both world-building and characterization.... In her gifted hands, Merchanter is becoming one of the best-built and most lived-in futures in science fiction." -Chicago Sun-Times

"Cherryh does to the future military establishment what she did to future corporations: gives a close and skeptical look at what it's like to be at the bottom of the pyramid." -Locus

A MAIN SELECTION OF
THE SCIENCE FICTION BOOK CLUB®

C.J. CHERRYH

After a hundred pioneer years, the colony on Hestia seemed to be nearing its end. Its holdings on that green and fertile planet were still limited to a single river in one valley. Everywhere else hostile fauna hedged them in.

A dam could break the deadlock, and they needed an engineer to build it for them. Sam Merrit was the man who came in answer to their S.O.S. - and he wanted out as soon as he landed. But once down on Hestia, it was live or die within the colony.

So Sam stayed - to discover certain anomalies that the hardscrabble colonists had thrust from their minds.

HESTIA is a gripping new science fiction novel by the talented author of THE FADED SUN and BROTHERS OF EARTH.

A DAW BOOKS ORIGINAL
FIRST
TIME IN PAPERBACK

THE RACE FOR SPACE

Six months have passed since the reappearance of the starship Phoenix - six months during which the alien atevi have striven to reconfigure their fledgling space program in a breakneck bid to take their place in the heavens alongside humans.  But the return of the Phoenix has added a frighteningly powerful third party to an already volatile situation, polarizing political factions in both human and atevi societies, and making the possibility of all-out planetary war an ever more likely threat.

On the atevi mainland, human ambassador Bren Cameron, in a desperate attempt to maintain the peace, has arranged for one human representative from the Phoenix to take up residence with him in his apartments, while another is stationed on Mosphiera, humanity's island enclave.  Bren himself is unable to return home for fear of being arrested or assassinated by the powerful arch conservative element who wish to bar the atevi from space.

Responsible for a terrified, overwhelmed young man, and desperately trying to keep abreast of the political maneuverings of the atevi associations, how can Bren Cameron possibly find a way to save two species from a three-sided conflict that no one can win?

SECOND CONTACT

Nearly two centuries after the starship Phoenix disappeared into the heavens, leaving an isolated colony of humans on the world of the atevi, it unexpectedly returns to orbit overhead, threatening the stability of both atevi and human governments.

With the situation fast becoming critical, Bren Cameron, the brilliant, young paidhi is recalled from Mospheira where he has just undergone surgery.  But his sudden and premature return to the mainland is cause for more than mere physical discomfort.  For during his brief absence, his government has sent in his paidhi-successor, Deanna Hanks - representative of a dangerous archconservative faction on Mospheira who hate the atevi.  And though she should depart when Bren is once again able to fill his post, no recall order comes.

Cut off from his government and haunted by the continuing threat of assassination, Bren realizes his only hope may be to communicate directly with the Phoenix as the spokesman of the aveti - an action which may cut him off for good from his own species.  Yet if he doesn't take this desperate and illegal action, he may be forced to helplessly bear witness to the final destruction of the already precarious balance of world power.

C.J. CHERRYH

This is the story of three people: Sten Duncan, a soldier of humanity; Niun, last warrior of the mri humanity's enemies; Melein, priestess-queen of the final fallen mri stronghold.

This is the story of two mighty species fighting for a galaxy: humanity driving out from Earth, and the enigmatic regul struggling to hold their stars with mri mercenaries.

This is a story of diplomacy and warfare, of conspiracy and betrayal, and of three flesh-and-blood people who found themselves thrown together in a life-and-death alliance.

A DAW BOOKS CLASSIC

CHANUR'S REVENGE
KIF POWER, HANI PRIDE...

When the kif seized Hilfy and Tully, hani and human crew of The Pride of Chanur, they issued a challenge Pyanfar, captain of Pride, couldn't ignore, a challenge that was to take Pyanfar and her shipmates to Mkks station and into a deadly confronation between kif, hani, mahendo'sat, and human.  And what began as a simple rescue attempt soon blossomed into a dangerous game of interstellar politics, where today's ally could become tomorrow's executioner, where methane breathers became volatile wild cards playing for stakes no oxy breather could even begin to understand...

C.J. CHERRYH

Kutath was an ancient world and a dying one.  In ages past its best sons and daughters had gone to the stars to serve as mercenaries in the wars of aliens.

Now the survivors of its star-flung people, the mri, had come back - in the form of a single woman, the last priestess-queen Melein, and a single man, the last warrior, Niun.  And one other - the human Sten Duncan who had deserted Earth's military to swear service to the foes of his own species.

Here is the grand climax of the highly praised novels of the Faded Sun, candidates for Hugo and Nebula awards.  Complete in itself, it is a science-fiction novel of the highest caliber, an in-depth study of the last stand of an alien culture confronted with the devastating vengeance of two star-conquering races.

A DAW BOOKS CLASSIC

THE LEGIONS ARE ON
THE MOVE AS CAESAR BATTLES FOR
THE DEVIL'S DOMAIN
It was one of those days in Hell when Brutus showed up in Julius Caesar's household, seventeen and not remembering a thing about that little scene on the Ides of March.  Well, that's Hell for you...

C.J. CHERRYH

His name was Sandor and he was the owner and entire crew of a tramp star-freighter that flew the Union planets under false papers and fake names.

Her name was Allison and she was a proud but junior member of the powerful family whose mighty starship, Dublin Again, was the true queen of the spaceways.

They met at Viking Station, she seeking a night's dalliance, he desperately in search of a spacer assistant.

Their fateful meeting was to lead to a record-breaking race to Downbelow Station, thereby catching the calculating eye of the grim commander of the Alliance battlecraft, Norway, and a terrifying showdown at a deadly destination off the cosmic charts.

A supercharged "space opera" by the award-winning author of THE FADED SUN and the "Morgaine" novels.

ALAS FOR CHIYADEN

It is a country of myths and demons, dragons and magic, a land long ruled by the spirits of wind and water.  Alas, its human sphere is not so benignly governed.  The old Emperor has died, and the heir is weak and timid.  Vicious Lord Ghita reigns from the Phoenix Throne, and once-peaceful Chiyaden drowns in blood...

Blood will find the Emperor's swordmaster, too, should he depart his mountain exile.  But Shoka vows to fight no more in a world which has forgotten justice.  Then one day a peasant who would take up the sword seeks him out, demanding justice - and revenge.  Will the legends that rise around them hold power enough to turn the battles ahead?

THE
PALADIN

C.J. CHERRYH

Their names were Lancelot, Elaine, Percivale, Gawain, Modred, Lynette and Vivien, but they were not characters from legend.  They were made people, clone servants designed to suit the fancy of their opulent owner, the Lady Dela Kim.  And they worked aboard the Maid, an anachronistic fantasy of a spaceship, decorated with swords, heraldic banners, old-looking beams masking the structural joinings, and lamps that mimicked live flame.

They lived in a kind of dream, and had no idea of their origins, their prototypes in those old, old story tapes of romance, chivalry, heroism and betrayal.

Until a wandering instability, a knot in time, a ripple in the between sucked them into a spatial no-man's-land from where there seemed to be no escape.  And they were left alone, with the borrowed personas of their ancient namesakes, to face a crisis those venerable spirits were never designed to master!

- A DAW BOOKS ORIGINAL -

INTO SPACE...

Over three years have passed since the reappearance of the starship Phoenix - the same ship which two centuries before left an isolated colony of humans to fend for themselves on the world of the volatile atevi.

Since that time, humans have lived in exile on the island of Mospheira, using a single diplomat, the paidhi, to trade advanced technology for the continued peace and safety of its people.

But the unexpected return of the Phoenix has shattered forever the fragile, carefully maintained political balance of these two nearly incompatible races.  For the captains of the Phoenix offer the atevi something the Mospheiran humans never could - access to the stars.

For three breakneck years the atevi labor to build a space shuttle which will bear their representatives to the Phoenix, to strengthen connections with their new human allies and retain their bid for control of their world.  But as soon as the shuttle proves spaceworthy, the captains of the Phoenix suddenly recall their planetary delegates, breaking diplomatic contact and initiating a vicious bid for political dominance.

But the powerful head of the atevi's Western Association is not to be outmaneuvered, and he sends his own paidhi, Bren Cameron, into space to negotiate.

Thrust into a political maelstrom with almost no preparation, Bren is empowered to use any means at his disposal to achieve the atevi's aim.  But can Bren gain control of the station and political supremacy for the atevi without sparking a three-sided interspecies war?

THE HUMAN TARGET

Exhausted from a two-year rescue mission in space, the crew of the starship Phoenix return home to find disaster: civil war has broken out, the powerful Western Association has been overthrown, and aiji, its forceful leader, is missing and may be dead.

In a desperate move, Bren Cameron - brilliant human paidi to Tabini-aiji - and Tabini's grandmother Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager, along with Cajeiri, Tabini's eight-year-old heir, make planeffall and succeed in reaching the mainland.

Ancient, but still brilliant and forceful, Ilisidi seeks refuge at the estate of an old ally.  As llisidi's and Bren's bodyguards struggle to upate the manor's antiquated defense systems, Tabini-aiji arrives at the door.

As word of Tabini's whereabouts circulates, clans allied with Tabini descend upon the esrate, providing a huge civilian presence that everyone involved hopes will deter impending attack by the usurpers.

But as more and more supporting clans arrive, Bren finds himself increasingly isolated, and it becomes clear that both his extremely important report of alien contact in space, and even his life, rest on the shoulders of only two allies: Ilisidi and Cajeiri.

Can one elderly ateva and an eight-year-old boy - himself a prime target for assassination - protect Bren, a lone human involved in a civil war  that most atevi believe he caused?

C.J. CHERRYH

No one at Meetpoint Station had ever seen a creature like the Outsider. Naked-hided, blunt toothed and blunt-fingered, Tully was the sole surviving member of his company - a communicative, spacefaring species hitherto unknown - and he was a prisoner of his discoverer/captors the sadistic, treacherous kif, until his escape onto the hani ship THE PRIDE OF CHANUR.

Little did he know when he threw himself upon the mercy of THE PRIDE and her crew that he put the entire hani species in jeopardy and imperiled the peace of the Compact itself. For the information this fugitive held could be the ruin or glory of any of the species at Meetpoint Station.

A DAW BOOKS ORIGINAL
- NEVER
BEFORE IN PAPERBACK -

DAW BOOKS 10
Our tenth year
leading the sf field

Civil war on the world of the atevi is finally over.  Even the complex shifts of power that inevitably follow any war are mostly sorted out.  Bren Cameron, brilliant human diplomat allied with the dominant Western Association, has finally returned to the capital from the southern coast, where he negotiated a daring redistribution of the atevi legislature - one that grants certain of the remaining rebel provinces political stature.  But Bren's official duties have undergone a critical change.

Since the War of the Landing, hundreds of years before, when the atevi nearly eradicated the humans on their planet and exiled those who survived to the island of Mospheira, Bren's post had been held by solitary translators between the endangered, but technologically advanced, human society and the atevi of the mainland.  But in the years that Bren has held that position, the world has changed.

Humans and atevi now interface daily on a shared space station and have traveled to the stars together.  But rather than becoming extraneous, Bren's stature in the atevi world has only increased.  He still wears the white ribbon that represents his office, but now he performs the duties of that office in the ancient manner originally intended, objectively negotiating between atevi adversaries.  It was in this capacity that he had achieved a reformation of congress that ended the bloodshed of civil war.

Now, back in his old apartments in the capital, Bren has settled into the home he knew prior to the war.  But life at the atevi court is never easy.  Though his position has changed, Bren's political affiliations remain - he is still allied with Tabini-aiji, head of the Western Association.  And Bren has also developed a close relationship with Tabini's young son Cajeiri, who was with Bren in space.

Cajeiri is within a few days of his fortunate ninth birthday, and his father has firmly promised that his son's young human associates from the space station can come down to the planet for his birthday celebration.

But things are not going well within the aiji's own household.  For Tabini's political marriage seems to be splintering, and Cajeiri's mother may be less than trustworthy.

Can Bren protect Cajeiri and the unsuspecting human children who are to be his guests in an atevi household that is on the brink of political explosion?

RIMRUNNERS
In space the line between patriot and pirate is as thin as a laser.  And a lethal battle for power can be as near as your starship's next deck...

THE SPOOK
Loki - mercenary spy ship and bounty hunter.  It's the legal arm of the Merchanters' Alliance; but once enlisted, no crew member leaves Loki alive...

THE SOLDIER
BET YEAGER - a killer elite Earth Company Marine whose side lost.  Now she's forced to escape aboard Loki, surrounded by enemies and hunting her old comrades.  Yeager has nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.  A single wrong word can give her away.  And the fighting skills she must use to survive may be her death warrant...

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C.J. CHERRYH
"Shouts with tension... a hard-edged space opera with a strong female protagonist." -San Francisco Chronicle

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"An excellent novel....  One of the finest writers SF has to offer." -Science Fiction Chronicle