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Hmmm. About the printer's convention of naming aliens /* *\ and so on...
I think that was done in Piers Anthony's series, uh, "Chaining the
Lady" and something "... Andromeda" - refresh my memory, someone.
It IS a distracting device, but one I've given a lot of thought -
and concluded it may not be such a bad idea. The author is trying
to convey the fact that the aliens don't have names that can be spoken,
don't think in verbal terms, and in fact, are operating at a conceptual
level of thought which is unknown... Alien, in fact.
I recall a Star Trek episode where a woman (carrying a torch for Spock)
asks him what his first name is - and he replies: "You couldn't
pronounce it." In another episode, Spock goes back to Vulcan, where
other Vulcans call him 'SSpoag', roughly. To me, this attention for
minute detail is utterly delightful and suggests something fascinating
and powerful about the concept of Vulcan-human interplay. Contrast it
to this: I know a woman named "Renee'" - Reh-NAY in French. But she
calls herself "REE-knee" - and so does everyone but me. I can't force
myself to mispronounce "Renee'". Where's the point, Maxson?
Well, the point is - that there are whole volumes of anthropology
written about language and the effect of a particular language on the
way that the speaker thinks. If an author wants to extend this concept
to aliens, well, more power to him/her - if it dosen't cloud the story.
Nigel, try "Cluster" by Anthony - I think he makes the punctuation bit
work.
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| Re .1:
The alien cultures in Piers Anthony's "Cluster" series have symbols
instead of words for the names of their races. Typically, these symbols
appear in conversations between some sort of "council" of the races, one
per race, and are used to identify the particular race. When referred to
by normal characters of the book, these symbols are spelled out (slash,
quadpoint, etc.). Recognizing this is even a clue in one of the books to
figuring out who is a bad guy.
Still, the individual characters from these races who appear in the
book also have more normal names. (I was really amused to note that
Earth's symbol was the quote ("), so when quotes surrounded text, you knew
it was being spoken in a Terran language. There was occaisonally the
use of the symbol names as language names.)
I enjoyed the series; some of Anthony's better. Lots of alien sex,
something Anthony seems to like to write about. Let's see; there's
"Chaining the Lady", "Cluster", "Viscous Circle" (a related story), and at
least one more whose title escapes me.
Steve
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| Hey, I liked "Voyager In Night". I didn't find the typography too
confusing. It gave clues as to the relationships among the aliens,
even with the cannibal alien that had pieces of the other's names
inside its own. I admit that I lost track of people's motives in it,
but that happens a lot with Cherryh's novels. However, this is a
variety of alien and a kind of star travel that I haven't seen before.
/jlr
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| Article: 652
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
From: GAEDE.BRUCE@igate.abbott.com (Bruce J. Gaede)
Subject: TRIPOINT by C. J. Cherryh - A Review
Sender: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: The Internet
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 1994 05:07:33 GMT
TRIPOINT
by C. J. Cherryh
a Review by Bruce Gaede
In _Tripoint_ C. J. Cherryh returns to the universe, era, and style of
_Downbelow Station_, _Merchanter's Luck_, and _Rimrunners_. Set in the
period after _Downbelow_ with a new peace treaty between Union and
Alliance, _Tripoint_ is a Merchanter story centering on Thomas
Bowe-Hawkins of the family merchanter _Sprite_. Like many of Cherryh's
main characters Tom finds himself, while not an outcast on his ship,
certainly not fitting in. Tom is the son of Marie Hawkins, Cargo
Officer on _Sprite_. Twenty-three years before Marie had been brutally
raped by Austin Bowe, a junior officer off the merchanter _Corinthian_
and Tom is thus the closest thing to a bastard in a matrilineal family
where offspring are almost invariably sired in casual encounters
outside the family.
Marie is considered half mad by her family, first of all for keeping
the child, and also for her more than twenty year long search for
revenge on Austin Bowe. Things get moving when _Sprite_ and
_Corinthian_, with Austin Bowe now Captain, meet in dock at Mariner
Station. Given the task of keeping tabs on his mother, Tom winds up
shanghaied on board _Corinthian_, and the chase is on.
Cherryh continues to fill in more political, economic, and
technological detail in her wonderfully rich and complex Union-Alliance
universe. Her fans will find many questions answered and many more
raised in her vivid pictures of starship life.
The themes of belonging and not belonging, powerfully developed in her
previous book, _Foreigner_, for humans and aliens, are continued here
between individuals and groups. Tom, his Family on _Sprite_, and his
new crewmates on _Corinthian_; Marie and her Family. For Tom and Marie
are not just victims of past events - they think and feel differently
from most of those around them. As Marie considers her life and the
desire for revenge that has driven her for twenty-three years:
"The whole Family was delusional. The whole premise of their
existence was desperately tied to a morality that earned them comforts
they wanted. They lived in the grip of their demons without ever seeing
the raw, real dark that drove them.
"But she had.
"Mischa talked about morality and necessity and respectability.
"But she saw how all that worked, and how they kept a careful
shield up and how they didn't look too long into mirrors, too deeply
into their own eyes.
"She did."
It is these long passages of introspection that separate Cherryh's works
from the mundane churnings of many sf writers and give her characters a
richness that connects to the reader at the deepest levels of the soul.
With almost every book Cherryh has improved in her craft. The
introspections are not as lengthy or as irritatingly repetitious as in
her earlier works. In _Tripoint_ she also writes from multiple points
of view, successfully weaving the threads of the story around one
another with a complexity and richness far exceeding anything she has
attempted before. This gives the reader a much deeper
insight into several individuals instead of just the main character.
Yet the lover of exciting space opera will find plenty of tension,
blood, sex, and violence here to satisfy any taste for adventure,
excitement, and new vistas of galactic scope.
This also may be Cherryh's most explicit venture into feminist social
commentary. The Hawkins Family's response to Marie's rape is almost a
caricature of everything that is wrong with our society's response to
victims of this crime.
%A Cherryh, C. J.
%T Tripoint
%I Warner/Aspect
%C New York
%D 1994
%G ISBN 0-446-51780-1
%P 377pp
%O hardcover, US$19.95
%O Cover art by Steve Youll
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