By Kay Pealstrom
C. J. Cherryh's first Hugo award novel nomination was for The Faded Sun: Kesrith, in 1979, the same year she won in the short story category for "Cassandra." Downbelow Station won the 1982 Hugo, and it is only fitting that a decade after her first Hugo, she be awarded another for Cyteen, which also received the Locus award for Best SF Novel of 1988.
Awards aside (and she has won several), what one learns first and foremost with C. J. is that she has a mind of a steel trap and a sense of adventure that makes Indiana Jones resemble a wimp. As she explains, "I try things."
Her publishing credits run through 33 published novels (at last count) as well as the 3 Sword of Knowledge books, 6 translations, 2 anthologies, over 25 short stories (some not even in English!), several shared world stories in Thieves' World and her own editing of the five Merovingen Nights. Yes she's prolific, but her curiosity makes a cat resemble a snail. Whether it is on early Roman law, genetics engineering, archaeology, astrophysics, filking, or galactic mapping, she's seldom at a loss for words, or for that matter, listeners! When a publisher inquired as to what her next novel would be, she told him, "Tell me what you need; I'll see what I can do."
Cherryh's kindness to new writers is well known among neo-authors. Her open-handed generosity of time and talent is one reason she can be seen at conventions with a small group of rapt fans/students shooting the breeze on such diverse topics as the first use of the stirrup, physical differences between men and women swordfighters, and wilderness survival.
For those of us that fall into her worlds like tripping into a time machine, the fact that she keeps a timelog of all her works -- as well as star maps for her own personal universe -- seems par for the course.
The S/F Source Book edited by David Wingrave (1984) says that "Cherryh is and will doubtlessly continue to be one of the contemporary genre's most influential writers and the best of her work is probably to come." Six years later, those words still hold true. If Cherryh is on a panel -- you won't be disappointed; it'll be a lively one!
This page created by: Kevin G. Austin