I first met Carolyn Cherry in 1976, when I was a young librarian in Dallas and she was still teaching Latin in the Oklahoma public schools, and had just published _Brothers of Earth,_ her first novel, She attended AggieCom in College Station (her first con, too, I believe), and was startled at being mobbed by a horde of enthusiastic new fans. I was one of them, and I’ve read and enjoyed everything she’s written in the nearly half-century since then. Of course, she’s now a Grand Master and is regarded as having inherited the mantle of Ursula LeGuin when it comes to alien worldbuilding. Cherryh’s coauthor on this, as well as several other recent novels, is Jane Fancher, her partner for many years and her wife since 2014. You won’t really be able to tell which of them was responsible for which parts of the book, though, their joint effort is so seamless.

This series has been organized since its beginning into three-volume plot arcs, within the larger story of what one may think of as “The Saga of Bren Cameron,” and this is Vol. 22, so it’s the beginning of a new section of the story. Cherryh doesn’t do big info dumps at the beginning of each installment to remind you of what you read in the previous book maybe a year ago, but this time -- since it is a new three-volume section -- she spends the whole first chapter summarizing recent events. She also includes some reminders of how very different things are psychologically between the native atevi on their earth-like world and the unintentionally immigrant humans, who live on their legally isolated island of Mosphera, and also what Bren's role is as paidhi-aiji to Tabini-aiji, head of the aishdi'tat (which amounts to a confederation of clans). It won’t take you long to get up to speed, though, as the narrative begins to open up and new crises develop.

Many of the earlier volumes have focused on the Dowager, Ilisidi, the aiji’s grandmother and a true force of nature, and that continues here. She rules the eastern part of the continent in her own right and served as regent for extended periods in the past following the early deaths of first her husband and then her son. She has enormous personal and political power and is extremely canny, but now she’s also very old. That didn’t stop her from attempting to solve the aishdi’tat’s centuries-old problems with the Marid, a desert region to the south, both diplomatically and militarily, as detailed in the previous volume. The remnants of the Shadow Guild (a thoroughly venal and very dangerous spin-off of the legitimate Assassin’s Guild who had attempted Tabini’s overthrow a few years ago and came appalling close to succeeding) are now on the run, having escaped the Dowager's clutches, and are now attempting to reestablish themselves farther up the coast, not far from Bren’s own estate. And Ilisidi seems to have fallen gravely ill at the worst possible time.

The second focus of the story is Tabini’s son, Cajeiri, the equivalent of a human teenager (he’s about to turn ten, but this world’s years are longer), and who (two books ago) was announced as his father’s official heir-designate. We’ve watched him grow up from early childhood in this series, under the strong influence not only of his great-grandmother but of Bren -- and, through him, has become connected to a number of young humans his own age -- the result being an intelligent young atevi unlike any that world has seen before. He just thinks differently than any others of his people, and he takes his position very seriously, but he’s also still a kid. (I will be very interested to see how things change when he eventually comes to power, if the series continues that long.) The thing is, Cajeiri has been in space (with the Dowager and Bren, a very tense story which occupied several volumes), has met and dealt with two powerful alien species that are far more different from himself than he is from the humans, and he understands certain things better than his father would be able to. Cajeiri unstands that one must sometimes take chances, and events this time are necessarily going to accelerate his progress to maturity.

This entire series presents a great many parallel plotlines over a lengthy period of time, all of them complex and interwoven. (In a Cheryh novel, everything is always closely connected to everything else.) To a reader like me, this whole world, and the people in it, and the way they interact, is deeply fascinating. I know the extended observations of the characters’ thought processes as they deal with events will probably be off-putting to readers who prefer their space opera to be heavy on zap-guns and starship battles -- and indeed, there is always some of that in every book, too. But I prefer a more intellectual sort of science fiction adventure, and this saga may well be the best work of that sort every produced in English.

Going in blind!

Last time we saw Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, human translator to Tabini-aiji, he was on the Red Train fleeing from, or racing towards, an undisclosed location with the Atevi aiji-dowager Ilisidi, various Guild members, including Bren’s own staff, important lords. All vital to the canny dowager’s plans—as we can best guess, to rid the realm of the Shadow Guild before it rebuilds.
The long, long train journey, only stopping for fuel seems to be heading towards Bren and Lord Geigi lands, on the coast.
During the journey the Dowager is not seen for days. There’s been no communication with Bren, and Bren can’t communicate with Tabini, as Cenedi (ilisidi’s body guard) hasn’t passed on to him the secure com as ordered by Tabini (head of the atevi aishidi’tat).
Meanwhile overhead the space station is sending some 5000 humans down to the surface. Who’s to meet them? How to handle this?
Lord Reijiri of Dur and his yellow biplane make an appearance, along with a longtime friend of Ilisidi’s, Lord Tatiseigi.
Cajeiri who’s about to turn unfelituous ten has a hand in persuading both these Atevi to take action.
Tabini and Cajeiri are concerned for the Dowager. She’s ill. She’s way down South. She hasn’t named an heir. If anything should happen to her that would be a personal blow and a major political disruption.
Oh, the wily Dowager might be down, but one can never underestimate her.
For me this was exhilarating as more pieces of the Atevi/Human story come together. Entrenched in this world I’m thrilled to join even more dots on the canvas of the Atevi story and of humans come as strangers to this land. Humans who are divided into different groups. All have changed, those who came down to the surface, and those who continued to man the space station awaiting the return of a third group, the space voyagers. All sets of humans need to understand the Atevi mindset, so different to their own. That difference is fraught and dangerous. How to coexist is problematic. The human story will be out of balance.
I’ve been reading this series down the years since the first title came out and love it.
I recommend if you’re new to Cherryh’s world of the Atevi you start further back. Ideally from the beginning.

A DAW ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)