C.J. Cherryh Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of The Morgaine Cycle Books
Gate of Ivrel | (1976) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Well of Shiuan | (1978) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fires of Azeroth | (1979) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Exile's Gate | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Hanan Rebellion Books
Brothers of Earth | (1976) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Hunter of Worlds | (1977) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of The Faded Sun Books
Kesrith | (1978) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Shon'jir | (1978) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Kutath | (1979) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Alliance-Union Books
Serpent's Reach | (1980) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Forty Thousand in Gehenna | (1983) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Hinder Stars Books
Alliance Rising | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Chanur Books
The Pride of Chanur | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Chanur's Venture | (1984) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Kif Strike Back | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Chanur's Homecoming | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Chanur's Legacy | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Alliance-Union: Company Wars Books
Downbelow Station | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Merchanter's Luck | (1982) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Rimrunners | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Heavy Time | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Hellburner | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Tripoint | (1994) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Finity's End | (1997) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Chronological Order of Alliance-Union: Company Wars Books
Heavy Time | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Hellburner | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Downbelow Station | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Merchanter's Luck | (1982) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Rimrunners | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Tripoint | (1994) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Finity's End | (1997) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Age of Exploration Books
Port Eternity | (1982) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Voyager in Night | (1984) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Cuckoo's Egg | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Arafel Books
The Dreaming Tree | (1983) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Tree of Swords and Jewels | (1983) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Heroes In Hell Books
Rebels In Hell | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Gates of Hell | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Masters in Hell | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Kings in Hell | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Legions of Hell | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Merovingen Nights Books
Angel with the Sword | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Festival Moon | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fever Season | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Troubled Waters | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Smuggler's Gold | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Divine Right | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Flood Tide | (1990) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Endgame | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Alliance-Union: Cyteen Books
The Betrayal | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Rebirth | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Vindication | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Regenesis | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Rusalka Books
Rusalka | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Chernevog | (1990) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Yvgenie | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of The Sword of Knowledge Books
A Dirge for Sabis | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Wizard Spawn | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Reap the Whirlwind | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Foreigner Books
Foreigner | (1994) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Invader | (1995) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Inheritor | (1996) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Precursor | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Defender | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Explorer | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Destroyer | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Pretender | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Deliverer | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Conspirator | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Deceiver | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Betrayer | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Intruder | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Protector | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Peacemaker | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Tracker | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Visitor | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Convergence | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Emergence | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Resurgence | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Divergence | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Defiance | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Finisterre Books
Rider at the Gate | (1995) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Cloud's Rider | (1996) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Fortress Books
Fortress in the Eye of Time | (1995) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fortress of Eagles | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fortress of Owls | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fortress of Dragons | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fortress of Ice | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of The Gene Wars Books
Hammerfall | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Forge of Heaven | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Hestia | (1979) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Wave Without a Shore | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Glass and Amber | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Paladin | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Goblin Mirror | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Faery in Shadow | (1993) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Lois & Clark | (1996) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
Ealdwood | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Scapegoat (in Alien Stars) | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Gwydion and the Dragon | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
Sunfall | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Visible Light | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Alien Stars Books
Alien Stars | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
After the Flames | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Anthology series. |
Publication Order of Blood Of Ten Chiefs Books
The Blood of Ten Chiefs | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Wolfsong | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Winds of Change | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Against the Wind | (1990) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Dark Hours | (1993) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Anthology series. |
Publication Order of Heroes in Hell Books
Heroes in Hell | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Gates of Hell | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Kings in Hell | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Crusaders in Hell | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Angels in Hell | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Little Helliad | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
War in Hell | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Prophets in Hell | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Lawyers in Hell | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Poets in Hell | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Heroes In Hell Books
Explorers in Hell | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Thieves' World Books
Thieves' World | (1979) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn | (1980) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Shadows of Sanctuary | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Storm Season | (1982) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Face of Chaos | (1983) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Wings of Omen | (1984) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Dead of Winter | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Soul of the City | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Blood Ties | (1986) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Shadowspawn | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Aftermath | (1987) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Uneasy Alliances | (1988) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Stealers' Sky | (1989) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Sanctuary | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Turning Points | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Enemies of Fortune | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Thieves' World: Player's Manual | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Anthologies
Science Fiction Digest, October-November 1981 | (1981) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Alien Stars | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Moonsinger's Friends: An Anthology in Honor of Andre Norton | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Scapegoat (in Alien Stars) | (1985) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three | (1990) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Drabble II: Double Century | (1990) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Once Upon a Time | (1991) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Fifth Annual Collection | (1992) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
DAW 30th Anniversary Science Fiction | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
DAW 30th Anniversary Science Fiction and Fantasy Anthologies | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Time Traveler's Almanac | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Multiverse | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Altered States | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Book of Swords: Part 1 | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Infinite Stars | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
CJ Cherryh
Carolyn Janice Cherry was born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 1, 1942 and grew up mainly in Lawton, Oklahoma.
She is a writer of speculative fiction, and has written numerous books since the mid-seventies, including “Downbelow Station” and “Cyteen”, which both won Hugo Awards, which are each set in her Alliance-Union universe, and her Foreigner Universe. “Cassandra”, a short story, also is a Hugo Award winner. “Cyteen” also won a Locus Award.
CJ is known for world building, depicting fictional realms with such great realism support by vast research in archaeology, psychology, history, and language.
CJ started writing stories when she was ten when she was frustrated with “Flash Gordon”, her favorite TV show, getting canceled.
Carolyn got her Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin from the University of Oklahoma (Phi Beta Kappa), with academic specializations in mythology, archaeology, and the history of engineering, in 1964. She got her Masters of Arts degree in classics from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where she was a Woodrow Wilson fellow in 1965.
After she graduated, Cherry taught Ancient Greek, Latin, the classics, and ancient history at John Marshall High School in the Oklahoma City public school system. Even though her job was to teach Latin, her passion was the religion, history, and culture of Ancient Greece and Rome. During her summers she would conduct student tours of the ancient ruins in Italy, Spain, France, and England.
During her spare time, she’d write, using the mythology of Greece and Rome as plots for her stories on the future. Cherryh didn’t follow the professional path of science fiction authors at the time, which was to publish short stories in science fiction and fantasy magazines first before progressing to novels. She never even considered writing short stories until she’d already had many novels published.
CJ wrote novels during her spare time from teaching and submitted these manuscripts to get published, meeting with little success, initially. Various publishers lost her manuscripts, which forced her to retype them entirely, using her carbon copies, time-consuming to do, yet was cheaper than paying for photocopying.
She appended a silent “h” to her real name since her first editor (Donald A. Wolheim) felt that “Cherry” sounded much too much like a romance author. She used her initials in order to disguise the fact that she was a female at a time when the vast majority of science fiction writers were men.
Her big break came in the year 1975 when Donald bought the two manuscripts she’d submitted to DAW Books, “Gate of Ivrel” and “Brothers of Earth”, with each getting published in 1976. These books earned her immediate recognition and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in the year 1977.
“Brothers of Earth” was the first time a book of hers found an ending and truly worked, since she had made contact with Donald at DAW, found he was interested, and was able to write for a specific editor whose body of work and sort of story that she knew. This was a good match. These were characters that she had invented when she was around thirteen years old. So it was a long time favorite of her untold stories, and wound up being the first in print.
In the year 1979, “Cassandra” won the Best Short Story Hugo, and she quit her teaching job in order to write full time.
Her writing has encompassed all kinds of science fiction and fantasy subgenres and includes just a few shorter works of non-fiction. Her novels have been translated into Hungarian, French, Lithuanian, German, Czech, Japanese, Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Latvian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Slovak. She’s also translated several published works of fiction from French into English.
Her protagonists typically try to uphold existing social norms and institutions in the service of the greater good as the antagonists typically try to subvert, radically alter, or exploit the predominant social order for their own selfish gain. She uses the theme of the outsider finding his (or her) own place in society and how different individuals interact with The Other.
A number of Cherryh’s works focus on political and military themes. An underlying theme in her work is an exploration of gender roles. Her characters reveal both weaknesses and strengths regardless of what their gender is, although her female protagonists are depicted as being especially determined and capable, and many of her male characters are shown to be abused, damaged, or otherwise vulnerable in someway.
She lives with science fiction and fantasy writer and artist Jane Fancher, near Spokane, Washington. She enjoys traveling, skating, and regularly making appearances at science fiction conventions. Other hobbies include photography, pond-building for koi (she runs a marine tank and can plumb just about anything), planetary geology, and physics. David A. Cherry, her brother, is a science fiction and fantasy artist.
“Foreigner” is the first novel in the “Foreigner” series and was released in 1994. The groundbreaking book which launched Cherryh’s eponymous space opera series about first contact and all its consequences.
It’d been close to five centuries since the starship Phoenix, which was lost in space and desperately trying to locate for the closest G5 star, and had encountered the planet of the atevi. Law was kept by the use of registered assassination, war became inevitable after humans and a faction of atevi established a working relationship, and alliances were defined by individual loyalties and not geographical borders, on this planet. It was a war which humans didn’t have any chance of winning on this planet so many lightyears from home.
Now, almost two hundred years after this conflict, humanity’s traded its advanced tech for peace and some island refuge which no atevi are ever going to visit. Then the only human that the treaty allows into atevi society gets marked for a hitman’s bullet. The work of a single isolated lunatic? The interests of some particular faction? Or is this the consequence of a human’s fondness for a species that has got fourteen different words for betrayal and none for love?
Book Series In Order » Authors »
I was first introduced to CJ Cherryh when I purchased “Wave Without a Shore” at a yard sale for 10c 40 years ago. After consuming it, I went to the library to search for more and found the Chanur series. (I am ashamed to say how long it took me to figure out what “gfi” was!) I waited YEARS for her books to come out in audio and now own 38 of them. If you haven’t started reading them yet, just DO IT!
In my long life I have read thousands of books. Of all those books, my favortie authors are you, Robert A Heinlein and Andre Norton. On that select list you are #1. Your imaginative and thoughtful stories have filled my life with joy, sorrow, thrills, eager anticipation and wonder. You are simply amazing and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking me on so many incredible adventures.
You deserve every accolade you received. My favorites are the Foreigner and Change series. I am an older retired and disabled military adult and I sincerely ask you to not only continue those series but to also ensure that audio books are made available for those of us that need that type of media in order to fully enjoy your work. Also, there are many of us who were socially isolated due to health issues long before the Covid-19 outbreak and it’s books both written and particularly audio books that provide any enjoyment or escape from chronic pain or loneliness. God bless you for caring about your readership.
Please ignore Dal Allen regarding his/her comment about your fabulous “Foreigner” series having peaked!!! I own them all in 1st Edition Hardbound and cannot wait for the 22nd one to get here!!! When do you think it will be out? Incidentally, I just noticed you were born in St. Louis, Missouri. I lived in St. Louis from Christmas break of my 6th grade year until 1972 when I was transferred business-wise to Omaha, Nebraska. My wife, Sharon, and I were married in St. Louis and had our first house and first baby there. Love your work…PLEASE KEEP IT GOING!!! I BUY EVERYTHING YOU PUBLISH!!!
Love you C.J. ! Gate of Ivrel blew my mind &
been a admirer ever since.Loved the Foreigner series but think it’s time to move on, after rebuilding the station & traveling to meet other races it seems to have peaked( like to see you revisit Chanur world.How do you “enjoy dinosaurs”?
Spokane is in Washington, the state, not Washington DC.
When is the next Foreigner book coming out. Loved all your books but the Foreigner series is my favorite.