From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Fri Sep 10 19:36:43 1999 Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 20:48:13 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University of Illinois at Chicago (1.8c)" To: Laura Quilter Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9906E" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 13:57:43 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: , [*FSFFU*] _Downbelow, station_:, the, basis, of, Pell, society Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Ianthe wrote: >This was in Orson Scott Card's *Pastwatch* I'm not >sure if it happened in the real past or if it was >just the historians in Pastwatch, who went back >to just before Christopher Columbus and manipulated >the (what would later be) Haitians. They knew that they would see their >technology as magical so >they impersonated Quetzalcoatl to get their help. Excellent book that one! It was for real though. Frederich Katz in his book _The Ancient American Civilisations_ says that the year in which the Conquistadors appeared was one when ancient prophecies stated that Quetzcoatl would return to his earthly kingdom. Katz though implies that the Aztec Empire wasn't that stable anyway. Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 14:00:02 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the role of Signy Mallory Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Suzanne Hartman wrote >With the attack on Pell and the capture of Damian K, the pressure >on Signy is so high because of Mazian's actions that she has to >act. Edger's attack (p387) on her attempts to get her troops to >switch loyalties from the Fleet to her personally, was the way that >Cherryh showed the honorable nature of Mallory's actions. I think she also used it to show that once a group of people has broken away from a state or society or whatever, the urge for secession is always there. When the Fleet abandoned their primary loyalty to the Company (really to Earth), then the cohesion binding the Fleet together was broken and further schism was inevitable. Signy's later loyalty shift to the Alliance proves that she disapproved of the "piratical" nature of the Fleet as it was to become under Mazian. Unless secession is ruthlessly suppressed as it was in the US or Biafra, a single successful act gravely threatens the integrity of any political unit. Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 02:09:28 +1200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Ianthe Subject: Re: , [*FSFFU*] _Downbelow, station_:, the, basis, of, Pell, society Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 01:57 PM 29/6/99 CEST, Claudia wrote: > Katz though implies that the >Aztec Empire wasn't that stable anyway. It's same in Pastwatch... I remeber that bit vividly... What about Cherryh's native race, were they in any position to continue in a stable manner without a relationship with the humans? Jenn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 21:26:12 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the basis of Pell society Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Ianthe wrote: >It's same in Pastwatch... I remeber that bit vividly... What about >Cherryh's native race, were they in any position to continue in a stable >manner without a relationship with the humans? Jenn I think yes and no. Yes, because they would be able to do it (*survive*) by sliding back to their old ways. Although that's not too clear from _Downbelow Station_, as you know _Finity's End_ shows that they still went on what I think the Australian aboriginal call "walk about" I mean the Aus aboriginals call it that, but I'm not sure whether you could call what the Hisa do "walk about"). They'd learnt a lot from humans in _Dewnbelow Station_ and much more by _Finity's End_, and this would of course help them to progress. But no, because they were used to having human help and, especially, human medical supplies etc to combat diseases *humans* had spread amongst them. Culturally too, they'd got used to seeing their God in space, the love of humans was a central feature of their mythology and they had been set on the path of progress which, if humans had suddenly vanished, would receive a setback which would put them back by centuries if not millenia. They have what my father called the "colonial disease" ... they enjoyed the fruits of civilisation too much to go back happily to their previously drab existence. I think Cherryh used this specific idea (of "colonial disease") to illustrate the clash of cultures something which has happen on earth times without number (my mother's people, for example). I believe though that Cherryh intended to show, again as with my mother's people, that the hisa culture that predated the human's arrival was gone forever and that if the hisa did not advance to technology then they would slip backwards to worse than before. I believe that the human, in Cherryh's thinking, were as essential to the future of the hisa as the hisa were to the future of human life on Downbelow. Humans and hisa were, she tried to show, symbiotic. Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 21:28:06 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: _Downbelow station_: the Union Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed My turn to start a topic - this time the role of the "Union" in _Downbelow Station_. In _Hellburner_, Cherryh says that she's been pretty even handed in writing from each side of the Alliance / Union universe, some books she's written from the Alliance and others from the Union side. I had trouble at first working out which "side" _Downbelow Station_ is written from because of this evenhandedness. On reflection and considering _Cyteen_, I believe that Cherryh is personally on the side of the rather anarchic (still forming) Alliance. The Union is essentially an "artificial" civilisation in the sense that (p 12) Cyteen and other Union stations etc artificially, massively boosted their populations in birth labs and the like. Cyteen, which was only founded in 2201, and the later Union stations did this, as Cherryh specifically says, in the course of only two decades. The people made by the system were efficient, humourless, and eugenically superior "products". They also lacked "humanity" as the pressures put on Ayres and others (especially Marsh) of the Company committee showed. For example, the courage so many of the Unionists (like Talley) showed, I think is a characteristic for which they were bred. The way in which the "new", ruthless, ideologically-correct Unionists were used to replace the much less ruthless "rebel captains" (p 12) showed that they were really bred for war and for controlling Union society after the war. So, as I see it, Cherryh set up the Unionists as ambitious conquerors, bred for conquest, desiring conquest and when the book starts, having started conquest. The problem of the tax which offended Cyteen so much, wasn't really a problem at all, it was simply the excuse for war, a real excuse fortunately, or Cyteen would have had to manufacture one. The way I see it, Cherryh has set up a universe with the "anarchic" merchanters on the one side and the militarily flexible but socially rigid Union. Of course, with Cherryh nothing is *quite* so straight forward as we see from the future history because by 2700, athe Alliance was now a tyranny and AlSec, the security organisation set up by Signy, has become what amounts to the KGB of its time. I know Ruth prefers "SS" or "Gestapo", but neither of those two organisations controlled Germany the way the KGB controlled the USSR ... the left have always been more efficient at suppression than the right who usually spend more time fighting amongst themselves . I like to think that Cherryh deliberately projected the future of AlSec as the way Signy Mallory's character might have evolved if she'd gradually lost her sense of proportion and acted ruthlessly as the less pleasant side of her personality would have "wished". Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 09:33:28 HST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Margery Kempe Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the role of Signy Mallory Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: >I think she also used it to show that once a group of people has broken >away from a state or society or whatever, the urge for secession is always >there. When the Fleet abandoned their primary loyalty to the Company >(really to Earth), then the cohesion binding the Fleet together was broken >and further schism was inevitable. Signy's later loyalty shift to the >Alliance proves that she disapproved of the "piratical" nature of the >Fleet as it was to become under Mazian. Unless secession is ruthlessly >suppressed as it was in the US or Biafra, a single successful act gravely >threatens the integrity of any political unit. I also think that she used the Fleet to show how loyalty persists in military units even when the mother "country" has shown that it's totally unworthy of that loyalty. The Fleet held by its loyalty to earth when told by Ayres of the Committee's agreement with Union, until it became obvious that the tyrannical Union would accept a Fleet of any kind in being and that the first thing Union would do after Fleet's surrender is slaughter the lot of them. In some ways I think you've overestimated the cohesion of the Fleet. A lot of their soldiers had been pressganged into the fighting ships so while the loyalty of the officers could be guaranteed, the men must have been very different. That probably why Signy was obviously trying to get the men in Norway attached to her personally instead of to the fleet. If you read books about the British navy during the Napoleonic wars and earlier where most of the crew was pressganged or taken from jails and so on, the same seaman were very loyal and fought to the death because of their pride in their ships, even though their lives were pretty terrible and discipline was enforced with the lash and the hangman's rope. Signy didn't have the option of the lash or rope, she had to build their loyalty to herself, as Cherryh showed. Margery Kempe _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 20:34:26 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the basis of Pell society Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 29 Jun 99, at 13:57, Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: > Excellent book that one! It was for real though. Frederich Katz > in his book _The Ancient American Civilisations_ says that the > year in which the Conquistadors appeared was one when ancient > prophecies stated that Quetzcoatl would return to his earthly > kingdom. Katz though implies that the Aztec Empire wasn't that > stable anyway. Prescott's _History of the Conquest of Mexico and _~ Peru_ say the same thing. An interesting book that I managed to pick up last year is Leon-Portilla's _Ruckker de Gotter_ (sorry about the missing diaresis) which gives some of other side. I think though that you've chosen the wrong example. To me, there is a greater resemblance between the contact between Europeans and some of the South Sea islanders (the meek kind, not the fierce cannibals). The hisa, though, were by far meeker (although strong) than almost any "tribe" met by European explorers. I think that was deliberate, because Cherryh wanted to show what could happen if "colonizers" and "colonized" cooperated instead of fighting. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 13:07:25 PDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lisa Hopkinson Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the Union Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Claudia Lyndhurst said >see it, Cherryh has set up a universe with the "anarchic" merchanters on >the one side and the militarily flexible but socially rigid Union. Of >course, with Cherryh nothing is *quite* so straight forward as we see from >the future history because by 2700, athe Alliance was now a tyranny and >AlSec, the security organisation set up by Signy, has become what amounts >to the KGB of its time. I know Ruth prefers "SS" or "Gestapo", but neither Ive read Downbelow Station often but I don't remember this. Where did it come from, not from Downbelow Station because the book finishes in 2353 and I dont think that anything is said anywhere about the future 350 years ahead. Lisa _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 19:30:24 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Todd Mason Subject: Periodical nostalgia Comments: To: sf in film and literature , HORROR@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU, Multiple recipients of list SF-LIT Comments: cc: Fred Ollinger , "alektra@aol.com" , "rakko7@kuentos.guam.net" , "jecedit@aol.com" , "jem@lm.com" , Virginia Ely , Frederic Bush , Tia Hamilton , Aileen Gallagher , "srcdilbert@juno.com" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" In an odd bit of synchronicity, the August issues of THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION and REALMS OF FANTASY have golden covers, F&SF offering us Bob Eggleton's castle atop a hill, with a single human figure small in foreground, in illustration of R. Garcia y Robertson's "Strongbow"; REALMS gives a detail of a Greg Hildebrandt illustration of the Perseus myth, the dragon dominating both its attacker and its human offering. I've read most of the nonfiction in both, but not yet Heinz Insu Fenkl's latest "Folkroots" column (previous ones have been extraordinary) nor Michelle West's YA fantasy-book reviews, and so far among the fiction only Nina Kiriki Hoffman's "Salvage Efforts," a casually brilliant story that could be seen as slight despite a strong feminist metaphor and message at its core, and an opening which is an evocation of a basic fantasy situation that has only rarely been imagined so well. F&SF has, aside from Hoffman and Garcia y Robertson, Marc Laidlaw, William Sanders, Wayne Wightman, Michael Kandel, Michael Nethercott, and first fiction from M. Rickert, and additional nonfiction from Charles de Lint, Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty, and Ruth Berman. REALMS has fewer established "names" among its fiction list of Deborah Therese D'Onofrio, K. D. Wentworth, Bruce Holland Rogers, Sten Westgard, Brian A. Hopkins and James Van Pelt, and Bruce Glassco, but offers among its nonfiction Gahan Wilson and Jeanne Cavelos, Resa Nelson on the new film version of THE HAUNTING, Karen Haber on the Hildebrandt Bros, and Eric Baker...and further evidence, beyond Haber's article and its examples, for my contention that REALMS is the handsomest fiction magazine on the racks. Sorry to descend to listing names (just picked them up the other day), but I wonder if I can convey how cheering (in a mildly grim time) seeing F&SF apparently artistically and financially sound in its 50th year, and REALMS apparently in similar good shape, in their numbers for my birthmonth a good 21+ years after I began reading all the fiction magazines (of all types) I could both find and afford. But F&SF and FANTASTIC, back in 1978, were the purest quill, better even than such excellent alternatives as SHORT STORY INTERNATIONAL and ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Only exotic WHISPERS could match them, and having to order that one through the mail was less, somehow, than the joy of seeing the new issue on the newsstand. FANTASTIC was absorbed into AMAZING not long after, but REALMS in a sense fills the folded magazine's niche for me, in fact seems to split the difference between FANTASTIC, which had the good if sparse black and white illustration that F&SF has traditionally eschewed, and the only other new fantasy-fiction periodical I could find in the New Hampshire stores I frequented, ARIEL, the lushly-illustrated and -produced "Book of Fantasy" that my allowance of the time could not be stretched to cover without dumping nearly everything else. And, anyway, F&SF and FANTASTIC seemed to have more of the horror fiction I prized beyond all but the best of the other fantasies... I suspect you'll be rewarded if you pick up the new issues, and you'll get change for eight dollars American. Oddly enough, the Summer 1999 issue of the SFWA BULLETIN also has a golden cover (Bradburyan Golden Apples season? Gene Wolfesque periodicals of gold?), this one by Czech artist Martina Pilcerova. Aside from the statements from the Nebula nominees and about Grand Master Hal Clement, perhaps the best reason to read this is the discussion piece between Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg, the second in a series, this one about the editors in our field(s). Mike boldly states at the start that "The first four truly influential short story editors in the field were John Campbell, Anthony Boucher, Horace Gold, and Michael Moorcock. I don't think there's any serious debate about this point." Malzberg assents by silence, but I would suggest that (aside from apparently slighting J. Francis McComas, the less visible partner of Boucher in cofounding and coediting F&SF for its first five years of publication) there is at least one name that we should consider, even if we forget Frederik Pohl for STAR SCIENCE FICTION and other 1950s activity (and his earlier pulp editing and later GALAXY group work), Damon Knight in his variously shortlived posts before ORBIT, and such important but perhaps not-as-important figures as Judith Merril, Avram Davidson, Cele Goldsmith/Lalli, Larry Shaw, and even such folk as Ted Carnell, Sam Merwin, Samuel Mines, Jerome Bixby who published important, even revolutionary work without being seen as the center of a revolution--Bixby and Merwin eventually worked for Gold, after all--but Robert P. Mills might be the dark horse in the field of Merril, Knight, and Pohl for having been too slighted. Mills did, in VENTURE SCIENCE FICTION, with the approval of publisher Joseph Ferman, seem to produce the closest thing in sf to an EVERGREEN REVIEW up to that time--a magazine writers loved to write for, and one which was comparitively unafraid to let them tackle "sensitive" subjects, including sexuality. He then went on to take the reigns of F&SF from Boucher and keep it the most consistently literate of fantastic prozines, publishing "Flowers for Algernon" among many other impressive items while doing so. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 06:35:05 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the Union Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Lisa wrote: >Ive read Downbelow Station often but I don't remember this. Where did it >come from, not from Downbelow Station because the book finishes in 2353 >and I dont think that anything is said anywhere about the future 350 years >ahead. It was taken from a timeline Cherryh's book, _Angel with a Sword_. I don't have my copy available but I think the timeline goes from 2600 to 3000. If Mike Stanton isn't so overwhelmed with the joys of being home (and if he reads this before leaving tomorrow) he'll be able to give you the exact location etc. Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 05:34:38 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the Union Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Claudia wrote: > It was taken from a timeline Cherryh's book, _Angel > with a Sword_. I don't have my copy available but I > think the timeline goes from 2600 to 3000. If Mike > Stanton isn't so overwhelmed with the joys of being > home (and if he reads this before leaving tomorrow) > he'll be able to give you the exact location etc. I get the sarcasm . The full title of the book is _Merovingen Nights : Angel with a Sword_. The timeline's in the Appendix in a section called Chronology (p 257 in my edition). The timeline gives the entire Union-Alliance universe's "history" for the period 2600 - 3253 (900 years after the end of _Downbelow Station_) with dates of significance to Merovinden marked with and asterisk. It's well worth reading the entire Appendix carefully and keeping a copy of the timeline in a file for easy reference. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 00:53:04 PDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lisa Hopkinson Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the Union Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Mike Stanton said: >I get the sarcasm . The full title of the book is _Merovingen Nights : >Angel with a Sword_. The timeline's in the Appendix in a section called >Chronology (p 257 in my edition). The timeline gives the entire >Union-Alliance universe's "history" for the period 2600 - 3253 (900 years >after the end of _Downbelow Station_) with dates of significance to >Merovinden marked with and asterisk. It's well worth reading the entire >Appendix carefully and keeping a copy of the timeline in a file for easy >reference. I haven't read any of the Merovigen Nights books and I don't think I'll be able to get copies. Could you post a summary of what's said if you have one? Lisa _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 21:58:04 HST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Margery Kempe Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the Union Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: >Of course, with Cherryh nothing is *quite* so straight >forward as we see from the future history because by 2700, athe Alliance >was now a tyranny and AlSec, the security organisation set up by Signy, >has become what amounts to the KGB of its time. I don't think that there's any doubt that Cherryh was looking at a right-wing society (perhaps fascist is going too far because even at its worse the Union never plumbed Caetano's depth of evil let alone Hitler's). Union wasn't even a dictatorship like Mussolini's Italy or Franco's Spain. It was ruled by Families or by large Corporations and their were important restrictions on their power. The Unionists (specially the later ones from the birth labs) weren't really restricted in their politics or lifestyle except for breeding. Also the Union lasted for a long time in roughly the same form which out suffering the rebellions that plague dictatorships. The chronology in _Angel with a Sword_ shows it existed in much the same form in 2749, 450 years after it really started. It's funny how right-wing countries eventually evolve in a liberal direction like Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany or Greece while left-wing ones, at least on earth, tend to end up as awful tyrannies like China, North Korea or Cuba or complete foulups like Russia or Serbia. Cherryh, I think, deliberately planned her universe that way probably because of her bias in favour of sicence and technology because right-wingers tend to favour technology while the left tends to treat it with contempt. >I know Ruth prefers "SS" or "Gestapo", but neither of those two >organisations controlled Germany the way the KGB controlled the USSR ... >the left have always been more efficient at suppression than the right who >usually spend more time fighting amongst themselves If you look at Hilter's Germany, it wasn't just one monolithic empire (although I don't think such a thing has ever existed). It was torn up into dozens of factions each fighting the other while the "innocent" people on the bottom were just crushed in the struggle. Hilter made sure that no one faction ever became strong enough to challenge him. As Cherryh designed it, Union in some ways was the same but only in principle becuase Union never developed the"Fuhrer prinzip". We see in _Downbelow Station_ that there were differences of opinion on major matters, something which wouldn't have been tolerated in a true dictatorship. Cherryh was optimistic in her projections for Union, but at the time of _Downbelow Station_, the Unionists were about as monolithic as they would ever be and had not time to mellow. Countries like the USSR or North Korea had/have a far greater hold on the lives of their people because, as you said, they are more efficient at suppression and at the murder of their opponents - even Hitler's monstrosities pale into comparison with Stalin's mass murders which went on for much longer and were far more efficiently conducted. I don't think that Cherryh designed Union as a tyranny either of the inefficient brutal right or the stiflingly efficent, brutal left, because she was too optimistic about the future of humanity and science. What she showed were two systems which had far more in common than they had differences; the apparent ruthlessness of Union was just a reflection of their drive for perfection, but Cherryh didn't allow this drive to go so far that it destroyed their basic humanity (as it did for Hitler's murderers or Stalin's executioners). I think this is where Cherryh shows her great skill. She never yielded to the temptation to paint her protagonists and antagonists in black and white (the "good" Alliance and the "evil" Union). Other authors lack this skill and thus aim their books at a narrow market (Russ who we discussed earlier was like this). Margery Kempe _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 08:56:14 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Cherryh's Merovingen Chronology (long) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Lisa Hopkinson wrote: > I haven't read any of the Merovigen Nights books and I > don't think I'll be able to get copies. Could you post > a summary of what's said if you have one? Lisa At the end of this note I've added a copy of the listing I had an intern type up earlier this year. I haven't checked it, but I think the main dates are right. It's well worth trying to get the _Merovingen Nights_ series (especially _Angel with a Sword_), although apart from the first, each book includes stories by other authors, many of which are NOT up to Cherryh's standard. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) _______________________________ The Merovingen Chronology (also important for overview of later Alliance/Union universe) Note: Dates important to Merovin are marked with *. Dates in parentheses are local Merovin dates (AS = After Scouring - see 2657) 2600: Erosion of the Gehenna Doctrine 2608*: Merovin colony lands 2623: First Alliance/Union contact with majat of A Hyd II (Cerdin). Crew eaten. 2652*: Sharrh demand removal of colony from Merovin 2653*: Union/sharrh treaty cedes Merovin 2654*: Union troops remove colonists 2655*: Merovin exodus complete 2657*: The Scouring of Merovin 2658* (1AS): Sharrh withdraw; elsewhere the first Gehennan to leave his world reaches Fargone 2659* (2AS): Minor quake inDet Valley, Merovingen 2672* (14AS): Calendree of Nev Hettek organises Det Valley Militias: beginning of the Re-Establishment 2679* (21AS): Merovingen defies Nev Hettek 2680* (22AS): Merovingen joined hy other militias in rejecting Nev Hettek rule 2690* (32AS): Great Quake in Det Valley 2691* (33AS): Flood in Merovingen 2695* (37AS): Flood in Merovingen 2698* (40AS): Flood in Merovingen 2699* (41AS): Flood in Merovingen 2700* (42AS): Flood in Merovingen; Angel of Merovingen found 2702* (44AS): Flood in Merovingen 2703 (45AS): The Mri Wars begin: generally throughout this period, since the regul/mri assault came from a side of the Alliance not involving Union, the Alliance fought alone. The Alliance, moreover, in its long distrust of Union, feared an attack on its flank from Union. The Alliance security organization (AlSec) founded 300 years previously by Signy Mallory proved all too powerful against the constitution framed by Damon Konstantin. Alliance became a police state on the home front, repressive and suspicious. Union, while worried, was not able to intervene across Alliance space until the war worsened. 2710* (52AS): Adventist riots on Merovin; Nev Hettek intervenes in Merovingen and the original Angel is lost. 2712* (54AS): The Angel of Merogingen is set on the bridge. New Hettek is expelled from Merovingen 2720* (62AS): Merovingen's harbour is detsroyed in major quake; sea gates jam open, boats are sunk. Miraculously the Angel continues to stand. A sandbar forms above the boats completing the devastation. 2721* (63AS): The New Harbour is begun in Merovingen. 2722 (64AS): Alliance government centre removed to Haven from Pell, to bring the government closer to the war zone and improve reaction time. Pell is reduced to a regional capital, but remains the cultural, if not the administrative, centre of the Alliance. 2724* (66AS): The Faisal Rebellion; ends Re-Establishment. 2730 (72AS): Fall of Haven to the mri; Alliance finally appeals for Union help. The help is debated in the Union Council while Haven falls and Union forces when they do arrive are met with distrust and anger by Alliance forces who do not understand what resttraints hace operated on the home front. It has been AlSec policy to keep the ways out of the home territory at Pell; but there is now intense economic suffering and the loss of life can no longer be concealed. 2743 (85AS): End of the Mri Wars; Haven retaken. 2748 (90AS): Regul reach internal crisis because of the human contact and go totally xenophobic. 2749 (91AS): The Alliance suffers revolution as AlSec is curtailed and Konstantn constitution is restored. Union observes prudent silence during this period. 2779* (121AS): Earthquake in the Chattalen. 2805* (147AS): Minor Det Valley quake. 2907* (249AS): Major flood in Merovingen 3141 (483AS): Massacre of the Meth-marens of the Hydri Stars 3187 (529AS): The Hanan break from the Alliance in a minor fracas limited to a narrow string of stars, but the struggle will last for a thousand years. Union is not involved. 3241* (583AS): Altair Jones born on Merovin 3243* (585AS): Minor quake in Merovingen 3253* (595AS): Retribution Jones dies in flood