The Kif Strike Back

C.J. Cherryh: Chanur's Venture (DAW, 1985) and The Kif Strike Back (DAW, 1986)

Following up on last year's re-read of The Pride of Chanur, this year saw the re-reads of Chanur's Venture and The Kif Strike Back. It was the first time I had read these books since they were published in the 1980's.

Cherryh excels at creating believable alien societies (and characters). We just don't have men in suits (or with funny bumps on their foreheads) here. In fact, Cherryh succeeds so well in making a believable alien society that when members of that society interact with humans, you find the humans to be alien!

Chanur's Venture had some edge-of-the-seat page-turning action. The Kif Strike Back (the title, I understand, was proposed jokingly and was taken seriously!) is even more of a page-turner than Venture.

I should mention that I read both of these as eBooks from Palm. While I don't like Palm's approach (you need a code consisting of a combination of the name that appears on your credit card along with your credit card number to unlock the book), I do appreciate the fact that they've managed to include the map from the books and give you the ability to do bookmarks, notes, etc.