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thistlechaserIn a first ever for this LJ, we're going to open a book review with a video!
For the younger folks out there, filk was fan-created songs and music, based on scifi or fantasy. It was sold at cons or through snailmail, on homemade cassette tapes. It predated the Internet by a good deal.
I first heard this song sometime in my preteens, and I haven't heard it for the last couple decades, but the line in the subject line gets stuck in my head on a regular basis, so I dug it up. The song tells the plot of the first book.
Anyway! On to the book! There was only two things I hated about it:
#1: It's not available in ebook format. I found a less-than-official copy of the first book online, and after reading it last year, attempted to hunt down the rest of the series. I came up with only the second book.
Knowing how depressing it would be to read the second book and then not have the others, I put off reading it until now.
#2: It ended on a mid-scene cliffhanger with a "Continued in next book!" message. ARRGGG! That's just wrong!
So, book #10 of 2013: Chanur's Venture by C. J. Cherryh. The book continues the story of the Hani, a cat-like race who were able to access space travel before they were culturally ready. (The technology was given to them by another species.) Lots of Hani politics, an inter-species war, and a single human tossed into the mix.
This is one of those classic scifi series. Want action/adventure? There's a whole lot of it. Like things more character based/interpersonal relationships? Yep! The only thing it's short on is romance, but even that it has hints of. The aliens are all very interesting, the issues of dealing a species when you don't share a common language are really interesting, plus the plot was fast-moving and exciting.
I'm not sure how many people haven't read this series yet, but if you like scifi or fantasy and haven't, I strongly recommend it! Supposedly the official ebooks are coming out in a year or two, so they'll be even more accessible then.
Edit: Holy cow, Google is scary sometimes. I wanted to make sure I wasn't misremembering when the filk song was created, so I googled "We are the pride of Chanurrrr, glossy of eye, fang, and furrrr!" and my post came up as the first result. Minutes after I posted it.
Edit 2: Wow, Leslie Fish, the woman who wrote and sang that song, is amazing! " Fish is also well-known within the Star Trek fan community for her works of fan fiction, which include "Shelter" (1976), one of the first Kirk/Spock stories ever published, and the fan-published Star Trek novel The Weight." She's written with C. J. Cherryh, is a RPG player and LARPer. "One of Fish's more unusual personal projects is an on-going attempt to breed domestic cats for intelligence..." She's been a dominatrix and "often asserted that bisexuality is the human norm". She sounds like the most interesting woman ever! Kirk/Spock is where slash came from. She founded slash!
For the younger folks out there, filk was fan-created songs and music, based on scifi or fantasy. It was sold at cons or through snailmail, on homemade cassette tapes. It predated the Internet by a good deal.
I first heard this song sometime in my preteens, and I haven't heard it for the last couple decades, but the line in the subject line gets stuck in my head on a regular basis, so I dug it up. The song tells the plot of the first book.
Anyway! On to the book! There was only two things I hated about it:
#1: It's not available in ebook format. I found a less-than-official copy of the first book online, and after reading it last year, attempted to hunt down the rest of the series. I came up with only the second book.
Knowing how depressing it would be to read the second book and then not have the others, I put off reading it until now.
#2: It ended on a mid-scene cliffhanger with a "Continued in next book!" message. ARRGGG! That's just wrong!
So, book #10 of 2013: Chanur's Venture by C. J. Cherryh. The book continues the story of the Hani, a cat-like race who were able to access space travel before they were culturally ready. (The technology was given to them by another species.) Lots of Hani politics, an inter-species war, and a single human tossed into the mix.
This is one of those classic scifi series. Want action/adventure? There's a whole lot of it. Like things more character based/interpersonal relationships? Yep! The only thing it's short on is romance, but even that it has hints of. The aliens are all very interesting, the issues of dealing a species when you don't share a common language are really interesting, plus the plot was fast-moving and exciting.
I'm not sure how many people haven't read this series yet, but if you like scifi or fantasy and haven't, I strongly recommend it! Supposedly the official ebooks are coming out in a year or two, so they'll be even more accessible then.
Edit: Holy cow, Google is scary sometimes. I wanted to make sure I wasn't misremembering when the filk song was created, so I googled "We are the pride of Chanurrrr, glossy of eye, fang, and furrrr!" and my post came up as the first result. Minutes after I posted it.
Edit 2: Wow, Leslie Fish, the woman who wrote and sang that song, is amazing! " Fish is also well-known within the Star Trek fan community for her works of fan fiction, which include "Shelter" (1976), one of the first Kirk/Spock stories ever published, and the fan-published Star Trek novel The Weight." She's written with C. J. Cherryh, is a RPG player and LARPer. "One of Fish's more unusual personal projects is an on-going attempt to breed domestic cats for intelligence..." She's been a dominatrix and "often asserted that bisexuality is the human norm". She sounds like the most interesting woman ever! Kirk/Spock is where slash came from. She founded slash!
