A Son of the Rock

Mandarin, 1988, 394 p.

This is the fourth in Cherryh’s pride of Chanur sequence, featuring the leonine Pyanfar Chanur as a protagonist. I reviewed the previous books here, here and here.

Chanur’s Homecoming seemed to me to be more densely written than the others in Pyanfar’s story so far, with much more of her thoughts and worries on the ongoing situation in the worlds of the Compact. Her main preoccupation here, though, is the threat to her homeworld Anuurn, and to the survival of her han race, represented by the kif Akkhtimakt, who has taken his ships off presumably to attack the planet. Pyanfar has an ally of sorts in another kif, Sikkukkut, who has gifted her one of his slaves, Skkukuk and is a sworn enemy of Akkhtimakt. Other characters familiar from the previous books are Pyanfar’s niece, Hilfy, the rest of the crew of her spaceship The Pride of Chanur and the human Tully – but he takes much less part in the action and the plot than before.

That action takes some time to come to the fore and it is only in the book’s latter stages when the pace ramps up. It is what happens in this book though which sets out why Pyanfar will later become a revered elder in hani society.

Pedant’s corner:- focussed (x 2, focused,) “I can’t shake if off” (it off,) “in common” (common,) unladed (unladen,) “none of them were in the mood” (none of them was in the mood,) touble (trouble,) shortfocussed (shortfocused.) “Neither of us are” (Neither of us is,) Pasarimi (elsewhere Pasarimu.)