In Alliance Space (2008), C. J. Cherryh reprints two of her early novels, Merchanter’s Luck (1982) and Forty Thousand in Gehenna (1983). Merchanter’s Luck, a tightly focused space opera romance, was meant to be her first Alliance novel, but she put it on hold to fill out the details of the world she was building. The result was Downbelow Station (1981), which won her a Hugo Award.
Forty Thousand in Gehenna seems to have several fundamental flaws. Reviewers complain that the story stumbles over its world-building and that nothing is lost if you skip the first half. I get it. There are long interpolated lists of character names and roles that mean little to the reader. Character issues abound. We lose track of important characters as the generations come and go. We might wish that the scaly aliens called Calibans were easier to accept, more like the warm and fuzzy Hisa of Pell. We don’t have a hero or heroine to root for when we get to the war in the second half. When the Alliance forces swoop in at the end, neither the winners nor the losers much care.
Cherryh tramples our expectations on purpose. If Merchanter’s Luck critiques the freewheeling mercantile world of the Companies and the trading fleet, Forty Thousand in Gehenna takes on the Union culture that she would go on to develop in the Cyteen novels. The Union uses cloning, hypnagogic imprinting, and other techniques to modify people to fit the new social and physical environments that star travel offers. They are social experimentalists with a naturally gestated dominant class supported by a large population of designed “azi” clones. In a cold-blooded long game, the Union plants a colony on an undeveloped world, leaving it to shift for itself in the hope that it will one day act as an irritant to expanding Alliance forces. Their planning fails to account for a semi-telepathic indigenous Caliban population. The odd structure of the novel suggests the difficulties innocent Azi face when they are left without the comforts of their programming and must interbreed with their previous masters and ally with the indigenes.
It was fun to revisit these stories. ( )

This is an omnibus of two novels, both in Cherryh's Union/Alliance universe, but otherwise not closely connected.

The first is Merchanter's Luck, a shorter novel about a small, older merchanter ship, which has had some seriously bad luck over the last couple of decades. It used to be Le Cygne, a family-crewed ship which is typical among Cherryh's merchanters, with a crew of about thirty. Then it had a run-in with one of Mazian's fleet, who were mostly pirates even when they were the official fleet of the Company. Only three young crew survived, one of them truly just a child, Sandor Kreja. They continue to have less than good luck, and by the time this novel starts, Sandor Kreja is calling himself "Edward Stephens, his ship Lucy, operating with whatever crew he can scare up, or when times are really tight, operating alone. He's scraping by, but not entirely legitimately. And then, on Viking Station, he meets Allison Riley, a relatively junior officer on the much larger, and much richer, merchanter ship, Dublin Again. They take an interest in each other. Their lives are about to get way too interesting.

What follows is a tense, closely plotted, small-scale story in which they both have a lot of their assumptions challenged, nearly get killed more than once, and have a dangerous and nearly disastrous confrontation with Mazian's leftover, outright pirates with no pretense.

It's very good.

The second novel is Forty Thousand in Gehenna, about an under-the-radar colony established by Union in what, in the logic of obvious expansion patterns will become Alliance space--except that, of course, when Alliance gets there, there will be a colony of Union-descended citizens. It's implied, but not stated outright, that this might not be the only such colony established. The colonists are 40,000 azi, Union's tank-grown, cloned, non-citizen worker class, and five or six thousand citizens, or, as the azi call them, born-men. They immediately set to work building shelter, building the basics of a functioning settlement--but some of their machines start to break down. This includes the tape machines that help the azi deal with the stress from events outside their usual experience. But everything will be fine when the ships that delivered them return with more colonists and supplies, right?

There's also the matter of the calibans, large, semi-aquatic reptilian-like life forms who build their mounds in exactly the kind of riverine areas the humans prefer. But, again, not a problem, really. The colonists will minimize their impact on the local ecology as much as possible, but if push comes to shove, they have rifles and large earth-moving machines.

It gets awkward when they realize, after a few years, that they have really and truly been abandoned; the ships aren't coming back. What we know, and they don't, is that there was never any intention for the ships to return. They're on their own, the small investment Union was willing to make in this throwaway colony intended to create complications for Alliance, a century or two down the line.

This novel is larger-scale, and more detached. We get episodes two or three generations apart, over the next two centuries, till Alliance finally shows up. In the meantime, while the citizens and their descendants--the "born-men"--remain mostly convinced the calibans are just large and potentially dangerous animals. The azi, on the other hand, gradually find themselves in a closer relationship, or rather, two very different closer relationships, with the calibans, and form a very different idea of how smart the calibans are. These different relationships are partly the result, and partly the cause, of two very different azi cultures.

Gradually, we realize, and Alliance and Union eventually discover, something much bigger is going on, here on Gehenna.

This is another excellent novel.

It's worth noting that, while Cherryh is very good, and very popular, she is a bit of a marmite author. You like her or you don't. I'm among the many who really love her work, and strongly recommend it. At the same time--some people, and that's not a small group either, just bounce off her prose. The people who don't like her prose, really don't like it.

And on the third hand, the narrator does a very good job of presenting these two novels..

My recommendation, my strong recommendation, if you are new to Cherryh, is give this a try. Listen to the audio sample, at least. If you are among the many who like it, you've got lots of good reading or listening to look forward to.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher, and am reviewing it voluntarily. ( )

It is an omnibus of two novels:

Merchanter's Luck This is a novel of a small space freighter operating on the fringe... not a pirate but not entirely honest either. The pilot/owner is man called Sandor.. he has something terrible happened to him and his family, he lives by his wits and trusts no one... that is until he is forced to.

This story is gripping, suspenseful, funny and a page turner. I give this book 4.5 Stars

The other book Forty Thousand in Gehenna is on the dark side. It starts out describing the preparation for a ship carrying 40,000 to a small planet, Gehenna. That was interesting to me... the bulk of the settlers are clones and it was interesting how 40,000 of them were crammed into rooms with bunk beds stacked 20 high and how these people were mind controlled to live during the voyage.

But then the wheels fall off the story. The group is not properly lead and the project is not well investigated as to the weather and local fauna. Then there is no resupply ships and things degenerate to a situation that sort of reminded me of Lord of the Flies. If that were not enough... the lack of resupply was on purpose and the expedition is under study as to what will happen to those there... the study group is not to interfere with the life there but of course they do.

What I don't like about the book is the time gaps in the story... you just get to like a character then a few pages later they are old. You get a family tree of main characters but that seems more confusing than helpful.

The main struggle for the reader is trying to figure out what this novel is trying to say... eventually the book grinds to a halt in a most unsatisfying way.

I give this book 3.0 Stars

I really recommend "Merchanter's Luck" and this book is available separately.
So is "[Forty Thousand in Gehenna"available separately but I don't really recommend this book.

Combined I have given the omnibus an average of 3.5 stars (rounded down) ( )

I enjoyed reading these two short novels, but as another reviewer mentioned, both stories suffered from length issues. "Merchanter's Luck" in particular had a lengthy novel's worth of ideas crammed into a novella-length story with a short story's edging around the plot. By the time I was emotionally invested in the characters (and they were sympathetic and likeable), the story was over. I felt it could have been unpacked into something much better.

"Forty Thousand in Gehenna" started off strong, with a lot of ideas about human settlement of a new planet, interaction with alien species, and how to deal with intelligent, non-human beings. Unfortunately the strength of the beginning didn't carry through, and I felt it starting dragging towards the end. Other than that, both of these stories are worth reading, but readers who are already fans of Cherryh may find them more accessible than others. ( )

really liked this; especially Merchanter's Luck; liked the adventure, the emotion