Last week you were supposed to get the results of the Cherryh quiz, but we took a break to pay tribute to a great musician.
After I posted the EssGee Productions clip from Pirates of Penzance, I went back and watched the rest of the production on YouTube. It’s well done, and has some supremely talented comedians and comedic timing. All week I’ve had Frederick’s song, Oh, Is There Not One Maiden Breast running through my head:
Oh is there not one maiden here
Whose homely face and bad complexion,
Have caused all hope to disappear
Of ever winning man’s affection…
if you will cast your eyes on me
However plain you’ll be, I’ll love you
Frederick does lack social skills.
Gilbert and Sullivan. Very clever, very catchy.
But, back to the quiz. If you haven’t answered it yet, check out the questions here first. Come back when you think you know the answers.
Answers
I am drawn into a team testing prototype ships that travel at a significant percentage of the speed of light.
Ben Pollard, and the novel was Hellburner. Ben and Dekker first appear in Heavy Time, when Ben and his partner come across the wreckage of a ship, and Paul Dekker, the sole inhabitant of the ship. In Hellburner they become involved in testing an experimental ship. I don’t reread Heavy Time much, but for some reason I come back to Hellburner a lot.
I am stamped on the forehead by an alien as a message to tell humans to keep their hands off.
The character is Procyon, from Forge of Heaven. This is another second book. The sequel to Hammerfall. Again, I reread the second book, but seldom look at the first, I don’t know why. The style is typical Cherryh. Slow for most of the book and suddenly, bang, the climax, and the book’s over.
I am a clone
Ariane 2, from Cyteen.
Spoiler coming up, so look away if you haven’t read Cyteen. I haven’t read Cyteen either. I plan to—one day—but I started Cherryh with Ben and Dekker and this was the book where I realised that their side lost the war.
Sort of. It’s more complex than that, and that’s not really the whole story, but that’s how I thought of it back then and I still can’t bring myself to read the book. Yet.
I am the human representative to an alien race.
Do I even need to say who this one is? Bren Cameron, from Foreigner, but will take any book in the Foreigner series. Book seventeen, Visitor, is coming out in April.
I am the captain of my ship. I rescue a hairless alien and find he is intelligent
Pyanfar Chanur, from The Pride of Chanur. A great alien viewpoint (and that’s Pyanfar herself, not the alien she rescues which turns out to be … well, spoilers). Refreshing, one of my favourites, but actually quite hard to buy now, especially as an eBook.