Alliance Unbound - (The Hinder Stars) by C J Cherryh & Jane S Fancher (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

With deft prose and complex characters, Alliance Unbound is thought-provoking science fiction that shrewdly examines the technological and sociopolitical challenges of humanity's journey to the stars.

When Cyteen opened up faster-than-light travel, it gave the technology for free to any ship that could reach it; and with that technology, it provided a map of jump-points, points of mass enabling starships to navigate hyperspace safely.

The map of jump-points, however, stopped with the route to Alpha--thus excluding Sol, and Earth, and the Earth Company, whose gateway to the stars was Alpha. Cyteen knew exactly what it was doing with its gift. Sol and the EC could still reach Alpha with sub-light pusher-ships as it always had--but Sol and the Earth Company no longer had any authority in the Beyond.

But Sol intends to take back control of its star-stations and stop Cyteen's unbridled expansion, however it can. To do that, they are willing to starve Alpha and concentrate their efforts on a huge FTLer capable of carrying military force.

Review Quotes

"SFWA Grand Master C.J Cherryh and Jane Fancher team up to create another exciting entry in Cherryh's extensive Alliance-Union Universe." --Kirkus Reviews

"Cherryh and Fancher ground this fine work in the difficult choices that their characters must make in the face of an uncertain future. The economics and sociopolitics are as riveting as space battles, enhancing this welcome addition to the Alliance-Union saga." --Publishers Weekly

"[Alliance Rising] showcases a concern--common to Cherryh's other novels--with organisations and bureaucracies, with systems and societies, and how such wider contexts shape the people (ambitious or content, well-meaning or malicious) who operate within them.... Cherryh and Fancher deploy an anthropological eye." --Tor.com

"Alliance Rising serves to whet the appetite, not just for the second novel in the Hinder Stars sub-series but also to visit and re-visit the full Alliance-Union backlist of novels." --nerds of a feather, flock together

About the Author

Jane S. Fancher grew up raising and training horses, learning to fly a plane, playing piano, singing, drawing, and studying math, physics, astronomy, and anthropology. While working for WaRP Graphics (Elfquest), she joined a project to produce a graphic adaptation of C. J. Cherryh's Gate of Ivrel. This endeavor led her to a new home in Oklahoma City, where she found her calling and began writing her own novels.