After Andre Norton's Witch World books, these were perhaps my first introduction to Science Fantasy. The complexity of the story, the politics, the characterization is, of course, on a much higher level.
I think it was the emotional intensity of these books that hooked me, the fact that the characters never seem to be able to relax into complacency about what they are doing. There are always dilemmas, moral questions -- indeed, some of them can't be solved. There is no room for conscience in Morgaine's quest, and yet that seems to be Vanye's greatest value: that he challenges her to think before she acts. He sees questions of morality, ethics, honor, and humanity in a straight-forward way that contrasts with the many convolutions of her own thinking (which are the result of time and experience, loss and grief, and the many bad decisions that she and her original companions must have made along the way). No matter how old she actually is -- and Cherryh never tells us -- Morgaine is immeasurably older than he. It is interesting to have a heroine who is so much older and more experienced than the hero.
Yet Vanye has his own strengths. I can recall no character that I've ever read about who suffered more physical agonies and indignities, and yet kept going, in spite of many opportunities to turn back. Loyalty, endurance, and compassion are the qualities that he brings to the journey.
Cherryh is famous (and deservedly so) for writing aliens who are truly alien, who have alien minds, as different as they could possibly be from ours and yet still be comprehensible. Yet in the Morgaine books she explores the human heart and mind, taking Vanye and Morgaine from one world to another where humans are trying to survive under immense outside pressures.
I think it was the emotional intensity of these books that hooked me, the fact that the characters never seem to be able to relax into complacency about what they are doing. There are always dilemmas, moral questions -- indeed, some of them can't be solved. There is no room for conscience in Morgaine's quest, and yet that seems to be Vanye's greatest value: that he challenges her to think before she acts. He sees questions of morality, ethics, honor, and humanity in a straight-forward way that contrasts with the many convolutions of her own thinking (which are the result of time and experience, loss and grief, and the many bad decisions that she and her original companions must have made along the way). No matter how old she actually is -- and Cherryh never tells us -- Morgaine is immeasurably older than he. It is interesting to have a heroine who is so much older and more experienced than the hero.
Yet Vanye has his own strengths. I can recall no character that I've ever read about who suffered more physical agonies and indignities, and yet kept going, in spite of many opportunities to turn back. Loyalty, endurance, and compassion are the qualities that he brings to the journey.
Cherryh is famous (and deservedly so) for writing aliens who are truly alien, who have alien minds, as different as they could possibly be from ours and yet still be comprehensible. Yet in the Morgaine books she explores the human heart and mind, taking Vanye and Morgaine from one world to another where humans are trying to survive under immense outside pressures.