Review: Sunfall, by C. J. Cherryh

Review: Sunfall, by C. J. Cherryh

by Rich Horton

I read C. J. Cherryh's collection Sunfall when it first appeared in 1981. I remember enjoying it, and thinking that the opening story, "The Only Death in the City", should have got a Hugo nomination, but I remember little else. So I was happy that our book club chose it for the August meeting this year.

Sunfall was marketed ambiguously, never identified as a collection, doubtless because novels tend to sell better than collections. And, indeed, the stories are vaguely linked by setting and theme, though there are no direct links. And they are all original to the book. (One more story, "MasKs", was added in 2004 for The Collected Short Fiction of C. J. Cherryh.) I always assumed that one reason "The Only Death in the City" didn't get a Hugo or Nebula nomination was that many voters passed over the stories in Sunfall on the assumption that they were chapters in a novel, though it did finish 4th in the Best Short Story category for the Locus Awards. It comprises six stories (not counting "MasKs"), each set in a major world city. There is a brief prologue establishing the setting and theme -- Earth is an old, dying world, and many of its remaining people are concentrated in the great ancient cities. The six stories are:

"The Only Death in the City" (Paris) (6800 words)

"The Haunted Tower" (London) (15700 words)

"Ice" (Moscow) (10600 words)

"Nightgame" (Rome) (6400 words)

"Highliner" (New York) (11100 words)

"The General" (Paris) (10600 words)

The later, seventh, story, "MasKs", is set in Venice, and is about 17,500 words.

"The Only Death in the City" is about the first new child born in Paris in a long time -- most children are reincarnations of the residents. As he grows up, he eventually falls in love with Ermine, one of the ancients. And he realizes he does not want to live over and over, replaying the same scenes in different permutations -- so he makes a bargain with Death, that he will truly die and not be reincarnated. It's a highly romantic story, and the romanticism is effective, and the inevitable ending works. It remains a very good story, though I think it affected me even more 30 years ago.

"The Haunted Tower" concerns Bettine Maunfrey, a mistress of the Lord Mayor of this latterday London. She is a callow woman, born to poverty and only too aware that she needs to keep the interest of the Mayor to keep her position -- but she is tempted into an affair with a young man and is sent to the Tower. Once there she encounters the ghosts of the Tower -- the past victims, such as Richard III's nephews, Anne Boleyn, the Earl of Essex, and even Queen Elizabeth I (not truly a Tower victim, of course.) And an old Roman soldier. They make it clear to her that is is politics, not sex, that has imprisoned her, and she realizes that she has gotten entangled in a revolutionary plot, as her young lover used the access she accidentally gave him to steal secrets. Eventually the Mayor offers her her freedom in exchange for revealing the name of the thief ... It's a pretty effective story but not a great one.

In "Ice" the Moskva of this future has returned, it seems, to essentially 15th Century or so conditions, with added cold. Andrei is one of the few who dare venture outside, to hunt. One day on his return he encounters a pack of wolves, seemingly led by a mysterious great white wolf. He barely makes it to safety, and finds himself terrified by the prospect of going back outside the walls, but at the same time drawn to the great beauty of the ice and the white wolf. He puts it "I have lost my luck". He is to be married to his beloved Anna in the spring, but even this joy seems to have been taken from him. He decides he must go back outside -- to his fate, he believes. But his friend Ilya, Anna's brother (and obviously coded as gay, and in love with Andrei) insists that he go instead, though he lacks the skill and experience of Andrei. Again -- the plot drives to the one possible conlusion. I liked this story quite a bit.

"Nightgame" is more science-fictional. Rome is again ruled by an Emperor -- the current one, Elio DCCII, is a 12 year old boy. He has become more and more bored with the primary entertainment -- in which a prisoner is sent to a virtual environment to be hunted or otherwise exposed to great dangers, and inevitably to die. The prisoner's mental state is recorded as "dreams" that people can experience for themselves. But the decadent local prisoners don't put up enough of a fight. So a man who supplies people for this dream recording has obtained a native of one of the planets humans have colonized, who lives in a more "primitive" environment ... and who may put up a better fight. Though the basic outlines of this are clear, the execution, and the final resolution, are nicely handled. Another good story.

"Highliner" is again true science fiction. It's set in an ever expanding New York, comprising, it seems, larger and larger skyscrapers. The "highliners" are those who work on the outside, maintaining the buildings or working the construction crews expanding them. One such is Johnny Tallfeather (the name evoking, of course, the Mohawk "skywalkers" who have worked in bridge and skyscraper construction for decades.) Johnny and his team are approached by someone representing a corporation which wants the latest new construction to be slightly altered to favor them. He's uneasy about this, but there seems no alternative -- and then when they are working on it, there's an accident -- and it's quickly clear that it was no accident -- as witnesses to the corporations corrupt actions Johnny and his team are to be murdered. But Johnny survives, and in his anger convinces his union to stage a strike. It's a pretty solid story.

"The General" is set in the Forbidden City, as it is again threatened by the nomadic tribes of Central Asia. The Forbidden City, or City of Heaven, is not ready for war -- they are devoted to beauty and pleasure, though they maintain an army, which has been sufficient in the past when one small tribe or another attacks. But this time the tribes have been unified by title General, Yilan, and a true "horde" has been assembled, and the City is doomed. Yilan, however, is dying, and the question of succession is important -- he wishes for his protege Shimshek, despite the latter's having gotten Yilan's wife pregnant; but Boga, a cruel rival, clearly is planning his bid. Meanwhile, two young lovers in Peking witness the city's apparent fall ... Much of this is informed by Yilan's realization (echoing, slightly, the many ghosts in "The Haunted Tower") that he is only the latest sort of reincarnation of past conquerors -- Alexander, Arthur, Caesar -- even (somewhat unconvincingly) Hitler; and he hopes for a new pattern to emerge in the twilight of Earth. For me, this was an ambitious story that didn't really work.

So how does the book work as a whole? First, it's clearly not set in a consistent far future -- these stories are best viewed as variations on a theme -- six separate looks at how one particular city might evolve in the very far future -- some somewhat fantastical, some straight SF. In the end, it's far more about the cities than it is about the "Dying Earth" future. As a story collection, it's quite good, with two or three exceptional stories and no real clunkers. Cherryh can really write, and that too is a pleasure throughout. 

It's also from an interesting period in Cherryh's career, as Mark Tiedemann suggested: she had established her reputation with the Morgaine novels and the Faded Sun novels (as well as the linked books Brothers of Earth and Hunter of Worlds), and for this brief period she published a number of almost experimental books: Sunfall, certainly, but also Wave Without a Shore, and Hestia, and Port Eternity. Part of this was Don Wollheim's willingness to let her try different things, part of this was, I think, Cherryh stretching her wings, as it were. It's nice to see this sort of phase in a major writer's career.

Finally, a quick look at the story written for the later edition, "MasKs", which I had not read until justnow. And I have to say, it's a very enjoyable story. It's set in Venice -- Venezia -- and the only real indication that it's in the future is that the threat of floods, of the sea, is more insistent than ever. Venice is not welcoming (in this future) to "foreigners" -- that is, to non-Venetians. But the story concerns too such -- an old woman exiled from Milan, and her young granddaughter; and a man, Cesare, exiled from Verona, an ambitious man. And the new Doge -- a commoner, but so far a successful Doge. The granddaughter, Giacinta, anticipates here first carnevale, her first taste of freedom, but her grandmother makes it clear she is supposed to marry Cesare, to ensure her grandmother's finances, and to support Cesare's bid for power. And all might go that way, but Giancinta sneaks away and meets a mysterious young man -- and when she meets Cesare she recognizes his cruelty. Can she possibly escape? Really, there are no surprises here, but it's a nice romantic story. (And I have no idea why the K is capitalized.)