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The Kif Strike Back
- Chanur, Book 3
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
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The Kif Strike Back
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Summary
When the kif seize Hilfy and Tully, Pyanfar and her shipmates enter into a simple rescue attempt. It soon becomes a deadly game of interstellar politics.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Quiet Queen
- 28-07-23
Know your enemy
The story is part two of a trilogy set in the fascinating world we first encountered in the first Chanur story “The Pride of Chanur” and continues the story of the ship’s hazardous encounter with the alien species humans - and the Byzantine intrigues the changing situation engenders in the trade compact where the tale is set.
The plot is thickening fast, and while it does so we get to know the kif in greater depth. The main character, Pyanfar Chanur, gets to use all the aptitude for wily intrigues that her hani heritage and her position as a favoured daughter of an important house on Anuurn has given her the chance to develop. And while important machinations take place, Pyanfar’s kind heart and sense of honour slowly makes the Pride resemble a zoo…
The technology of the Compact is, as in the first part of the trilogy and the preceding standalone story, advanced but certainly not near-magical as it often can be in Science Fiction - the technology is described in a very tangible way that makes it seem utterly realistic.
The truly masterful stroke here is how the book flips the meta perspective: Cherryh uses ordinary English to normalise the (to the reader) alien viewpoint of the protagonist and the culture she inhabits, and makes the reader accept them as norm. When the human enters the story, his entirely human behaviour is described as alien and seemingly irrational — and the reader accepts it as such.
C.J. Cherryh is without question the unsurpassed mistress of portraying alienness - aliens who aren’t just visually different from humans, but who think differently, have different instincts, and talk a language full of words that can’t easily be translated because it assumes fundamental concepts born out of a very different psychology.
The book is full of turns of phrase that is very likely to stick with the listener to enrich their vocabulary for years to come.
The performance is decent - but with the increase of tongue-twisting kif names it becomes very problematic when the performer mangles names to make them easier to pronounce - for example the station Kshshti becomes “Keshti”, and the kifish gift Skukkuk becomes “Sikukuk”, which makes the character difficult to distinguish from the story’s main antagonist, the kifish hakkikt Sikkukkut.
If I had my choice I would have chosen a less soprano tone for the bevvy of leonine hani women and put them more in the alto range. The creative choice that makes the kif sound like the Siamese cats in Disney’s Lady and the Tramp is also unfortunate.
The technical effects that appeared in the first part of the trilogy to enhance the performance - to emulate e.g. comms and mechanical translators - has disappeared.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mackenzie Cockburn
- 23-03-22
A great continuation of venture
This book is pretty much chanur’s venture part 2 and carries over nicely I feel, a bit of action and lots of politics all of which is kinda interesting.
The only real bugbear I have with the series so far is that the characters never seem to breathe at all, we get a bit of development here and there in passing statements but never really any time to see these characters outside of their mad scramble.
Hilfi easily had the biggest development here and it’s great to see.
Dina as always is very easy to listen to, quite good at her voices and accents I just wish in the latter act she did some more anguished voices for the injured characters, it kinda took me out of it to hear (you’ll know if you’ve listened) in her normal voice despite the fact it was heavily implied she was nearly dying
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kristina
- 30-05-23
Part 3 of 5
A good reading overall, but with a handful of jarring mispronounciations, of an excellent story.
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