Well into the Alliance Unbound jumppoint.  Wheee!  Taking a moment out to get covid/flu shots as one doesn't want to visit that experience again.

Agreed. Unforturnately, when Defiance came out, the local B&N didn't get it in until 2 weeks after the publishing date.

Finished my first read of Alliance Unbound. My mind is boggled.

I have been using Bookshop.org for as many print version  books as I can.  They donate all profits to an independent bookstore of your choice.  So far no digital content, but I gather they are working on that. 

Someone pointed me to Mary Gentle's early 1980s Orthe duology, Golden Witchbreed and Ancient Light. It sounds like fantasy, but it's definitely SF, but SF in the 1980s mode where psionics were a very popular trope in SF.  Anyway, the overall plot has a very "Foreigner" feel to it, except a lot darker -- imagine a version of "Foreigner" where you have constant reason to doubt Bren's suitability as paidhi or even his credibility as a perspective. 
Gentle wrote it deliberately that way, and it's very clever, but as I said, I would class it as an early sort of grimdark, even though it doesn't seem so at the beginning (especially if you're coming from a CJ Cherryh background, you only start to doubt the seemingly Bren-like protagonist's role fairly late in the plot).
 

Last edited by Eupathic Impulse (10/19/2024 10:28 am)

I am familiar with some of Gentles work via Ash :A Secret History and Grunts!, but not the Orthe books.

Have you read Grunts! ?  I'd suggest that one could also be described as grimdark, when it's not being a satirical version of giallo.  Maybe I'll re-read that while I wait for my copy of Unbound to arrive.