Cloud's Rider

I was completely enthralled by the prequel to this novel, "Rider at the Gate," which came to a satisfactory ending for me. I thought it was a one-off; I had no idea there was a sequel until I ran across "Cloud's Rider" at my local library. I immediately checked it out and devoured it -- read it through a second time before I turned it in. It is a fitting successor to the first book, but unfortunately, clearly ends with a cliffhanger meant to segue into a third book. And apparently this third book has never been published. At least I have never been able to discover the title of such a book -- and believe me, I've looked. WHAT happens to Brionne? HOW do Danny and Cloud, and their new partners Carlo and Spook, SOLVE the problem of Brionne and her new "steed"? What impact does this have on the challenges facing the fragile human colony on this world? I MUST know! And sad to say, apparently I will never know... As another reviewer has put it, this is a vastly underrated series. C.J. Cherryh's writing style is an acquired taste; other books of hers have a similar confusing style, with run-on sentences and sentence fragments and so on, such as negative reviewers have cited regarding this book. (I'm thinking of "Tripoint" but also the "Foreigner" series.) But I love it! It is such a deep third-person point-of-view that it almost feels like first-person; it puts the reader so deeply into the story, it feels like you are in the skull of the character. You, the reader, are as confused as the hapless character, and you only discover the "answer" as he/she discovers it. It makes for a breathless, constantly-off-balance feeling that keeps you turning pages until the end. I highly recommend this book and its predecessor, and urge Ms. Cherryh to produce the third installment!

An amazingly intriguing original story. No one but Ms. Cherry could have dreamed up such an original world. Once again an exploration into lonliness, and into unconditional loyalty. Only bad thing about this series is the abrupt end.

Cherryh quickly sweeps us into the suspense of madness on an alien world and its threat to the fragility of a human foothold there. Leaving so many threads unwoven at the end, this is the stuff of nightmares. Beware bonding with the lovable characters that grace these pages, because this is the first time Cherryh cannot save them all...

Humans have become stranded on a planet where the wildlife through telepathic projection stalk and confuse their prey into thinking they are safe, when in fact they are in danger of being attacked and devoured. Only the night-horses that are compatible with a chosen human companion can prevent this. The night-horse's telepathic - sending - abilities offering protection.There is a real sense of the wild-west frontier in this book. Danny fisher's parents scraping by on mechanical, and furniture restoration work, behind the safety of the town's walls. Greed, jealousy, and lots of other grubby things.Cloud's Rider along with its stablemate and precursor - Rider at the Gate, don't cover a lot of ground as far as plot is cocerned, both depending on a huge amount of fine detail, mostly to do with survival in the harsh and deadly environment. And this is the main weakness of the books. Yes, the whole story works as well as any of Ms Cherryh's other works, but I feel it would have been more agreeable had Rider at the Gate and Cloud's Rider been trimmed to about two thirds of current length, by condensing the rather long descriptive passages, brilliantly written though they are. Even so, for sheer overall effectivenes I would recommend that these books be read and in the correct order, since they are directly head-to-head with respect to each other. Rider at the Gate and then Cloud's Rider.

This seems a very underrated series to me. I am reading several series that I am eager to continue: Robert Jordan, George R. R. Martin, Terry Goodkind, and THIS SERIES. Believe it or not, I am perhaps the most impatient for this series. I have a read couple of C. J. Cherryh's books ... so far, this is my favorite (along with "Rider at the Gate"). The human-nighthorse relationship is fascinating. The possibilities for this mysterious planet where humans are trying to fit in are very intriguing. I feel like I know Danny Fisher and Cloud ....