SF Reviews background image SF Reviews logo image
Contact SF Reviews   |   Get the Newsletter 

Biased and superficial Science Fiction reviews

           
     
Forty Thousand In Gehenna

Copyright 1983 by C. J. Cherryh

In Association with Amazon.com In Association with Amazon.co.uk
SOJALS rating:     
one SOJALS point one SOJALS point no SOJALS point no SOJALS point no SOJALS point    Mediocre (2/5)

I first read this in 1990 and most recently on the 20th November 2011

Forty thousand colonists were dropped onto an unsuitable planet to forge a new colony. They await a resupply ship that never comes for this colony was never meant to succeed. It was always intended to fail, and in failing to put pressure on a political enemy.

Among those forty thousand were a few hundred real colonists living in relative comfort. The rest were cloned slaves, bred for service.

In the end, though, it is the clones who survive, and their descendants after them, down through the generations. They survive only in the company of the indigenous aliens - the Calibans - and are profoundly changed by them.

We follow the story of Jin and his progeny and a pretty painful story it is. It's an impressive, memorable novel but not quite to my taste.

Loaded on the 12th March 2012.
    
Cover of Forty Thousand In Gehenna
Cover art by Chris Moore



Reviews of other works with covers by Chris Moore:
Salt
Absolution Gap
House Of Suns
Voyagers
The Star-Crossed
The Winds of Altair
The Dragon's Nine Sons
The Visitors
Alien Sex
Preferred Risk
Distress
Good News From Outer Space
The Stone Canal
Light
Only Forward
Broken Angels
Echoes Of Earth
Raft
K.I.D.S.
Across Realtime

Reviews of other works with covers by Chris Moore and Don Puckey:
When We Were Real

Reviews of other works with covers by Chris Moore and Judy Morello:
Orphans Of Earth
Heirs Of Earth

Reviews of other works with covers by Chris Moore and Richard Carr:
Revelation Space
Chasm City
Redemption Ark