Hammerfall
Hammerfall book cover

Hammerfall

Hardcover – June 19, 2001

by
Price
$9.34
Format
Hardcover
Pages
400
Publisher
Harper Voyager
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0061052606
Dimensions
6.5 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches
Weight
1.55 pounds

Description

From Publishers Weekly In this well-done novel by the prolific, award-winning author of Precursor and Fortress of Dragons, two women with superhuman powers wage psychic and genetic war for control of a civilization. The common people remember the original colonization of their desert world in purely mythological terms as the First Descent. They're unaware that their seemingly immortal ruler, the Ila, has used nanotechnology to control their lives and modify their bodies for survival on their harsh planet. Marak Trin Tain, the outcast son of a desert bandit who unsuccessfully contested the Ila's rule, suffers from a terrifying form of madness. Like many others in this world, he sees visions and feels an almost overwhelming desire to walk out into the desert, heading blindly toward the east. When the Ila captures Marak, instead of executing him, she decides to send him (and a company of other madmen and women) on a desperate mission to discover the source of the obsession that draws them across their world. Unbeknownst to him, however, his civilization, indeed all life on his planet, is on the brink of destruction. Although this book may take place in a different universe from that of Cherryh's much praised Alliance-Union novels, it features her usual blend of gorgeous, slightly knotty prose, deeply conflicted heroes, desperate action and nicely observed cultural details. The first volume in her Gene Wars series, it leaves a number of loose threads to be tied up in later volumes, but is, in and of itself, an entirely satisfying novel. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Brought before the powerful ruler known as the Ila, the madman known as Marak receives a command to seek out the silver tower of his mad dreams and return with the knowledge of what the tower holds. Marak discovers, however, that reaching his destination is only the beginning of a greater and more dangerous journey. Cherryh's latest novel introduces a new universe of fallen technologies and warring interstellar empires, divine madness and world-shattering weaponry. The author of Fortress in the Eye of Time begins a new series with a powerful story that features a hero marked by his visions to save or destroy his world. A good choice for most sf collections. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist From childhood, Marak has been steeped in the ways of war and hatred for the Ila, the mysterious woman who rules Marak's world with an iron fist. But when the shameful "madness" that has plagued Marak his entire life is exposed, he is involuntarily drawn into the service of the Ila, for she doesn't believe he is insane. She urges him to surrender to the clamoring voices and visions that incessantly urge him to go east--now! hurry!--toward an envisioned silver tower in the desert. So in exchange for his life and the lives of fellow "madmen," he agrees to penetrate deep into unknown terrain. Against all odds, he is successful and discovers the secret that the tower holds for him. He is the pawn in an ancient and continuing war between two great galactic races, and the only one who can lead his people to safety before the Ila's enemies strike a cataclysmic blow. Cherryh introduces the first wholly new world in her fiction in 30 years and makes it memorable with spare, clean, and elegant prose that lends a haunting quality to the story as it intriguingly conjures the desert setting and the close-to-the-bone way of life that it entails. Paula Luedtke Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved PRAISE FOR HAMMERFALL: “Well-done … features her usual blend of gorgeous, slightly knotty prose, deeply conflicted heroes, desperate action and nicely observed cultural details. … In and of itself, an entirely satisfying read.” (Publishers Weekly)“A brand-new universe with brand-new rules.” (San Diego Union Tribune) C. J. Cherryh—three-time winner of the coveted Hugo Award—is one of today's best-selling and most critically acclaimed writers of science fiction and fantasy. The author of more than fifty novels, she makes her home in Spokane, Washington. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • One of the most renowned figures in science fiction, C. J. Cherryh has been enthralling audiences for nearly thirty years with rich and complex novels. Now at the peak of her career, this three-time Hugo Award Winner launches her most ambitious work in decades,
  • Hammerfall,
  • part of a far-ranging series,
  • The Gene Wars,
  • set in an entirely new universe scarred by the most vicious of future weaponry, nanotechnology. In this brilliant novel -- possibly Cherryh's masterwork -- the fate of billions has come down to a confrontation between two profoundly alien cultures on a single desert planet.
  • "The mad shall be searched out and given to the Ila's messengers. No man shall conceal madness in his wife, or his son, or his daughter, or his father. Every one must be delivered up."
  • -- The Book of the Ila's Au'it
  • Marak has suffered the madness his entire life. He is a prince and warrior, strong and shrewd and expert in the ways of the desert covering his planet. In the service of his father, he has dedicated his life to overthrowing the Ila, the mysterious eternal dictator of his world. For years he has successfully hidden the visions that plague him -- voices pulling him eastward, calling
  • Marak, Marak, Marak,
  • amid mind-twisting visions of a silver tower. But when his secret is discovered, Marak is betrayed by his own father and forced to march in an endless caravan with the rest of his world's madmen to the Ila's city of Oburan.
  • Instead of death, Marak finds in Oburan his destiny, and the promise of life -- if he can survive what is surely a suicidal mission. The Ila wants him to discover the source of the voices and visions that afflict the mad. Despite the dangers of the hostile desert, tensions within the caravan, and his own excruciating doubts, Marak miraculously reaches his goal -- only to be given another, even more impossible mission by the strange people in the towers.
  • According to these beings who look like him yet act differently than anyone he has ever known, Marak has a slim chance to save his world's people from the wrath of the Ilas enemies. But to do so, he must convince them all -- warring tribes, villagers, priests, young and old, as well as the Ila herself -- to follow him on an epic trek across the burning desert before the hammer of the Ila's foes falls from the heavens above.
  • Written with deceptive simplicity and lyricism, this riveting, fast-paced epic of war, love, and survival in a brave new world marks a major achievement from the masterful C.J. Cherryh.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(88)
★★★★
25%
(74)
★★★
15%
(44)
★★
7%
(21)
★
23%
(67)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Disappointing and boring

CJ Cherryh reminds me of the little girl who, `when she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad she was horrid.' Unfortunately, this is one of the horrid books.
Although Cherryh's writing style has become ever more polished and skillful with time, the quality of her characters and stories are not always as consistent. In this case they are positively bad. Approximately 80% of this book is taken up with interminable descriptions of primitive tribesmen crossing a desert. The amount of science fiction is minimal, and there are no new or interesting ideas. The characters are flat, bland, humorless, and cloyingly politically correct. The story is boring, linear, and predictable.
There is a major hole in the plot you can drive a caravan through: A huge starship belonging to a sophisticated civilization has landed on one side of a desert. The people on the starship need to send a very urgent message a few hundred miles to the other side of the desert. Inexplicably, instead of using advanced technology, they entrust this urgent message to a caravan of primitive tribesmen, who must travel for weeks to deliver it. They practically drive the tribesmen (and the reader!) insane with continual fatuous mental messages to hurry up. Finally it's revealed that the starship had small `fliers' all along.
If a ten year old thought up a plot like this, I would laugh and gently point out the inconsistency. When a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author uses this as a central pillar of her story, I am left aghast by the magnitude of her self-indulgence and her contempt for the reader.
What happened to the believable characters and the powerful, original, fast-moving story of Downbelow Station? The layer upon layer of political intrigue of Cyteen? The unbearably poignant loneliness of Merchanter's Luck? The philosophical questions raised by Voyager in Night? The complex, delightful three-dimensional characters and zany humor of Hellburner and Tripoint? The nail-biting tension of the first Chanur book? Even the early Morgaine stories have a dynamism and humor that Hammerfall lacks.
This book is all style and no content. If you enjoy minutely detailed and repetitive accounts of tribesmen crossing deserts, you may enjoy this book. Otherwise don't bother - rather read one of the good books by this author listed above. Please, CJ, don't waste your own time writing inane and disappointing drivel like this, when you can do so much better. The hammer should have fallen on this book before it was written.
63 people found this helpful
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Disappointing and boring

CJ Cherryh reminds me of the little girl who, `when she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad she was horrid.' Unfortunately, this is one of the horrid books.
Although Cherryh's writing style has become ever more polished and skillful with time, the quality of her characters and stories are not always as consistent. In this case they are positively bad. Approximately 80% of this book is taken up with interminable descriptions of primitive tribesmen crossing a desert. The amount of science fiction is minimal, and there are no new or interesting ideas. The characters are flat, bland, humorless, and cloyingly politically correct. The story is boring, linear, and predictable.
There is a major hole in the plot you can drive a caravan through: A huge starship belonging to a sophisticated civilization has landed on one side of a desert. The people on the starship need to send a very urgent message a few hundred miles to the other side of the desert. Inexplicably, instead of using advanced technology, they entrust this urgent message to a caravan of primitive tribesmen, who must travel for weeks to deliver it. They practically drive the tribesmen (and the reader!) insane with continual fatuous mental messages to hurry up. Finally it's revealed that the starship had small `fliers' all along.
If a ten year old thought up a plot like this, I would laugh and gently point out the inconsistency. When a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author uses this as a central pillar of her story, I am left aghast by the magnitude of her self-indulgence and her contempt for the reader.
What happened to the believable characters and the powerful, original, fast-moving story of Downbelow Station? The layer upon layer of political intrigue of Cyteen? The unbearably poignant loneliness of Merchanter's Luck? The philosophical questions raised by Voyager in Night? The complex, delightful three-dimensional characters and zany humor of Hellburner and Tripoint? The nail-biting tension of the first Chanur book? Even the early Morgaine stories have a dynamism and humor that Hammerfall lacks.
This book is all style and no content. If you enjoy minutely detailed and repetitive accounts of tribesmen crossing deserts, you may enjoy this book. Otherwise don't bother - rather read one of the good books by this author listed above. Please, CJ, don't waste your own time writing inane and disappointing drivel like this, when you can do so much better. The hammer should have fallen on this book before it was written.
63 people found this helpful
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A Promise Kept

There are science fiction writers who are good, some who are excellent, and a few who are masters. CJ Cherryh is a master. I've read the comments of other reviewers and sense a great deal of impatience. Reading a book is not a race. Hammerfall is an excellent story written with prose that is a pleasure, with phrases, descriptons and characters that can be savored. The reason this book has been reviewed by so many is that CJ Cherryh is one of the pre-eminent authors of SF/F, past or present. For those of you who are in a hurry to get through life, go to a movie with lots of noise and bombs, but little substance. For those of you who take pleasure in the elegant details of life, read Hammerfall and take pleasure in it. I do have one confession to make: I too am impatient, impatient for the next oportunity to share in the imagination and skills of a writer as gifted as CJ Cherryh. For those of you who are already fans of CJ Cherryh, just read it and enjoy it. For those of you who are new to Cherryh, read it and enjoy it. A novel by CJ Cherryh is a promise of pleasure and Hammerfall is a promise kept.
19 people found this helpful
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Slow but satisfying SF

'Hammerfall' is a tremendously rewarding novel. I couldn't wait to get home from work so I could pick it up again. The main strengths of this novel are Ms. Cherryh's reknowned world-building skills and her believable characters...which is not to say it lacks a compelling plot.
The world of 'Hammerfall' is fascinating in its complexity. Ms. Cherryh has created a wonderful desert world peopled with God-like rulers and nomadic desert tribes. The camel-like beasts of burden are fascinating. The characters are richly imagined and deftly drawn. We, the readers, completely understand the main character's motivations and are able to sympathize with the tough decisions he has to make.
The plot is the weakest part of the novel. Essentially, the book is made up of three trips across a wide desert. Cherryh spices it up with the 'mad' visions sent to special characters and the constant threat of danger from the skies, but, as mentioned earlier, the magnificent tapestry of her fictional world make the book interesting reading even with a less-than-compelling plot.
Though the plot is slow, I believe that when this book is viewed as part of the overall series (of which there is at least one more book to come), it will fall neatly into place as the first volume of an exceptional and very worthwhile series. Highly recommended.
13 people found this helpful
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A sand-covered trek to nowhere

Hammerfall is not what I was expecting. This book has none of fun, helter-skelter pace of her Chanur novels, nor the philosophical and political depths of her Cyteen, nor even the fascinating alien cultures of her Faded Sun books. Instead, we are treated to three separate treks across a desert, with a culture that could be lifted directly from the Bedouins of Arabia, complete with clearly recognizable camels and nomadic tribes.

The elements of the story that could be interesting, the vermin, the city culture of the Ila, the nano-technology itself, the actual picture of the destruction of the hammerfall, are all off in the deep background, beyond the real understanding of the main character Marak. In addition, there are at least three major logical holes in the plot. The first is the use of the tribesmen, traveling by foot, to convey a simple message between two star-travelling level entities (surely there are faster and more precise methods to communicate). Second is the constant mental 'voices' heard by the 'madmen'. While these voices and visions made a little sense at the beginning, after Marak meets with the Luz, they no longer serve a warning function, but instead become a major interference in allowing Marak to accomplish his given task of leading the world's people to sanctuary. Why would Luz continue this form of 'communication' in the clear face of its detrimental effects? Third, the 'sanctuary' itself. No explanation is offered for how this one area of the world can be kept safe from the climactic events of the hammerfall, which at the least would cloud the atmosphere for years with high level dust, interfering with any crop growing anywhere on the world.

This is apparently the first of series of works in a 'Gene Wars' set. Hopefully succeeding books will bring more explication to high-tech cultures behind the founding of the world in Hammerfall, and a return to Cherryh's usual attention to detail and careful plotting.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
8 people found this helpful
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Intelligent and enjoyable SF

In this novel, Cherryh takes on the theme of nanotech and the changing of worlds. It's a theme generally done very badly. She handles it well, keeping the focus of the story on realistic human beings and avoiding unbelievable extrapolation. Hard-SF fanatics may find that the nanotech is kept too much in the background for their preference.
Nearly all the story takes place during journeys. Some reviewers have complained about that, though I'm not sure why. The travelling is clearly relevant to the plot and takes place between well-defined points and for vividly stated reasons. Essentially, the world as the characters know it is going to end, and Marak, the main character, must try to save whomever he can. The book starts a little slowly, but the tension soon ratchets up exponentially. Along with the threat of utter destruction from the skies, Marak faces personal challenges in dealing with the people around him, including his murderous father.
The desert tribespeople are not Cherryh's most detailed or dramatic culture, considering that she is one of the best creators of sociological SF currently writing. But they are realistic and human.
The flaw that I found with this book was that I wanted more of the cataclysm, when it comes. An entire ecology is destroyed, as well as all the former lands and villages of the characters, and I wanted to see more of that.
This is an intelligently written book and I would certainly recommend it.
8 people found this helpful
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80% wandering, 20% action

I wish this story went somewhere. I read quite a few of this author's books but this one got lost in the desert, both literally and literarily. She creates a plausible scenario in a desert-planet that is undergoing a secret nano-war between an estranged alien who settled here earlier and "infected" the globe with her mites versus some police/do-gooders of her race who have come with their own nanites to correct things, all under pressure of a third race who is bombing the planet with ice and iron meteors to take back the globe that was theirs. Lost yet? Well that's what the protagonist continually is, one of a legion of desert tribes forever at war (gee, how timely!). The story is one of zig-zagging back and forth and forth and back across the g**-forsaken desert. The "action" is mostly one desert storm after another, first due to the natural environment and then to the effects of the falling meteors (the "hammer"). I usually devour a good sci-fi novel in a matter of days, buts taken me weeks to slog through this depressing mess. The only person going anywhere in connection to this tale is the author: to the bank to cash in on her (declining) reputation. Thumbs down.
6 people found this helpful
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Disappointed

Cherryh is a master story teller, excelling at character development. I had never been disappointed and spent many a sleepless night reading her books.
Until Hammerfall. What a disappointment. While reading this book I had the impression that she used her leftover notes from the Faded Sun trilogy, stirred a bit, came up with the psyche war motiv and threw it in at the very end to justify the trek. It's still good reading for those who want to learn survival skills for the desert.
5 people found this helpful
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I Pre-Ordered this Before it had a Title

I had a very long wait for this book. I ordered it back in March of 2000, if you can believe it, before it was even titled. At that point I don't think anyone was anticipating over a year's wait.
Was it worth it?
Oh, yes. This was a very sophisticated book, with a very attractive protagonist in a fascinating culture, containing glimpses of highly advanced technology. The plot, by C.J. Cherryh standards, was straightforward; the implications and ramifications are left for the reader a bit more than she has in past books. She hints at them.
Our protagonist starts out thinking he's mad. I was drawn in, and I liked the way he toughed his situation out, and the way he never stopped thinking. I have commented in the past that Cherryh really does write extraordinarily well about smart people and their internal lives. This book bears that out. If I have a caveat, it's that the character's voice is a bit too familiar, if you've read the Foreigner books.
In a bit of a departure (as far as I can tell), Cherryh uses some lyrical descriptive passages.
The main caveat I have with this can't be discussed without giving a major plot device away. But nanotech (very popular right now as a mcguffin) is interesting stuff. On the other hand, ask yourself about mechanisms when you run into it in the course of the story.
Anyway, yes, this is definitely worth the hardbound price.
5 people found this helpful
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Madness From the Desert

Hammerfall (2001) is the first SF novel in the Gene Wars series. In the far future, the Earth Commonwealth has spread her colonies into the galaxy, locating waystations in convenient systems along the star lanes. A lucrative cluster of G5 stars located in a circle of mutually reachable systems has attracted extremely heavy colonization along an axis that eventually brings humans into contact with the ondat, an alien society with its own starfaring capabilities.

The alien encounter occurred at an unfortunate time, for a social conflict over genetic engineering and nanotechnology has erupted in war among the human worlds. An organization called the Movement secretly settled several planets with bioengineered humans, animals and plants. Earth reacted violently to this intensive use of gengineering and a long war ensued.

When ondat ships visiting human worlds became contaminated with Movement nanisms and unsuspectingly carried these infections back to their own home world, they first blamed all of humanity for the damage. However, the ondat eventually distinguished between the Commonwealth and their enemy and developed an ad hoc truce with human forces allied against the Movement. Later, the ondat led Earth ships to a previously unknown world where a single survivor of the Movement, Ila, has ruled for centuries with the help of her genetic and nanotech agents.

In this novel, Marak Trin Tain has heard voices in his head for as long as he can remember. As the heir of the powerful Tain Trin Tain, Marak kept his madness secret until he finally fell into a fit as a young man. His father had him taken to the holy city with the other possessed ones.

Within the city, Marak is brought to an interview with Ila, his father's enemy, and confesses his aberration. He agrees to lead a caravan into the eastern desert to look for the source of the madness. With sixty-nine beshti, an experienced caravaneer and his men, and forty-one of the mad, Marak leaves the holy city and heads east.

As he travels, Marak teaches the villagers among the mad how to ride the beshti, to conserve water, and to survive the storms. He finds a tribeswoman among the mad, Hati, who becomes his second-in-command. They reach Pori and move off the Lakht into the unknown.

In this story, Marak finds the tower in the desert and is given a message for Ila. Death is coming from the skies and all must free to a Refugee in the eastern desert; any who remain will be destroyed in the Hammerfall. So Marak returns to lead the exodus.

This story has the signature touch of the author, but adds a degree of confusion and illogic beyond that of her other books. Marak is not only unaware of the major factors effecting his world, but is also overwhelmed occasionally by the voices and visions. He walks a narrow road between necessity and frenzy. The overall mood is strange and befuddling and the action is minimal, but Marak begins to insinuate himself into your mind.

Highly recommended for Cherryh fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of exotic societies in unusual environments.

-Arthur W. Jordin
4 people found this helpful

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