| Forty Thousand in Gehenna | |
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Forty Thousand in Gehenna 1997 re-issue cover, depicts a girl riding a Caliban. |
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| Author(s) | C. J. Cherryh |
| Cover artist | James Gurney |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction |
| Publisher | Phantasia Press |
| Publication date | October 1983 |
| ISBN | 0-932096-26-3 |
| OCLC Number | 10025923 |
Forty Thousand in Gehenna, alternately 40,000 in Gehenna, is a 1983 novel by science fiction and fantasy author C. J. Cherryh. The science fiction novel is set in her Alliance-Union universe between 2354 and 2658, and is one of the few works in that universe to portray the Union side (the other notable exceptions being Cyteen and Regenesis).
The book was first published in a limited hardcover edition in 1983 by Phantasia Press,[1] followed by a mainstream paperback release in 1984 by DAW Books.[2] It was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1984. Forty Thousand in Gehenna was reprinted in 2008 along with Cherryh's novel Merchanter's Luck in an omnibus volume entitled Alliance Space.
Contents |
42,363 Union humans and azi are dispatched to set up a base on a very rare habitable planet named Gehenna II. Unknown to the settlers, their mission is designed to fail; they are deliberately abandoned in order to create long-term problems for the rival Alliance.
The native Caliban are first presented as annoying lizard-like creatures. The humans at first attempt to keep them outside a perimeter or to drive them away. In time, larger and larger Caliban are seen, with differences in color, size, and even a social structure (some Caliban are subservient to the larger, different-colored Caliban). It becomes clear that the creatures are capable of communication, at least at the level of symbology, and of developing empathic or possibly telepathic links to humans. Eventually a symbiosis develops, with some of the Caliban pairing off with humans.
Over a period of decades and several generations cut off from resupply, the colonists lapse into a primitive lifestyle. By necessity, the azi are allowed to raise families. The non-azi humans are in the minority from the beginning and over time, intermarry with the majority. An Alliance mission first seeks to intervene, then withdraws from direct contact, content to watch as two quasi-feudal, fundamentally opposed societies develop, while a third, smaller group called the "weirds" becomes much more closely associated with the Caliban, living with them rather than the other humans and becoming less comprehensible in the process.
The novel follows several generations of descendants of one particular azi, who establish different lines and rise to become the leaders of two rival cultures. Historical moments depict the decline of the colony, the establishment of human/azi-Caliban relations, cultural development, and the planetary environment. Finally, the two cultures, one 'masculine'-aggressive, the other more 'feminine'-receptive, meet and fight for dominance. A Union delegation arrives at the very end, just in time to be given short shrift by Elai, the girl-ruler who has emerged victorious.
The years refer to Gehenna years since the founding of the original colony.
The novel is set very firmly in the Alliance-Union universe, through the Union origin of the colony and the role of Alliance observers in the later stages. The failure of the colony is meant to cause headaches for the Alliance when Union cedes the region of space that includes Gehenna to its rival's sphere of influence. In Cherryh's novel Cyteen, the rediscovery of the Gehenna colony causes a major political scandal in Union; it is also revealed that specific traits were introduced into the genesets of the azi, without the knowledge of the Union military, in order to help them survive.