Cloud's Rider - Softcover

C.J. Cherryh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340689129 ISBN 13: 9780340689127

Publisher: New English Library Ltd, 1997

Synopsis

It is the second of a series of two novels written by Cherryh and is set in the author's Finisterre universe. The first book in the series, Rider at the Gate was published in August 1995. The series is about the descendants of lost colonists stranded many generations ago on the hostile planet of Finisterre. Fisher and Cloud escort the Goss children halfway up Rogers Peak to Evergreen village with Harper's riderless nighthorse, Spook, in pursuit. Fisher tells the local riders about the fall of Tarmin village and the presence of Spook, but does not reveal the arrest of the Goss brothers nor the role Brionne played in Tarmin's demise. Fisher is lodged in the rider camp, the unconscious Brionne with Darcey Schaffer, the village doctor, and Carlo and Randy with Van Mackey, the village blacksmith. The news of Tarmin's fall is devastating to Evergreen because all its supplies come from there, but many of the villagers see the disaster as an opportunity to seize and occupy the vacant property in Tarmin village in the spring.

About this title

Review:

The sequel to Rider at the Gate continues as a seamless narrative on the unrivaled partnership forged between human colonists stranded on a planet whose only native life forms are linked by telepathy, and the native nighthorses, who fiercely guard the humans against the planet's mind-clouding predators. The hero of this story is Danny Fisher, a young rider whose will is tested through fateful confrontations with an older rider named Guil Stewart and a miscreant horse, whose incongruous telepathic sendings drive entire villages to madness and death.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Sequel to the mediocre Rider at the Gate (1995), set on a planet where human colonists have bonded with native telepathic, carnivorous, quadrupeds confusingly and lazily called ``horses.'' As winter deepens, young rider Danny Fisher and his horse, Cloud, attempt to escort three young people--the only survivors of the massacre at Tarmin--up the steep, slippery slop of Rogers Peak to the village Evergreen: smith Carlo (his guilty secret is that he killed his violent father); his younger brother Randy; and their younger sister, the comatose Brionne (her misapplied bond with the rogue horse caused all the trouble). At Evergreen, Danny, unsure of their reception, evades difficult questions; and he suspects that they were followed up the mountain by a riderless horse, another potential rogue. Indeed, certain villages prove hostile until they realize that Carlo will inherit several properties in Tarmin. Brionne, hating her brothers and still desperate to bond with a horse, slowly recovers physically if not psychologically. Danny and a local rider, Ridley, halfheartedly attempt to hunt the loose horse, but eventually the beast bonds with an astonished Carlo. Meanwhile, another, unknown, creature--a stalker with the terrifying ability to hide and misdirect telepathically, thus far kept at bay by Carlo's horse--enters the village, bonds with crazy Brionne and begins to slaughter the inhabitants. Only by heroic efforts will Danny and the other riders manage to drive it off. An overlong and underpowered entry that clearly needed a strategic regroup or a rethought approach; only in the last few pages does anything new or stimulating emerge. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: New English Library Ltd
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0340689129
• ISBN 13: 9780340689127
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 373