C.J. Cherryh

She is a writer of speculative fiction, and has written numerous books since the mid-seventies, including “Downbelow Station” and “Cyteen”, which both won Hugo Awards, which are each set in her Alliance-Union universe, and her Foreigner Universe. “Cassandra”, a short story, also is a Hugo Award winner. “Cyteen” also won a Locus Award. CJ is known for world building, depicting fictional realms with such great realism support by vast research in archaeology, psychology, history, and language. CJ started writing stories when she was ten when she was frustrated with “Flash Gordon”, her favorite TV show, getting…

The best place to start is The Morgaine Cycle series, the earliest of C.J. Cherryh's multi-book series: it opens with Gate of Ivrel (1976) and runs to 4 books across 1976–1988, ending with Exile's Gate (1988). C.J. Cherryh's other series stand alone, so they can be read in any order.

C.J. Cherryh has 161 books catalogued in this guide, published between 1976 and 2024. 131 of them belong to 20 named series — the largest being the Heroes in Hell series with 26 books — and 30 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.

Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. C.J. Cherryh's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are The Morgaine Cycle (1976–1988, 4 books), Hanan Rebellion (1976–1977, 2 books) and The Faded Sun (1978–1979, 3 books), plus 15 more.

This guide splits C.J. Cherryh's 161 books into 20 named series and 30 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: Heroes in Hell (26 books, 1986–2024); Foreigner (24 books, 1994–2023); Merovingen Nights (8 books, 1985–1991); Alliance-Union: Company Wars (7 books, 1981–1997); Chanur (5 books, 1981–1992), plus 15 further series.