Two old Cherryh books

I have figured out in recent years that reading early C. J. Cherryh books goes really well for me as long as I don't try to read too many at once. So recently, I went back and revisited two that I really failed to get into in my late teens, Gate of Ivrel and Forty Thousand in Gehenna.

Gate of Ivrel is aided now by my being able to recognize it as planetary romance. It is a decent book. Nothing really to complain about considering it's a first novel. It's really weird to consider that this was the first published book in what would later be known as the Alliance-Union universe.

As for Forty Thousand in Gehenna, hey, this is a pretty good book. And very unusual for Cherryh in that the human who studies the alien society and explains what happens is a woman. Cherryh's human explorers of alien culture are nearly always men, with human women being either absent or incompetent.

At one point, the human-caliban bond is described as humans and their dragons, which got me wondering if this was written in reaction to the Pern books. I suppose I'll never know.

I think I might try Well of Shiuan and Fires of Azeroth next.