Clocking in at nearly 700 pages, Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh is a tome. The book was originally published as three novels, but Cherryh prefers Cyteen be published as a single story. As much as I support authorial intent, I want to push back on Cherryh’s feelings. Cyteen should be broken up into multiple (more than three) books.
As a single novel, I feel that Cyteen is trying to do too much. There are so many divergent storylines that distract from the main plot. Each individual storyline is interesting enough to be made into a standalone story or novella. I would love to read more about the business of genetically engineered pets that have become super popular as reminders of Earth among the spacefaring population. Could I interest you in the burgeoning emotions of vat-grown clones? How about a decade-long political timebomb in the form of a colonized planet that has gone feral? These are only a few of the exciting ideas that are only tangentially related to Cyteen which makes the book feel bloated.
Cyteen suffers from what I think of as the “sourcebook curse” in its world-building. Most RPG universes provide sourcebooks: collections of people, organizations, history, ideas and so much more that gamemasters can use to develop their own stories. Sourcebooks provide an overarching setting, not an overarching plot. A lot of Cyteen feels like it could be found in a sourcebook. Too many things are described in a few paragraphs or pages to never be referred to again.
The bloat and sourcebook curse made Cyteen difficult to read. I would read about something not directly to the story and find myself forgetting what is supposed to be happening. Also, many of the superfluous storylines seem to have little intersection with the primary plot surrounding Ari and Justin. It felt like I was getting off-track far too often.
I want Cyteen to be broken up and edited because I love what I consider the main story, the growth of young Ari. The elevator pitch is simple, “What if the smartest girl in the world was in The Truman Show and slowly began to question and affect her reality?”. Whenever I was reading about the election of a new councilor, I wished I was reading about young Ari. I want more character-based drama and fewer codex entries.
I can see why Cyteen won the Hugo and Locus awards. Each idea in the novel demonstrates Cherryh’s creativity and genius. I only wish the ideas were spun off into the full-length stories they deserve. I want to read it again, but next time I will make sure to read a physical, not an e-book version. I find myself rereading and reflecting less when I read e-books. Cyteen probably benefits from putting in the extra work to truly see the forest amongst the trees.
The Keasy Depot 