Niniane in Port Eternity by C.J. Cherryh

This is a very cool book. Not only is Cherryh a great science fiction writer (she's won a Hugo, always a plus) this story is very inventive, creative, and has tons of great characters. OK, enough of my book worshiping, onto something about the book. The book starts out on a spaceship where the wealthy lady Dela has androids to do everything for her. Although humans get to have nearly immortal youth, due to a process called rejuve, the androids aren't so lucky...except, perhaps for the accountant Vivien who's made herself so useful that she may be allowed to live more than the typical forty years. (True to the character, Vivian flaunts this.)

Dela is a big fan of old earth stuff and names her androids after various characters from Tennyson's Idyles of the King, including Vivien, Lancelot, Elaine, Mordred, Gawaine, Percival, and Lynette. Everything is great, though, until they get stuck in some sort of warp and the androids get ahold of Idyles of the King...and begin acting like their characters. Now, remember Tennyson...Vivien and Mordred are the villians! And, of course, Vivien and Mordred end up with life support and computers respectively. What a disaster!

Vivien's character is great. She's nitpicky, arrogant, but basically a fairly understandable character, all together. As I said, this would be one of the few books on my book list that I would definately recomend reading.

Copyright: 1982

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