The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Author page

C.J. Cherryh

3 universes Last reviewed 2026-10-06

Carolyn Janice Cherry, who writes as C.J. Cherryh, was born September 1, 1942, in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised primarily in Lawton, Oklahoma, beginning to write at age ten after her favorite television show, Flash Gordon, was cancelled. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Latin from the University of Oklahoma in 1964, with additional focus on archaeology, mythology, and the history of engineering, followed by a Master of Arts in Classics from Johns Hopkins University in 1965 as a Woodrow Wilson fellow. She then taught Latin, ancient Greek, classics, and ancient history at John Marshall High School in Oklahoma City, writing novels during summers and leading student tours of ancient ruins in Europe. Her breakthrough came in 1975 when editor Donald A. Wollheim purchased her manuscripts Gate of Ivrel and Brothers of Earth, both published in 1976; she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1977 and left teaching to write full time in 1979. Cherryh has published more than eighty books, most notably within her expansive Alliance-Union universe, the Foreigner series, and the Chanur novels, celebrated for meticulously researched, realistic worldbuilding. She won Hugo Awards for the novels Downbelow Station and Cyteen and for the short story "Cassandra," and received the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 2016. She lives near Spokane, Washington, with her wife, Jane Fancher.

Universe(s)

The Morgaine Cycle

  • Core Canon books: 4
  • Current rank: #441 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.99
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

Rusalka

  • Core Canon books: 3
  • Current rank: #805 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.60
  • Award recognitions: 1 nomination

Fortress

  • Core Canon books: 5
  • Current rank: #554 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.91
  • Award recognitions: 3 nomination

Books

Aggregate across all universes

These are separate, unrelated universes; the totals below are plain sums of already-published per-universe facts, never a blended or averaged score across them. See each universe's own figures above.

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