Finisterre universe
A fictional universe of telepathic beasts and human riders.
Last updated
The Finisterre universe is a fictional setting created by American author C. J. Cherryh, comprising two science fiction/horror novels: Rider at the Gate (1995) and Cloud's Rider (1996), also known as The Rider Series. The series depicts the descendants of lost colonists stranded generations ago on the hostile, telepathic planet Finisterre, where survival depends on partnerships between human riders and native nighthorses.
Background
Finisterre is an Earth-like planet with ore-rich mountains, forests, and water, but its native fauna—from small wally-boos to large goblin cats, spook bears, and nighthorses—are telepathic, projecting images and emotions into the ambient. Early colonists, stranded when their mothership never returned, found the constant mental 'noise' distressing and maddening, leading them to retreat behind wooden palisades and adopt a fearful religious dogma that condemned contact with the beasts as devilish.
Did You Know?
- Nighthorses are named for their jet-black coats and are omnivorous, with three-toed hooves.
- A nighthorse becomes addicted to human sendings and will adopt a specific human as its companion.
- Rogue nighthorses, which lose their riders, can send distress over entire valleys, causing dangerous behavior in other creatures.
- Riders communicate with nighthorses using images, depicted in the novels as text enclosed in angle brackets.
More in Novels about extraterrestrial life
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Finisterre universe (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Word definitions: the Codexery glossary, each quoted from its Wikipedia article.
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced