 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book published under a pen name.
Tripoint, by CJ Cherryh It just barely counts as a pen name, but the story goes that Carolyn Cherry's editor told her that her name sounded like a romance writer rather than science fiction. She started publishing in the 1970s, when it was harder for women SF writers to break in. So she shortened it to the initials, and changed Cherry to Cherryh. This book is part of her Company Wars series, set among merchant ships traveling long distances between stars and space stations. Out in space, there are no laws or rulers: might makes right. Several of Cherryh's books have addressed the topic of sexual assault. At least two of them, Downbelow Station and Cyteen, dealt specifically with female-on-male violations, and didn't shy away from the trauma. So it's strange that in this one, a male character is sexually assaulted while unconscious, and when he confronts the perpetrator, it's just kind of, "Oops, my bad, didn't think you'd know," and shrugged off. The primary plot of Tripoint also involves sexual assault. The main character, Tom, has known his whole life that he's the result of his mother being raped by an officer from another ship. When they re-encounter his father's ship, where his father is now captain, his mother sets out for revenge. Tom tries to stop her, and winds up being kidnapped onto his father's ship. He meets his father and stepmother, who would rather forget his existence, and his curious but resentful half-brother. Ironically, he also makes his first real friends among the crew, after a lifetime of feeling rejected by his mother and her family. Cherryh often writes "fish out of water" situations, but this one didn't work as well for me as her most of stories. For those new to Cherryh, I recommend starting with her stories of of humans among aliens, like the Chanur or Foreigner series.
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