Visible Light

Although Cherryh is the author of many novels, the introduction to this collection of short fiction provides her with a rare opportunity to speak directly to the reader. What we get from this former history teacher is a lecture that equates her light, romantic SF with the truth of history and myth. After this pretentious opening, the stories themselves seem even more meager. Several of them, she admits, were initially rejected or discarded and sat in the drawer for years. Her short novel ""Companions'' is unnecessarily elongated, but tells an interesting story of an explorer who may be facing a new life form that mysteriously fails to register on mechanical sensors. The best entry, ``A Thief in Korianth,'' is an early, much superior version of the author's 1985 novel Angel with the Sword. This will be of greatest interest to fans of Cherryh's novels. (March 20)